For many years now they get trying those far from God mistaken wise men to resolve the great problem, of how in the beginning the man appeared in the world and from where they descend all these billions of people, which inhabit today on earth.
They said and wrote many things, whole books and great volumes they published, and despite all this until today they have not come in no certain conclusion and they have not achieved to provide us with any definite solution, unambiguous and undisputed in this great and important matter.
What one says, the other refutes it. What he supports, the other negates it. What the third writtes, the fourth overturns it. And what he constructs, the other precipitates it. And thus they end up in confusion and in a true babylonian mess.
Why? Because due to the egoism and the darkness, that sin causes to them, they do not want to believe and surrender to the word of God. And thus is employed also here the phrase that the divine Paul were saying: «Professing themselves to be wise they became fools».
However glory to God, my dear Christian. His benevolence has given us a lantern, which never burns out and has provided us a guide, which never strays under no circumstances.
And this lantern, which scatters the pure and life-giving and life-saving light in the path of our terrestrial life, is the Holy Bible. This guide, that shows us the way of truth and leads us directly to Paradise, it's called Old and New Testament.
Have you ever taken in your hands this sacred book, my Christian brother? Have you ever opened it and gazed through its pages? Have you read its immortal pages and has your soul been fed with the divine words, that are written in them?
Ah! Alas; all the lies in the world and all the novels in the world have great success and circulate in the hands of children and adults, but only the book that God has given to us you can hardly see anywhere.
All the dirty leaflets, that tell orgies, rascalities, obscenities, wickednesses, histories that make flush every modest person when he hears them, are being read also from young men also from young women and from boys and from girls and from ladies and from gentlemen and many times from elderlies, and all these people many times stay up all night in order to finish the novel they have started to read.
And the law of God, the truth of God, the Evangel, the sacred story, the Old Testament, that moralizes the man, and lightens up his mind, and refine his heart, few, very few, which are measured on the fingers are studying them.
What a perversion and what fallacy! But also what a disaster!
The people escape from the light and they run into the darkness. They leave the truth and they get to like the lie and the myths.
They despise the word of God and the holy Bible, which like another fragrant and perpetual flower emanates the virtuousness and the morality and the holiness, and devour the novels and the sordid stories, which corrupt and infect the heart and many times they destroy even the body of the man. My God, protect us!
Take therefore in your hands the Holy Bible, my dear reader. Open the first page of the Old Testament. And there you will find your history. You will see where do you descend from, and where do they descend from the innumerable crowd of the people who have lived, who live and will live in the future on earth.
You shall learn, how God created the man, where did He put him in the beginning to live, and how he afterwards showed himself ungrateful and disobedient to his creator.
You shall see these and so many other interesting and great things. God is telling you these things, the Spirit of God. And He is telling you these things in a short and simple manner. Without infinite verbiages. God has illuminated the Great Moses who has written them and presents them in a manner that everybody understands them.
Come on then, my reader. Together, as brothers descended by the same ancestors, let us study the book of God. Let's go deeper in these brief words, with which the Scripture is telling us where do we come from and who we are.
It is useful, very useful, very beneficial to learn the history of our protoplasts.
It is very useful, very beneficial thing to learn our history and to know, who they were, of which together with the entire human gender we ourselves descend as well and how we have been degenerated in the position and in this condition, in which, we are now.
Suppose, my reader, that the heir of a royal throne and of a great fortune had fallen during the years of his childhood age in the hands of people who are evil and exploiters.
They deceived his father first, they deluded him, they enslaved him, they snatched the power from him, they usurped the wealth out of him, they took him away from his palace and together with his family they restricted him to a dark place, to a place of misery and sighs and bitter tear drops.
Now they deceive also son also, which they attempt in any way to maintain in that condition of lousiness, deluding him and hiding from him his noble ancestry and his royal rights.
Oh! If only he could discover that prince, who they really are those who with sweet but deceitful and fraudulent words they are talking to him and they try to inspire in him pitiful and vulgar feelings altogether unworthy of the royal blood that runs through his veins!
Oh! yes, if someone could be found, who would reveal to him his true ancestry and the rights, which he has on the throne and the colossal patrimony of his father!
