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History of the Franks
St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927
Book 1, 1. Of Adam and Eve
In the beginning the Lord formed the heaven and the earth in His Christ, who is the origin of all things, that is to say, in His Son; who, when the elements of the world had been created, took a clod of fragile clay and shaped man in His own image and similitude, breathing upon his face the breath of life, that he was made a living soul. And while the man slept, a rib was taken from him, and the woman Eve created. Nor is it to be doubted that, before he sinned, the first man Adam presented the type of our Lord and Saviour. For when Christ swooned in His Passion, He produced from His side water and blood, and gave unto Himself a Church, virgin and immaculate, redeemed by the blood and purified by the water, having neither spot nor wrinkle,1 that is to say, washed by the water to take away all blemish, and stretched on the Cross to take away every wrinkle. So therefore these first human creatures lived in bliss amid the delights of Paradise; but, enticed by the serpent’s guile, they transgressed the divine commandments. And they were driven forth from that abode of angels and given over to the toils of the world.
Notes
- Cf. Eph. iv. 27.