The Genesis of Marriage

For my catechetical class I'm going through for my church I was asked to write a paper on something in the Pentateuch, and I though it would be a good idea to share this as an article. For my topic I decided to focus on Genesis, and specifically on the first chapters where we are introduced to mankind for the first time and discuss what God reveals about marriage through our first parents.

A theme that many people see in my work is a focus on marriage, and I am sure some people are tired of seeing this but I continue to discover more beautiful things about this Sacrament. There is much that we in the Church still do not understand about matrimony, and so very much that we will still have to learn after we become fully united with God. But, one of the ways we can begin to discover marriage and its beauty is by going back, to in the beginning. That is where we will look today, at the book of Genesis, and at the first marriage, the first couple.

A Primordial Sacrament

In the very beginning of creation, when God made man, He gave man a task: to work (Genesis 2:15). Man was given rule over the garden to work it, to eat of the fruit of the garden, and to name the creatures within it. This was the first thing which God did for man, a task was given. Along with this task there was the gift of food, the gift of purpose, and the gift of companionship with the creatures within it. But, this companionship was lacking (Genesis 2:20) and there was no true match for the man, Adam, there were none like him that could fulfil the desire he had for true companionship. Then comes God's second act for man, a gift with nothing tied to it, a pure and simple gift - woman, a helper, the perfect companion. The first person was given the gift of another person like them, one which could be cared for, that you could work alongside, that you could allow to love you.

This is the first marriage, the union of our two parents at the dawn of our creation. Part of the beauty of marriage comes from the fact that it is of divine origin, one of the first things which was given to us by God. It is not an institution invented by man, marriage as it's been understood is not naturally derived from observing nature, it is a supernatural union given to us by our Father. Part of the beauty of marriage is in its reflection of God, and that is what I would like to speak about now, and I invite you to come along with me in this.

To introduce this idea of a (rightly ordered) marriage reflecting God let's take Genesis 1:26-27 which says, "Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." In this passage we see God desiring to make us "in our image, according to our likeness" and yet in the next verse we just see that God "created humankind in his image" with no mention about being in His likeness. If you read the ancient writers such as Origen (On First Principles 3.6.1), Didochus of Photice (On Spiritual Perfection 4), Augustine (On the Trinity 7.6.12, 11.5.8, 12.6.6), you will find an explanation of this "separation" of the image and likeness. I prefer Origen's articulation of the thought the most so I will share it here: "Now the fact that he said 'he made him in the image of God' and was silent about the likeness points to nothing else but this, that man received the honor of God's image in his first creation, whereas the perfection of God's likeness was reserved for him at the consummation. The purpose of this was that man should acquire it for himself by his own earnest efforts to imitate God, so that while the possibility of attaining perfection was given to him in the beginning through the honor of the 'image,' he should in the end through the accomplishments of these works obtain for himself the perfect 'likeness.'" Or in my own words: God made us in His image, capable of His likeness.

You can read from many great minds what it means to be "in the likeness of God" but I have my own theory which I shall share. To be "like" God is to reflect Him, to do what He does, to be as He is. If you take the context of Genesis and derive who (or in a crude sense, "what") God is, you see that He is a relationship of persons, that He creates, and that He loves (as seen in His treatment of Adam and Eve and their descendants). And so, God made man and woman in His image, but until we more fully reflect these "aspects" of God we would not be "like" Him. To cut to the chase, and then I will explain this though more later, it is through the unity of persons in marriage, the gift given to us by God, that we attain a likeness to God. How is this so? Through a rightly ordered marriage a man and woman form a deep bond of persons which unifies them, through this bond they generate life by the sexual act, and by this union of persons do we become more capable of loving one another.

I shall build out this thought more. Marriage has been described as an image of the Trinity, a type of hypostasis which reflects the relationship of the three Persons that are God. Here are just a few quotes on the idea: Theodore Balsamon: "So that they are no longer two, but one flesh, we believe and confess that the spouses are on account of the marriage, reckoned to be one humanity having more or less the same soul, which is perceived in two hypostases." Ephraim the Syrian: "After Adam's rib had been taken out in the twinkling of an eye, God closed up the flesh in its place in the blink of an eyelash. The bare bone took on the full appearance and all the beauty of a woman. God then brought her to Adam, who was both one and two. He was one in that he was Adam, and he was two because he had been created male and female." Aphrahat: "Scripture adds, "They will become one flesh." It is true that some men make one flesh and soul with their wife, and their mind and thoughts are driven away from their father and mother, so those who never take a wife and stay alone may have a single spirit and mind with their father." Our Lord and God is love itself, He is an eternal exchange of love, and through the giving nature of marriage do we reflect this nature of love which we are meant to imitate. In the giving of your body to your spouse, in receiving the gift of your spouse, in the non-sexual gifts of self that is repeated throughout the day as a sacrifice on behalf of your betrothed, these are the moments when we come nearer to being "in likeness" to God.