Oh! if only could be heard in the depths of the exile the voice of a strong and powerful ally, who would encourage the restricted over there heir of the king and assure him, that he is ready with his plenty of troops and with his great strength to strike these miserable tyrants and to succor the enslaved to them prince in order to recuperate the great inheritance de su padre!
What would happen then, my brother? The young heir of the King would be immediately transformed to a lion and would become an eagle.
He would try with all his might to break the shackles of his misfortune, to depart the sooner possible from the dark place of ingloriousness and dishonor, to break free as fast as possible from that status of misery and as soon as possible to ascend on the splendid throne, from which his father had fallen.
My readers, Christian brothers, all of you descendants of Adam, behold your place and behold your situation. You live in a place of exile and sighs.
You go through bitter days and full of tears. And it seems you to be dishonorable slaves, who as their only inheritance they have the toils, the efforts, the fears, the diseases, the death, the so many other sufferings.
But no do not err and do not deceive yourselves. Learn, where you come from and how you have been degenerated at that point of misery, that scourge you.
And you shall immediately see what consolation will flood your hearts and what hopes shall shed their light in your dark exile.
No; We are not slaves. We are children of Adam, which God created to be king of the entire creation y le ha reservado even brighter and more glorious future.
But alas! Cunning and fraudulent advices deceived this father of ours and all of a sudden from the royal throne, in which God put him to be seated, he rolled down together with all his family, together with all his descendants, in this place of our exile.
We are no beasts therefore. No, we are not animals. We are princes and inside our veins runs noble and divine blood.
And if for now we find ourselves being captives and exiles, nevertheless here, in this inhospitable and rough place of ours, the voice is heard of a Great and Powerful one who wants to save us, the voice of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Exiled young princes, this voice is calling us, wake up. The royal throne and the great riches, which the cunning serpent, the Satan angel, grabbed from the hands of your father Adam, are waiting for you.
They are yours; why then are you forsaking them? They belong to you; why then are you neglecting them? Get up. I am ready to help you and I will set you free. And you will immediately become free men from slaves that you are today, and from exiles and captives you will stand out as kings.
Oh! yes, my reader. It is useful, it is comforting, it is salvific to learn what is our origin and which is our heritage.
If we don't learn these things, how will it be possible to take back what belongs to us and to find again the way, which will bring us again to our homeland, from which we were taken away and to our royal palace, from which we were expelled?
It had already been created the whole visible world, but the man, not yet. The face of the earth was not anymore covered by waters, neither it was desolate and uninhabited.
Vast forests and green grass decorated it, and the voices of the animals and the chirping of the birds could be heard in all directions.
Man was going to be created as last. Why? Because he would be the most perfect creation on earth, the master, the king, the lord, of the entire creation on earth.
The earth would become his palace, within which man would pass a pleasant accommodation, comfortable and convenient.
All things would be at his disposal and at his service. For all things to comfort him, for all things to serve him, for all things to maintain him, for all things to please him.
First therefore they had to be created the less perfect creatures, and last the most perfect among them. It first had the kingdom to be composed and then the king to stand out. It first had to be prepared and be preassembled all things, in order to come afterwards the ruler and the lord, who was going to enjoy them.
No, God never wanted the man to be found alone on earth as if in a vast cemetery, in which desolation would reign and a melancholic silence and in which no one would be able to see anything but only rocks and dirt.
God never wanted the first thought of man to be a thought of anguish and full of confusion, neither wanted his first feeling and his first impression to be mournful and bitter. He creates him for this reason as last.
And immediately as soon as he will open his eyes, what spectacle will fall upon them! The entire miracle of the creation will surround him and anywhere he turns, images of divine greatness will bring about his admiration.
The so many creatures, the so much harmony, the so much beauty, the so much movement and life, the so many wonderful of wisdom and power works, which will take place, in front of him not only will please him and will amuse him, but also will teach him at the same time.
They will reveal to him the infinite treasures of the divine science and wisdom; they will teach him, how beneficent, how wise, how great and powerful is the almighty Creator and Moulder.
There is no reason why the man should be in sadness. And why would he be sad? Why should he run here and there? Why should he toil and sweat and sigh?
Just for that God creates him as last so that nothing is missing from him.
The fresh air, with no fumes and vapors, will make him pleasand his breathing.
