Chapter 13.—The Opinion of Those Who Have Thought that the Mind Was Signified by the Man, the Bodily Sense by the Woman.

20. Nor does it escape me, that some who before us were eminent defenders of the Catholic faith and expounders of the word of God, while they looked for these two things in one human being, whose entire soul they perceived to be a sort of excellent paradise, asserted that the man was the mind, but that the woman was the bodily sense. And according to this distribution, by which the man is assumed to be the mind, but the woman the bodily sense, all things seem aptly to agree together if they are handled with due attention: unless that it is written, that in all the beasts and flying things there was not found for man an helpmate like to himself; and then the woman was made out of his side.772    Gen. ii. 20–22 And on this account I, for my part, have not thought that the bodily sense should be taken for the woman, which we see to be common to ourselves and to the beasts; but I have desired to find something which the beasts had not; and I have rather thought the bodily sense should be understood to be the serpent, whom we read to have been more subtle than all beasts of the field.773    Gen. iii. 1 For in those natural good things which we see are common to ourselves and to the irrational animals, the sense excels by a kind of living power; not the sense of which it is written in the epistle addressed to the Hebrews, where we read, that “strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil;”774    Heb. v. 14 for these “senses” belong to the rational nature and pertain to the understanding; but that sense which is divided into five parts in the body, through which corporeal species and motion is perceived not only by ourselves, but also by the beasts.

21. But whether that the apostle calls the man the image and glory of God, but the woman the glory of the man,775    1 Cor. xi. 7 is to be received in this, or that, or in any other way; yet it is clear, that when we live according to God, our mind which is intent on the invisible things of Him ought to be fashioned with proficiency from His eternity, truth, charity; but that something of our own rational purpose, that is, of the same mind, must be directed to the using of changeable and corporeal things, without which this life does not go on; not that we may be conformed to this world,776    Rom. xii. 2 by placing our end in such good things, and by forcing the desire of blessedness towards them, but that whatever we do rationally in the using of temporal things, we may do it with the contemplation of attaining eternal things, passing through the former, but cleaving to the latter.

CAPUT XIII.

20. Opinio eorum qui viro mentem, muliere sensum corporis significari senserunt. Nec me fugit, quosdam qui fuerunt ante nos egregii defensores catholicae fidei et divini eloquii tractatores, cum in homine uno, cujus universam animam bonam quemdam paradisum esse senserunt, duo ista requirerent, virum mentem, mulierem vero dixisse corporis sensum. Et secundum hanc distributionem qua vir ponitur mens, sensus vero corporis mulier, videntur 1009 apte omnia convenire, si considerata tractentur: nisi quod in omnibus bestiis et volatilibus scriptum est non esse inventum viro adjutorium simile illi, et tunc est ei mulier facta de latere (Gen. II, 20-22). Propter quod ego non putavi pro muliere sensum corporis esse ponendum, quem videmus nobis et bestiis esse communem; sed aliquid volui quod bestiae non haberent: sensumque corporis magis pro serpente intelligendum existimavi, qui legitur sapientior omnibus pecoribus terrae (Id. III, 1). In eis quippe naturalibus bonis, quae nobis et irrationabilibus animantibus videmus esse communia, vivacitate quadam sensus excellit: non ille de quo scriptum est in Epistola quae est ad Hebraeos, ubi legitur, perfectorum esse solidum cibum, qui per habitum exercitatos habent sensus ad separandum bonum a malo (Hebr. V, 14); illi quippe sensus naturae rationalis sunt ad intelligentiam pertinentes: sed iste sensus quinquepartitus in corpore, per quem non solum a nobis, verum etiam a bestiis corporalis species motusque sentitur.

21. Sed sive isto, sive illo, sive aliquo alio modo accipiendum sit, quod Apostolus virum dixit imaginem et gloriam Dei, mulierem autem gloriam viri (I Cor. XI, 7); apparet tamen cum secundum Deum vivimus, mentem nostram in invisibilia ejus intentam, ex ejus aeternitate, veritate, charitate, proficienter debere formari: quiddam vero rationalis intentionis nostrae, hoc est ejusdem mentis, in usum mutabilium corporaliumque rerum, sine quo haec vita non agitur, dirigendum; non ut conformemur huic saeculo (Rom. XII, 2), finem constituendo in bonis talibus, et in ea detorquendo beatitudinis appetitum; sed ut quidquid in usu temporalium rationabiliter facimus, aeternorum adipiscendorum contemplatione faciamus, per ista transeuntes, illis inhaerentes.