Through this union of man and woman becoming one they in some form represent the Trinity - and yet it is not complete. For a properly oriented marriage to truly be fruitful (barring any physical disability by either the husband or the wife) the marriage should bear fruit, and a child should come about through their union. And so, through the sexual act we see two unite as one in the flesh, and through this union another person comes into being, and so three are united in this marriage as a reflection of God. The Holy Spirit is not a created being of course, but if you follow the analogy with the exchange of love between the Father and the Son being sent forth into the world, and that love being a manifest Person, you find the parallel through the marital act of the husband and the wife in its generation of another person.

To speak on hypostasis a little more, just as we speak about the hypostatic union of Christ so do we understand it in a similar way in marriage - a union without mingling. The husband and wife do not "lose" their body as they become one, and neither do they "lose" their soul in matrimony, but there is some type of mysterious union of the two through their union. We find this later in Scripture as well in the writings of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, which says that the husband's body is not his own but it is his wife's, and the wife's body is not her own it is her husband's. Similarly in how the Trinity cannot be separated, God cannot be divided, so it is after a sacramental marriage that two spouses are bonded together forever. After matrimony it is no longer "Jack, Sarah." rather it is forevermore "Jack and Sarah", an indivisible pair, as it was meant to be in the Garden.

And now, another aspect of marriage found within Genesis. In chapter two we see Adam profess his new bride as "bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh", and shortly after in chapter three we see the fall of man. In the sufferings of our Lord in His passion we see the reparations made for the disorders of our world, specifically in regards to the first family. What wounds were done to humankind, He undoes for us. The fruit which was taken from the tree, He becomes that fruit and places Himself back on the tree. From the very side where woman comes from shall He be pierced in order for her to be saved - she was given life by the side of man, and she is saved from death by the side of the Son of Man. In Chapter three verse seven the first couple sees that they are naked and clothe themselves with fig leaves, then in verse twenty-one God clothes them by taking the skin of an animal, a sacrifice - and on the cross Christ is stripped of His clothes, so we might once again be naked and unashamed in the presence of God and each other.

And then take Mary, the new Eve. From the rejection of God by Eve, this is redeemed with the fiat (yes) from Mary; the fruit which Eve takes, is now redeemed by the fruit of the womb which Mary gives; in the garden the Woman has her name changed to Eve as she becomes the mother of all after the fall, and Mary who is Christ's mother is called by Him "Woman", and so has her place in the garden redeemed; when in the garden the Woman is blamed by her husband and she is approached by God, Mary at the wedding feast at Cana approaches God and rather than hiding from Him she petitions Him for help.

In a way, it is only through the violence of Christ's Passion that we could have been redeemed. As I have stated already, the origins of the man and woman are precursors to the sufferings of Christ which brought about our redemption by His sacrifice. In Genesis 2:21 the Lord puts Adam into a gentle sleep, and from that sleep comes his bride. In parallel, Christ "falls asleep" in death, but through His death do we arrive as His bride, His Church. Just as Adam slept then woke up, so does Christ die and rise from that dark sleep. Woman is born from peace, silence, sleep, calm, and this is what she is meant to emulate in her life. This is the very thing that we see the Holy Mother live out throughout Scripture, and through each of her apparitions she manifests this as well.

And now a final point on marriage within Genesis. I shall speak in brief on the natures of man and woman, on the nature of mankind which we find in Genesis 2:15, 2:18, and 2:24. I will start off first with a quote from Ambrose in Paradise 10.48, where he speaks on the nature of woman. I will prime you for what you are about to read, which is that from life comes life. Woman's great purpose, her great gift in this life, is the ability to bear life, to participate in creation alongside God.

Not without significance, too, is the fact that woman was made out of the rib of Adam. She was not made of the same earth with which he was formed, in order that we might realize that the physical nature of both man and woman is identical and that there was one source for the propagation of the human race. For that reason, neither was man created together with a woman, nor were two men and two women created at the beginning, but first a man and after that a woman. God willed it that human nature be established as one. Thus from the very inception of the human stock he eliminated the possibility that many disparate natures should arise. He said, “Let us make him a helper like himself.” We understand that to mean a helper in the generation of the human family - a really good helper. If we take the word helper in a good sense, then the woman’s cooperation turns out to be something of major import in the process of generation, just as the earth by receiving, confining and fostering the seed causes it to grow and produce fruit in time. In that respect, therefore, woman is a good helper even though in a position of lesser strength. We find examples of this in our own experience. We see how people in high and important offices often enlist the help of people who are below them in rank and esteem.