The clean water will refresh his thirst. The trees will give him their shadow and their fruits.
The animals and the birds will be company for him, which will please him will serve him and will provide him with whatever is useful to him.
A true king therefore and real ruler the man is. Everything that exist on earth have been created for him and for that he was created as last.
Oh! yes; it's a great honor, a great favor by God towars man the fact that He created him as last.
It is an exceptional care, which for him God is taking; It is a special protection, which He is displaying to him; it is an extraordinary providence and a unique one.
Have you ever studied it, my brother? Have you ever thought, the benevolence God did to us, when he decided to create us as last after all His creations?
Think about it, study it, examine it, my reader, and immediately you will be convinced, how great your value is, what is the greatness with which God has been pleased to lift us up, and how great is the honor with which this Moulder has honoured us.
In order to be created all the other creatures God merely commands and the word becomes immediately a fact. Let it be light, God commands. And it become light.
Let the earth sprout grass and fruitful trees; that they also become in the waters the various kinds of fish and the fowls that fly in the air; let also the earth produce the multitude of the animals and of the beasts.
Thus commanded the Lord. And it was immediately done according to these commandments.
But when it is about for the man to be created, God does not merely commands.
The Holy Bible presents the three persons of the Holy Trinity, as if they assemble and as if they make a special council in order to decide the creation of man.
«Let us make, says the Triadic God, man in our image and after our likeness».
And certainly the omniscient God did not have the need to make such a council, and neither at that moment He would produce the plan and the decision to create the man.
No; God is not like us the limited human beings. He knows everything beforehand and He has deceded everything beforehand before all the ages of time.
The Holy Bible however makes use here regarding the creation of man this kind of language and presents to us the three persons as if they assemble, because it wants to illustrate to us and to enlighten us, that the creation of man is an exceptional act, different that the other acts of the creation, much more important than them, more serious and more superb than those.
God now does not merely commands, as He commanded before at the time of the creation of the other creations.
Now it is illustrated that directly, not through a simple command, but with His own almighty hands He takes over in order to create the man.
And so it seems that all this labor of the creation, that took place during the six days, was like a groundwork and preparation, that had to be made first, for God to come afterwards to fabricate this masterpiece of His, who is called man.
«Let us make man in our image and after our likeness».
Let us make the man, says God. And let us not only make him a very good creation, as they also are our other creations.
Let us not only content ourselves into making a display of our wisdom and of our power which is infinite in this creature of ours.
Let us endow it with other gifts also, in order for it to become an exceptional creature on earth.
Let us give it such perfection, so that it will displayed in it our infinite benevolence as well in an excellent way and unique.
Let us give him our image. Let us create him after our likeness!
Exactly here lies the greatness of the divine benevolence.
Ah! deplorable man and miserable! What is that you want and in what is pleased your God? You want to be alone in glory and that no other distinguishes himself.
Are you rich? You get pleasure when all the others, in the midst of which you live, are poor and miserable.
Are you educated? It seem to you that if the others were illiterate and you alone possessed the wisdom, you would be happier.
Are you glorious and your name has a good fame? You wish the others to be inglorious and invisible in order for you to be distinguished even more and for your radiance to become even more evident.
Observe your God however. He is glorious, He is abundant, He is blessed and blissful. He does not lack anything; He has everything; He does not have any necessity for us to fulfill; and neither it is about us adding to Him anything.
His goodness however is great, too great, infinitely great, and for this He wishes and is pleased and prospers to create more other creatures, to which He would transmit His goods, His glory, His bliss.
Esta solo con Su Hijo and with His Holy Spirit. And He can perfectly remain alone. Nevertheless He does not want remain alone. He wishes to create also others similar to Him, who will enjoy His riches.
Oh depth and breadth and altitude of the divine beatitude!
Let Us make the man according the image and after the likeness of ours, God said. And He created him. «According the image He created him», the Holy Bible adds.
It doesn't say, therefore, that He created him after the likeness, as well, but only according to His image.
What? maybe God made an error and instead of creating the man both according the image and after His likeness, He only created him according to His image?
God forbid to enter in our mind such a blasphemy. God to make an error? Not even think about it is not permitted. Imagine saying it too.
