Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Genesis 2:22

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

Even in the beginning, when woman was made from a rib in the side of the sleeping man, that had no less a purpose than to symbolize prophetically the union of Christ and his church. Adam's sleep was a mystical foreshadowing of Christ's death, and when his dead body hanging from the cross was pierced by the lance, it was from his side that there issued forth that blood and water that, as we know, signifies the sacraments by which the church is built up. …

City of God 22.17 ↗

Ambrose of Milan

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. …

On Paradise ↗

Bede

And He brought her to Adam. And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. Because when the living creatures of the earth and all the birds were brought to Adam, he found none like himself among them. Thus it was fitting that now, when he saw a helper like himself made and brought to him, he acknowledged and exclaimed, saying: This now is bone of my bones. …

Commentary on Genesis (Hexaemeron) ↗