Second Sermon for Septuagesima: On the Sleep of Adam

“Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam ; and when he was fast asleep, He took one of his ribs and built up flesh for it.

“ And the Lord God built the rib which He took from Adam into a woman, and brought her to Adam.

“ And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh ; she shall becalled a woman, because she was taken out of a man.

“ Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife : and they shall be two in one flesh.’ —Gen. ii. 21-24.

“Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam.” Yes, my brethren, and He also cast a deep sleep upon Himself, that is, after becoming the second Adam. But there is a great difference between the one sleep and the other. For whereas our first father seems to have slept from an excess of contemplation, it was rather an excess of compassion that caused the slumber in the case of Christ. Hence we may say that truth cast the sleep upon the first Adam and charity upon the second, although the same Lord is both charity and truth. Does not St. John the Evangelist bear witness that ‘‘God is charity” (rt John iv. 16)? And the Lord Himself says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John xiv. 6). That the sleep of Christ upon the cross was caused by charity, can be doubted by no one who is a Christian even in name. For “ He lay down as a lion” (Numb. xxiv. 9g), not surely as vanquished but as victor, of His own power laying down His life, and of His own will submitting to death

(John x. 17). But what kind of sleep must we suppose that to have been which “ the Lord cast upon Adam,” in which, without the least sense of pain, a rib was taken from the sleeper’s side to be formed into a woman? It seems to me that this slumber of Adam resulted from the contemplation of the immutable Truth and the abyss of Divine Wisdom which suspended the activities of the bodily senses. So much, I think, may be gathered from his words on awakening. For after his return he indicated whither he had gone: when, as one inebriated, coming forth from the wine-cellar (Cant. ii. 4), he published that great mystery _which the Apostle commended so many centuries later in Christ and the Church, crying out, “ This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh” (Gen. ii. 23,¹; Ephes. v. 31, 32). Does it seem to you, my brethren, that he had been buried in unconscious slumber who, on awakening, broke out immediately into such a speech? Is it not more likely that he could have said in the words of the Spouse in the Canticle, “ I sleep, but my heart watcheth ” (Cant. v. 2)?

Let this be said, however, with all due deference to the different opinions which others may entertain, and particularly to anything contrary which may be found in the pages of Holy Scripture. But I cannot help thinking that the sleep cast upon Adam was no ordinary sleep, nothing resembling the slumber so familiar to ourselves, which is produced in us neither by ecstatic contemplation nor by an affection of compassion, but solely by the exhaustion of our bodily

ON THE SLEEP OF ADAM 65 strength: which is cast upon us by necessity rather than by charity or truth. For so it is written, “A heavy yoke is upon the children of Adam” (Ecclus. xl. 1). That yoke was not laid upon Adam himself at the beginning, but it lies now upon all his children. What is there indeed that is not a heavy yoke for misérable mortals, tor whom even life itself is a labour, and for whom (although few appear to notice it, and none at all realise it fully) the very use of the senses has become a burden which we are unable to endure, unless refreshed by frequent alternations of repose? What is there, I ask, but labour and sorrow and vexation of spirit amongst all the things that are under the sun, since even that which in itself is most agreeable to the spirit, I mean the communication of life and sensibility to the flesh, can become for it an intolerable burden? For how pleasant to the spirit is its union with the flesh is shown by the pain it feels at parting, since it can scarcely be torn from the society of the body even then, when corruption has rendered the latter no longer a suitable subject for its vitalising influence. It is not the body simply as such, but the body that is corrupted that is said to be “a load upon the soul”’ (Wisdom ix. 15). From this we may infer that the soul of our first father was free from that burden so long as his body remained incorrupt. For God established him in liberty, and placed him between what is highest and what is lowest, in such a manner that’ he was able to ascend without difficulty to the former and to descend to the latter without being necessitated by any violence or force of attraction, penetrating what was above him by the native vivacity and purity of his mind, governing what was il. 6 under him with the authority of a monarch. Thus we read that the irrational animals were led to Adam, in order that he might see what names should be given them: not that he was led to them by any curiosity to see them * (Gen. ii. 19).

But in us, my brethren, the spirit does not enjoy the same liberty: rather it has to struggle against opposition on all sides. For it is held captive by the things below, as a bird gets caught in bird-lime; whilst at the same time it is repelled as unworthy by the things above, so that it can neither free itself from the former without pain, nor gain access to the latter, even rarely, without great toil and many tears. Thus, on the one side “ they that seek my soul use violence ” (Ps. xxxvil. 13), so that I am compelled to cry out, “Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death ?”’ (Rom. vii. 24) ; and on the other, “before I eat I sigh” (Job iii. 24), because “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and (only) the violent bear it away ” (Matt. xi. 12). Moreover, we must maintain unity with regard to what is high, and observe distinctions in what is low, just as Adam’s powers were united in the sleep of contemplation, and he afterwards distinguished the animals by the imposition of proper names. And of Abraham also we read that, when offering sacrifice, he divided the beasts but not the birds (Gen. xv. 9, 10). Martha, too, was “troubled about many things,” whereas “ but one thing is necessary ” (Luke x. 41, 42). One thing indeed is necessary, and very necessary, because it is

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“ the best part which shall not be taken away ” (ibid.). Division shall cease when the fulness comes, and all the holy city of “ Jerusalem shall be compacted together ” (Ps. cxxi. 3). In the meantime, however, the Spirit of Wisdom reveals Himself not only as single, but also as manifold (Wisdom vii. 22; Ephes. iii. 10), establishing in a stable unity all that is interior, whilst distinguishing exterior things in judgment. We have an example of both these functions presented to us in the primitive Church, when, as we read, “the multitude of believers had but one heart and one soul” (Acts iv. 32),—that is to say, the birds were not divided—“ and distribution was made to every one according as he had need ” (ibid. 35), viz., a division was made in the case of the beasts. Therefore amongst us also, dearest brethren, let there be a union of souls. Let our hearts be one by loving the same Object, seeking the same Object, cleaving to the same Object, and entertaining the same sentiments. Thus external division shall involve no danger and give no scandal. For although each one will have his own particular occupation, and sometimes also his own particular view regarding the administration of worldly affairs, yea, there are even “ diversities of graces ” (r Cor. xii. 4), and the members of the body have not all the same act: nevertheless, the interior union and harmony of souls shall bring and bind together such multiplicity, using the glue of charity and “the bonds of peace ” (Ephes. iv. 3). ~

Footnotes

1. By the irrational animals the Saint understands all earthly objects which had no power of themselves to excite human passions antecedently to the Fall—(Translator.) ↩