What? perhaps God is like us the weak and nonsensical humans, who we continually fall in error? God is perfect, infinitely perfect. Not only almighty, but also omniscient. And for this it is impossible, naturally impossible, that He should ever fall in error.
But why then, while God in the beginning decides to create man both according the image and after His likeness, afterwards He creates him only according His image?
Because the conformity to His likeness, depends also from us. God gave us His image and said to us; now work out yourselves as well in order to become like Me.
I want to create you after My likeness. But you must want it yourselves as well. Work for it, wish for it and I am ready to help you.
Behold therefore why the Bible says, that God created us according to His image only.
Because in the achievement of His likeness, is included the great and exalted destination for which God has created us and a destination, which, in order to be finally reached, is fair and requisite and is necessary for ourselves to work as well.
«Αccording the image of God He created him». So then God has a body, as we have as well? Does he have arms and legs, eyes and ears our God? Does God have a face, as it is our own material face?
Ah! no, my dear reader. God is a Spirit. He does not have material body and a perishable one.
And if the Holy Bible presents Him in many places, that he has hands and legs and eyes and ears, its intention es to make us comprehend better and more vividly the Omnipotence, the Omniscience, the presence everywhere of God.
In which other way were we going to be able us infantile people to better comprehend and more schematically the infinite perfection, that God possess to know everything and that nothing can hide from Him, other than the image of a great Eye, Who sees everything and nothing escapes from Him;
And how else it would be illustrated more vividly the creative power of God other than with the image of the hands, which should not be weak, like ours, but so strong and powerful, so that there wouldn't be anything that they cannot achieve it?
And the fact that God takes heed of our prayers or of our words the bad ones or the good, how else would be illustrated more vividly other than through ears, which would have a very sharp hearing capacity, so that there would hear everything even those that are said in a low voice, and those that are being uttered en lugares distantes y lejanos;
No therefore. God is not material. He does not have body, as we have. He does not have hands and legs and ears and eyes.
All these are images, they are illustrations, with which the Scripture intents to give us understand the immaterial, the spiritual, the incorporeal perfections and properties of the spiritual and immaterial and incorporeal God.
But then, where did God gave to us His image? He gave it to us in our soul.
Because, my brother, as you probably know, man is not only body, that is, flesh and blood and bones. He also has a soul.
And this is the truly noble and divine and celestial component of ours. She carries inside her the image of God. She relates us with God and gives us the strength to become His children.
She, while with our body we stay down here on earth, she directs us upwards to our true homeland, the heaven, where we must go in order to live there together with the angels.
As for our body, this originates from the soil and God created it from the mud.
Our body God created by taking soil from the earth, as the Holy Bible says.
Soil common and usual, from the one that can be found right in front of our feet and we step on it, this was the raw material, with which our body was moulded.
Soil of the same kind which has no value, what makes us dirty many times with the mud or with the dust, which come from it.
Of course within the earth there are also many other materials, which us humans we consider as precious and as pretty noble.
There exist the gold; there is the silver; the diamonds can be found.
But you see, God does not choose any of those precious creations of Him in order to mould our body. He prefers the soil, the vulgar and cheap soil.
This is what you are, oh human! Behold your origin and behold your mother. The earth, the soil of the earth.
Do not brag therefore. Do not assume that you are something. Soil and ashes you are. Earth you are and cremains.
Do you give any attention to the soil that you step on? And do you have any consideration to the mud that spoils your shoes and your clothes?
When therefore it comes to you any idea cocky and proud in your mind; when it occurs to you το despise one like you thinking, that you are better that him, then remember, that you come from the earth, that you are soil.
And when again you brag for your beauty and for the power of your body and for the freshness of your youth, then again remember that this body, for which you boast and you are showing it off, the earth has given birth to it and the earth will swallow it again.
You were soil, oh man. But this soil in the almighty and omniscient hands of God what became?
It became the most perfect organism, from all that exist on the earth. It became the most perfect body from all bodies that have seen this material world.
How manifold are thy works, oh Lord! How wise, how powerful God is! Out of the dirt to create a human body.
Man, behold the source of your greatness. God. If you want to be lifted and be glorified, do not leave from near Him.
Stay close to God. He, from soil created you human. He, from human will make you similar to Him, God by grace.
