The Creation Of Woman

Quod mulier viri de latere facta est, propter ipsius conjunctionis vim commendandam ita fieri oportuisse credendum est. Quod autem dormienti illi factum est, quod osse detracto in cujus locum caro suppleretur, altioris mysterii gratia factum est. Significabatur enim quod de latere Christi in cruce per mortem sopiti sacramenta essent salutis exitura, videlicet sanguis et aqua, de quibus sponsa illi conderetur Ecclesia, nam si tanti sacramenti non esset figura in creatione feminae praemittenda, quid opus erat dormisse Adam, ut costam illi Deus, de qua feminam faceret, tolleret, qui et vigilanti ac non dolenti idem facere poterat? Quid necessarium ut cum os quod de viri latere sumptum est, unde femina condebatur, in locum ossis non os, sed care suppleretur, nisi quia figurabatur quod Christus propter Ecclesiam infirmus, at vero Ecclesia per ipsum esset firma futura? Unde ejusdem mysterii gratia typico quoque verbo usa est Scriptura, ut non diceret: fecit, aut formavit, aut creavit, sicut in omnibus supra operibus; sed aedificavit, inquit, Dominus Deus costam, quam tulerat de Adam in mulierem, non tanquam corpus humanum, sed tanquam domum, quae domus nos sumus, si fiduciam et gloriam spei usque ad finem firmam retineamus. Taliter enim decebat, ut humani generis origo, Deo operante, procederet, quatenus redemptioni ipsius quae in fine erat saeculi per eumdem ventura conditorem concinentibus figuris testimonium daret. Sanctus Beda, Hexameron Liber I Source: Migne PL 91.51a-c

That the woman was made from the side of the man, on account of the commendable force of that same union, should thus be believed was necessary. For that she was made while he slept, the bone being drawn out and in its place flesh supplied, was for the sake of a high mystery. 1 It was done to signify that from the side of Christ on the cross in the sleep of death the sacrament of salvation would come forth, as blood and water, from which the bride that is the Church is established for Him. For if there were not the figure of such a mystery in the creation of woman, what point was there in Adam sleeping, and that God took a bone from him from which he made woman, all which He was able to do with the man awake and without such labour? Why was it necessary that the bone be taken from the side of the man from which the woman was made and in place of bone, not bone, but flesh supplied, unless it was a figure that Christ was made weak for the Church, but the Church to come was made strong by Him? Whence for the sake of this mystery a specific type of word is used in Scripture, so that is does not say: 'He made', or 'He formed', or 'He created', as in the works that were done before, but it says that the Lord God 'built up,' the rib which he took from Adam into a woman, not like a human body, but as a building, which building we are, if we hold to firm faith and the glory of hope until the end. For so it was befitting that the origin of the human race, by the work of God, go forth, seeing that she who at the end of the age was its redemption through the coming of the same Creator, He gave witness to with resounding figures. Saint Bede, Hexameron, Book 1 1 Gen 2.21-22