I will not quote the entirety of Augustine's reflection on this passage, but he states a similar idea of their under understanding of woman as a helper means that she shall bring forth children, she shall create life. The reason why woman is created, according to Augustine and Ambrose, is to help him in a way that the animals could not, and another man could not. If the purpose of a woman was just to help him in the labor of the Garden, Augustine says that another man could have been a better "helper" than a woman because of man's strength. If it were for companionship that man needed a helper, Augustine again says that another man would have been more fitting seeing as two men would a greater comradery in their shared purpose and task together. But what an animal, or another man, could not do is the very thing that a woman brings, the opportunity for new life.

The purpose of a woman is, in a sense, to be a tabernacle for life. As we reverence the tabernacles in our churches for holding our Lord, and we give reverence to the Holy Mother for bearing Christ in her womb, so is the motherhood, or the possibility of motherhood, reverenced in all women. Whether she as a tabernacle is empty (not pregnant at the time) she is still holy, for she is a vessel of life. God has ordained that woman should participate with Him in bringing about life on this earth.

And now, the purpose of the man. At the creation of man God placed him in the Garden "to till it and keep it", and then he was tasked with the naming of all the creatures of the earth. Other translations of the text say that man was to till and "guard" the Garden, that is he was meant to protect it. Man, therefore, is made for labor, and to protect. According to Augustine the work of tending the garden was not toilsome, as the curse of difficult labor comes about after mankind's fall, and yet in the perfection of God's creation we see that there was indeed labor. Then angels themselves, specifically those who do not leave Heaven, are uncorrupted beings in an uncorrupted place and yet they, according to Doctors of the Church such as Thomas Aquinas, still have tasks which are assigned to them. Some are simply singing of the glory of God for all eternity, and this task has not been lost after the corruption of the earth. A task, a purpose, is something we were given at the beginning of time, and it is something which we shall always possess even in a perfected world - just as the Garden was perfect.

Secondly, a guard, a protector, that is man's role as well. A man is made strong (when compared to woman) by God not only for the physical labor of tending to God's creation, but also to defend against any usurpers against it. When reading the Church Fathers you will find the idea that Lucifer and his compatriots fell before the Garden was created, and with this in mind the reason Adam was set to protect the Garden was because there were enemies looking to destroy it. And, of course, we see Adam fail in this task, as he allows the Woman to be influenced by the serpent and pervert her purpose - rather than giving of the fruit of her womb she takes of the fruit of the tree - and Adam fails in his purpose - he was meant to care for the garden by also preserving the fruit of the tree, and he was meant to protect the Garden from enemies entering into it.

And finally, to close this section on the "purposes" of man and woman, I will speak about the "purpose" of mankind. Genesis 2:24 says that a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife. Man has his purpose, woman has her purpose, but the purpose of humanity is: relationship. To bond with another, to befriend another, to become one with another. This is the purpose of our relationship with God - it is a relationship, we are meant to seek Him out and draw near to Him. Man is meant for one thing, woman is meant for another, but together we are meant to be together. We are not individuals who are isolated by our sex, meant to accomplish things in solitude, and this is made especially clear through the woman as she cannot bring a life into the world without the participation of a man. Verse 24 is a testament to our need for each other, the essentiality of relationship, a testament to our incompleteness as simple individuals.

I should begin to conclude my thoughts. There is much which you could discover about humanity, about yourself, about marriage in the first chapters of Genesis, and I am only just starting to uncover the mysteries hidden in those wise words of Scripture. In truth, I am not discovering these ideas myself, I am reading the Fathers and discovering their ideas and meditating on the wisdom they have to offer. But even from the Fathers, you read from one great mind and you discover another great mind developed the previous idea even further, and there is so much left to contemplate in this portion of Scripture.

Marriage is the primordial sacrament, the sacrament given before Christ established them. The marriage of Adam, then Levitical marriage, these were "natural marriages" and did not have Sacramental effects according to the Church since the elevation of marriage by Christ had not yet come about - "what God has joined let none separate". But the foundations of marriage, its purpose and merit, the blessings of it, were laid down in the very first book of Scripture, and it continues to influence our perspective on it to this day.

Written for VME Catholic, by Ethan Hall