And so, after God mouldered the body of man from the soil, «He breathed into his face the breath of life».
With the body God connected the soul also, which is not a material creation and a bulky one. It is an immaterial creation and a light one, much lighter from what it is the blow of the wind.
But she also is a noble creation, celestial, divine. For this reason therefore also the Scripture presents the soul as being created by a breath of God.
Oh suffering soul! You have a divine origin and still you get attached to the earth. Heaven is your homeland and there you must address your desires.
And yet as if you were heavier than lead you fall down towards the vain interests of the world and the impure passions of your flesh.
Remember, oh my soul, your nobility. Study your origin. And cut off therefore the devious habbits, which as if chains they keep you tied in the vanity and run towards your Creator and your Father.
«And He breathed into his face the breath of life». And this fine and immaterial creation of God is our soul, in which we must seek the image of Him.
Yes, brother, your soul and my soul and the souls of all of our kind are images of God. Images certainly not unaltered and entirely similar to God. God forbid, such a mistake ever to penetrate in our mind!
Image of God and Father unaltered, which shows within itself the whole glory and the perfection of the Father; image, which has one and the same nature towards God, one and the same and equal value towards the Father, one and only is, the Son and Wold of God, the incarnated and carrier of the human nature Jesus Christ.
Us humans we are of course called images of God in comparison to the other creations, which do not seem like Him. We are called images of God, not because we are similar to Him to everything without exception and with exactness.
No; if we were similar to Him to everything, Himself also should be small, weak, limited and with one word finite, as we are ourselves.
Only a shadow of the divine perfection has fallen upon us. A beam only of the divine greatness has been hidden inside our depths.
And this shadow and this scant light, that this beam provides, if we remain faithful to God and we do not distant of His proximity, it will grow, it will become perfect, it will become a star and a sun.
Why? Because we shall liken even more to God and from weak images if Him, that we are now, in the future we will become His similars.
The image will become likeness and from tarnished crystals that we are now, in which it is barely a bit distinguishable the shine and the lightening of the sun of the Deity, we will become mirros crystalline and clean, who will completely blaze and will shine by the glory of the sun of justice, which within them will be redrawed and will be displayed.
Therefore now our likeness towards God is not complete. And you might want, my reader, to learn in what the man resembled to his Creator, when he came out from His hands.
You might want to know for which reasons and for which talents and for which qualifications the soul of man was named image of God.
This I come now to present to you, my brother, with as much as possible more clarity and briefness.
For the following reasons is and is named the soul of man an image of God. First because, as we said, the soul is a creation immaterial and spiritual.
Our soul as well is an immortal spirit and an eternal one, but it differs in this from God, in that He is an unborn Spirit and an eternal one, infinite and perfect, which existed and will always exist, without be created by no one else and without having any imperfection or weakness or any ignorance.
While our soul is of course immortal spirit and will never die, but is not unborn as well, because there was a time that he didn't live and at some certain time God created her and mouldered her.
And neither an eternal spirit is our soul, as God is. It is a finite spirit, imperfect, weak, which does not have the perfect and infinite knowledge.
As a spirit however that the soul is, has of course reasoning and will, or in other words has rationale and freedom. Rationale and mind, with which she knows how to distinguish what they cannot see and recognize the illogical animals.
That is rationale and mind, with which she thinks and distinguishes her invisible creator, with which she flyes high up the heavens and discovers an other world, a world, which cannot be seen with the corporal eyes, the moral world.
That is, she understands and knows the truth, the justice, the love, all the virtues, that are unknown to the beasts, which are not driven by moral laws, but by desires and natural inclinations.
She understands and knows the perfection, the beauty, the handsomeness, the harmony, she finds the cause for everything, she finds the reasons and the purposes and the causes, from which it depends and towards which it is directed everything in the world.
Certainly, this reason, that is, the rationale, that the man possess, is not the infinite Word, as is the Son and Word of God. It is finite, imperfect, misguided many times reason.
In any case it is reason, is rationale. It is similar even in a shadowy way to the also eternal and perpetual Word, the Word of God.
The soul also, as we believe, also has willpower, that is, freedom. Since she has the power to distiguish the right, the just, the necessary, she also has the power to comply to it.
