113. But you must clearly understand [or conceive], that when the Fiat to the creating [of the
woman] was in Adam, in his sleep, his body had
not then such hard gristles and bones : 0 no ; that
came to pass first when mother Eve did bite the
apple, and also gave to Adam ; only the infection
and the earthly death, with the fainting and
mortal sickness, stuck in them ; the bones and ribs
were yet strength and virtue, from which the ribs
should come to be.
14. But you must highly and worthily understand [and consider] how it was taken out [of his
side], not as a spirit, but wholly in substance :
Thus it may be said, that Adam did get a rent ;
and the woman beareth Adam's spirit, flesh and
bones. Yet there is some difference in the spirit ;
for the woman beareth the matrix, and Adam
the limbus or man ; and they two are one flesh,
undivided in nature, for now they two together
must generate one man again, which one alone could
do before.
A pleasant Gate.
15. We being here in describing the corruptibility of Adam, the spirit frameth in our thoughts
a heavenly mystery, concerning Adam's rib, which
Ch. 13] OF THE CREATING OF THE WOMAN 231
the Fiat took from him, and made a woman of it ;
which [rib] Adam afterwards must want ; for the
text in Moses rightly saith, God closed up the
place with flesh.
16. But now the x wrath of the serpent hath so J the malice or
brought it to pass, that Adam is fallen in the lust,
2and yet the purpose of God must stand ; for 2 Adam * mankind,
must rise again at the day of the resurrection
wholly and unbroken in the first image, as he was
created. So likewise the serpent and the devil
have brought it about, that so terrible a rent is
made in him.
17. Wherefore the spirit sheweth us, that as
little as the worm or spirit of the soul could be
helped, except that the virgin came, and did go
into death in the worm in the abyss of the spirit of
the soul (which in its own abyss reacheth the gate
of hell and the fierce anger of God) and regenerate
8 him anew, and make him a new creature in the 3 Adam.
first image, which is done in the Son of the Virgin,
in Christ ; so little also could Adam's rib, and
his hollow side, where it stood, be helped [healed]
or brought to perfection, except that the second
Adam (Christ) suffer himself in the virgin to be
wounded [pierced or cut] in the same place, that
his precious blood might come to help the first
Adam, and repair his broken side again ; this, of
high and precious worth, we speak according to our
knowledge ; which when we shall write of the
suffering and death of Christ the Son of the virgin,
232 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 13
we will so clear it, that them, 0 thirsty soul, shalt
find a living fountain, which shall be little beneficial to the devil.
Further concerning the Woman.
318. Reason asketh : Is Eve merely created out
of the rib [taken] out of Adam ? Then she should
be far inferior to Adam. No, beloved reason, it is
not so ; the Fiat (being a sharp attracting) took
from Adam of all essences and properties of every
virtue, but it took from him no more members in
substance ; for the image should be a man, after a
masculine kind in the limbus, yet not at all with
this deformity. Understand it rightly in the
ground, he should be (and he was also) a man, and
he had a virgin-like heart, wholly chaste in the
matrix.
19. Therefore Eve was for certain created out of
all Ada/rris essences, and so Adam thereupon had
a great rent, and so likewise the woman might
come to her perfection to [be] the image of God ;
and this again sheweth a great mystery, whereby
the virgin very preciously witnesseth again, that
the Son of the Virgin hath not only suffered his
side to be pierced through, and shed his blood out
of the hole of his side, but he hath also suffered his
hands and feet to be struck through, and a crown
of thorns to be pressed upon his head, so that the
blood gushed out from thence ; and in his body
he endured to be whipped, so that his blood ran
Ch. 13] OF THE CREATING OF THE WOMAN 233
down all over. So very lowly hath the Son of
the Virgin debased himself, to l help the sick and l to heal,
broken Adam, and his weak and imperfect Eve, to
repair them and bring them again into the first
glory.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.