Adam Named the Animals

There is great significance in this, especially for Eve as the model of fallen, female nature. If Eve had been called upon to name the animals, -- assuming, too, that God created her before He had Adam name them - also, greatly significant - but Eve would have seen only the shapes and colors and antics of the animals: Blackie, Brownie, Fluffy, Snowball, Misty, Floppy, and so on. Only Adam was able to penetrate to the very essential nature of each animal, bird and insect. He was and remains, intellectually superior to Eve. An exhaustive study of the women of the Old Testament and then of Christendom would prove this. A phrase in the Douay-Rheims translation of Genesis, 5:2, says that "God" created them male and female - and blessed them - and called their name Adam in the day when they were created."


Theologians commenting on these verses of Genesis teach that Adam alone signifies human nature, the composite of matter and form, (potency and act), body and mind---soul-spirit. But in a secondary sense, human nature is not complete without the female component. This explains the verse quoted above wherein it is said that God called their name Adam, signifying one human nature with two necessary components - in addition to body and soul, there is male and female.


What is completely forgotten or overlooked today is the fact that in all of these pairs, there is a relationship not of equality, but of hierarchy, of order-source and subordination, of Head and members, of intellect and will, of Soul-Mind-Spirit to Body. And so, of male to female.


When this created order is violated, only Disorder results, obviously - and Disorder never makes for happiness. Only in the Most Blessed Trinity is there an absolute equality of Persons, "of majesty", (Preface). Their remote reflection in the human family - and particularly in the Holy Family - abundantly illustrates this created Hierarchy of Father, Mother and Child. Note, too, the difference in sequential order.