And if the way of virtue and justice many times is asking from us toils and strangles and sacrifices, the soul thanks to that divine gift of freedom has the power, if she wants, to accept everything.
And she sacrifices therefore the soul of the righteous the temporal interests, she despises the illegal and unjust benefit, and she prefers the poverty, she accepts with pleasure to pass his life on earth inside a dark jail, on a hard mat, with a piece of bread as her only food, if only she can remain faithful to the duty.
She even sacrifices this temporary life and delivers her flesh into the flames and to the martyrdome for the love of God.
And she renounces those which she sees with the eyes of the body in favor of those which she does not see, but only believe and understand. What a strange thing! And what a great mystery!
The beasts, the illogical animals they also want, but they don't have the will, that man has. They want those which they see; they want those towards which their corporal appetite moves them. They want whatever wishes their body. They are beasts. On the earth they move and on the earth they are fixated.
What does it mean self-denial, what heroism, what self-sacrifice, they do not know. Only man knows it. Because the man is not only body; he is also soul. He is not only material; he is also image of God.
Yes; he is image of God the man. Consider him as he was, when he got out of the hands of God, even before the sin would corrupt in him and contaminate in him the feelings and his beliefs.
And you shall see other similarities as well, excepcional and wonderful, that he has towards his Creator.
No, he is not sly and corrupt Adam, as he became afterwards. No, he does not experience struggle and war in order to achieve the virtue, as he will experiment after a while himself as well as his descendants, when it will enter in them the sin.
No, his body does not revolt against his soul, as it happens afterwards, when she becomes enslaved our noble soul to the dishonored passions of the flesh. The body obeys and submits as a loyal instrument at the orders of the spirit.
The soul of Adam is free, benevolent, with holy inclinations , with pure intentions. As yet, to be sure he had not ascended a las alturas de la perfección, neither has been consolidated to the virtue, neither has acquired the age of maturity in the spiritual life.
This was a status, that he would acquire little by little Adam through the continuous and peaceful progress and exercise in virtue. Nevertheless his soul was clean from every mischievous seed and from every disposal for malice.
As as in present time, when it has entered inside of us the sin, the soul of man feels an inclination to evil and she naturally seems to be more pleased in it, likewise, back then the soul of the first man, being free from the filthiness and from the seed of sin, leaned towards the good and of course she was attracted to the virtue and the justice.
The nature of that man was benign, his dispositions were pure, his internal world undefiled. And this constitutes the second reason, for which the man was named image of God.
There also exist a third reason. Which is it? The Holy Bible tells it to us. Let's create the man, said God, according to the image and after the likeness, of ours and let him lead and let him rule «over the birds of the sky, and the beasts and the whole earth».
That is, God created the man as a kind of His representative on the earth. Therefore the honor and the respect and the obedience that own to Him the animals but they cannot give to their God and their Creator, Whom they cannot even see and they cannot know either, they would give them to the man, whom the animals can see and they can feel and they fear him.
And thus the man from the respect and the obedience that the animals would show to him, he would receive new causes and reasons in order to praise and to thank the Moulder and Creator of everything.
These are the reasons, my reader, for which Adam was named image of God and this is wealth of the gifts and of the aptitudes, with which God has endowed his soul.
Thus was created by God the first man, Adam.
But to stay alone in that wonderful creation of God, without having as well yet another companion similar to him, towards whom he would express his thoughts, his joy, his love,
and from whom again he would also receive sympathy, love, help, this would greatly limit for him the happyness and would lessen the delight.
The excessive isolation can turn a paradise to a desert place and a palace to a dark prison.
It should therefore be given to Adam a companion also who would serve him as assistant and cohabitant in his life. And this companion God is about to give him now.
God gives sleep to Adam. Adam is sleeping, but his Creator is vigilant. Adam rests, but his Creator is working. Adam relaxes, and God takes care of him.
God knows better what he lacks and what necesities Adam has. And during the time he remains resting with all his hopes directed towards God, the Providence of God is awake and works for the happyness and the protection of him.
Poor man! Why are you torturing your mind and why are you worrying your heart? Put your hope to God. Hold yourself up under His proteccion. Trust yourself under His Providence.
And you shall see, that everything will come alright and all the worries of your life and the hardships and the temptations will finally go away and meet a happy end.
God knows your necessities; He knows your pains and your tears; He knows the bitterness and the poison that you are daily receiving for the hardships of life. Throw therefore your hope to Him and everything He will fix.
And what kind of operation is God doing, during the time that Adam is sleeping? «He took one of his ribs and God constructed the rib, which He took from Adam, into a woman».
Behold therefore que hace Dios and what His benevolent Providence is working upon! One rib, which He subtracts from Adam, He completes it to a complete and perfect human organism, and thus creates the woman.
What mystery and what profound concept is hidden under in this creative act of God!
God doesn't receive a bone from the head of Adam in order to create Eve. Because neither a guide nor a master or a despot Adam needed.
Nor it was needed and fair that the woman be seated over the head of the man and to take in her hands the reins in order to govern the man.
What they do some fools and corrupts, which from a spitit of carnal worship directed they do not hesitate as if being humble slaves and servants to venerate and to worship the woman, this is an unnatural thing.
It's humiliation of the male honor and of the male primacy, which granted and recognized to the man the Highest Creator Himself.
But not either from the legs did the Creator take a bone in order to create Eve from it.
No; because it wasn't meant for the companion, who would be given to Adam, to be his servant and his captive and his slave, which even with his feet Adam would be justified to trample.
Nor it is fair and a right thing the woman to be transformed into a slave and into a servant of the man, and even a slave, which little will differ from the beast.
This is a terrible injustice, an injustice against nature itself, since certainly God did not create the woman for such a humiliating condition.
God received a rib from Adam. And with this He wanted to signify, that the assistant, which He would give, would be equivalent to him.
Nor on his head she should be placed, but neither also under his feet she should be seated.
She should remain on his side, next to him, there exactly, where is the place of the rib by which she was created.
That is, under the arm of Adam, who therefore was bound to protect his woman, as more daring and more courageous that he was by nature.
Under the arm and next to the heart of Adam, who therefore had the duty to love from the depth of his heart his woman as his own corporal member and as flesh belonging to himself.
Therefore, the woman was created being equal to the man. Despite all that she must never forget the woman, that she was created from the man and for the man.
She must never forget the woman, that the man was created first before her and that consequently even nature herself recognizes him some superiority, and imposes upon the woman to respect him and to recognize him as her head.
She must always remember the woman, that the Creator mouldered her in order to be an assistant of her man, in order to alleviate him in his sorrows, in order to console him in his afflictions, in order to increase in him his joy, in order to withstand together with him the burden of life and of its adventures.
A woman, who forgets all that, she is out of her destination.
A woman, who becomes a real wound to her man, a tribulation and a whip in his life, in order to embitter him with her poisonous tongue, and in order to poison him with her insolent words, in order to embarrass him and dishonor him with her shameless behaviour, and with the embarrassing conduct of her,
in order to bring him in stalemate with her unreasonable demands and with her absurd and her silly expenditures, such a woman who is not assistant no more of the man but his tyrant and unbearable load, she would better be absent from the world and that she would not be seen by the light of day.
Alas and three times alas for that house, where the voice is heard of this woman. Alas for her miserable man and misfortune for her poor children!
But let us return now in the course of our narration.
In the meanwhile Adam woke up. And he sees therefore next to him his similar to him companion, which has been pleased the benevolence of God to give to him.
And inspired at that moment by the Spirit of God the protoplast, opens his mouth and speaks words, which remained and will remain unforgettable and immortals, because they enunciate eternal truths.
God during that moment moves the tongue of our progenitor Adam in order to praise and in order to depict the height and the sacredness, which the marriage has.
Eve was his wife and the blessing, which God would give to him immediately after, would be a marriage blessing to the first married couple, that appeared on the earth.
What did Adam say? «This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man».
Thus, it was immediately disclosed to Adam, that Eve had been created through his rib. And thus, for this he calls her bone, which God received and created from the very bones of Adam. He calls her flesh, which from his very flesh it was taken.
And Adam continues saying: «Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife. And them both shall be one flesh». What bond! And what union!
Compared to the union of the marriage even those very rigid natural bonds back down and become less rigid.
The union of the child to his father and his mother is a natural union, which this very nature attaches and in which we get used to since the years, that we are still infants and as soon as we begin to understand ourselves.
Is there any other more powerful bond than this? And is there any other person more familiar and more beloved to us than our mother and than our father?
And yet, what a mystery it is! And how big is the power of the mandate of God!
For this we see that two persons, who were until recently complete strangers, which now maybe see each other for the first time and greet each other for the first time, they get so much connected, as they had not been connected with those, who from their early age have known as their parents.
And thus the man abandons his mother and his father in order to connect with his woman and in order to constitute with her one flesh, one body.
Therefore, it should not be frowned upon by you, the mother in law, if you see the child, who you have raised since he was an infant with your own hands and you have made him a man, to love more than you his woman.
Do not be jealous about it. Don't be bitter. God has mandated to be made this way.
And that's how it's done since the time that the man was first created and the first married couple was seen on the earth.
And instead of being bitter therefore, you should rejoice. With all your heart you should give your blessing to your child and to your daughter-in-law for them to live in peace and in love. This will be pride for you and great happiness for them.
Adam therefore speaks in the name of God and after the inspiration by God. The man shall leave, he says, his father and his mother and shall cleave closely unto his wife.
And with these words Adam does not by any means want to say, that coming into marriage he has the right to despise and to completely abandon his parents by not taking any care and not having any interest for them.
God forbid! The father is always father. And the mother does never cease to be the sweet person, that has given us birth and with her own blood and milk has raised us.
Simply it only wants here to illustrate the Spirit of God, which inspires Adam, how sacred, how tight, how unbreakable is the union of marriage, since it is superior and firmer even from that natural union, that connects us with our parents.
And therefore it also wants to teach us, that if he disrespects towards the moral law he, who disobeys the respect towards his parents and despises the sacred union, with which this very nature connects the child towards those, who have given birth to him,
much more disrespects the one, who despises the sacred union of marriage and considers marriage as a transaction and as a business and as a simple partnership, which for whatever reason, «other that the reason of fornication», he has the right through divorce to dissolve.
Adam after all had no father and mother. Father for him was God. Observe therefore, my reader, and behold, how it happens the first matchmaking between a man and a woman.
Adam does not take with his own hand his woman. God gives her to him. That is, Him, who for Adam had the place of the father.
With the election therefore and the approval and the permission, as after a while we shall see, and with the blessing of his God and Father Adam receives Eve as his wife.
Thus, my brother, not only Adam does not teach you to despise and to abhor your parent, but instead with his example, he is indicating you, that when you are about to come into marriage, you must conclude it also with the consent and with the opinion of your parents as with their blessing as well.
Then indeed as more experienced than you and because they consider the matter with more composure and prudence and with less feeling than you, they are in position, if not always, but still most of the times to select the companion of your life much better than what you would select him.
«And them both shall be one flesh». Adam adds. In other words, they will both constitute, that is, the man and the woman, one body.
From this, my dear reader, you can understand, how much love the man must show towards his woman and the woman towards her man.
He must consider one the other as his own body and his own flesh. Did anyone ever hated, having a sound mental health, did he ever hated his own body?
Νο. Instead he protects it and feeds it and he attends it with great interest and with much care.
Likewise the man also must love his woman, as if she is his own flesh. Likewise the woman also must respect and love her man, as him being her own head.
These words Adam said, when after he woke he saw the companion, which God for his sake had created.
And God subsequently «He blessed them saying; be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it». Marriage therefore is not a wicked invention and a sinful one; it is a blessing of God.
It is a holy bond and a sacred one, that was established by the will of God, not in the place of the exile, where afterwards the protoplasts took refuge after they got expelled from the garden of Eden, but within this blissful place of paradise.
No, it is not a curse by God the marriage. Don't you see that God blesses the protoplasts and sanctifies their sacred bond?
Don't you also see, that He wants them to increase and multiply and to see sons and daughters numerous?
Don't you see, that like a good and provident Father, He offers and let's say He endows the first married couple, which for first time appeared on the earth?
He gives them as dowry the whole earth and He authorizes them to conquer it and to dominate over everything, that exist and move over it.
How much benevolent and how much merciful you are, oh Lord! From the height of Your great throne You deign to supervise upon a worm, that is called man, and like a father, like a father in law to look after and to take care for him!
End of chapter 1