Preface
Two weeks after my baptism as Orthodox, I made a new (Orthodox) friend from Bucharest who had just finished a bachelor’s in patristics. While we were discussing my research, he asked me the most probing question I have ever fielded: “How is what you’re learning going to harmonize with what the Fathers say about Scripture?” I had been feeling a little trepidatious, wondering how critical biblical scholarship could or would interact with patristic literature (or patrology, as the Greeks call it), concerned that the two would clash terrifically. I was, however, encouraged by a Greek Orthodox friend that in such cases these two don’t necessarily contradict one another. This post is me venturing forth one little step to show just that!
Introduction
In my 2024 Greek class, I had the privilege of translating some of Plato from the original ancient Greek. It was strenuous work (nothing like the Greek Old Testament), but so richly rewarding. One of the texts we translated was from Plato’s Symposium about the origins of eros, telling the tale of what in German are called the Kugelmenschen, or Sphere People (189c-193d).
In it, the comic playwright Aristophanes is portrayed as the teller of the tale, insisting that humans should honor Eros as the “most philanthropic” of gods. He says Eros has blessed humans with what he calls a healing power, explaining it this way:
Humans, he says, are originally globular creatures, two beings in one, back to back—they come in male, female, and androgyne types. Because they grow too powerful this way, Zeus slices them in half as punishment. These new half-beings keep dying of hunger while hopelessly yearning for their other half, so Zeus mercifully rearranges their bodies so that they can finally unite sexually, and reproduce. Nonetheless, this forces humans henceforth to spend the rest of their lives scrambling around in search of their other half. Thus, he narrates, we humans are innately driven by the force of erotic love, seeking to heal and restore the primal unity of humankind’s original nature.
It may come as a surprise, but there is a striking resonance between this tale and the creation accounts of humanity in Genesis 1 and 2. We can see this not only in the text itself, but in later rabbinical interpretations—and, I will argue, there is a residue of this in patristic literature.
The Creation of Humankind
The creation of humankind can be found in Genesis 1:26-27, as well as in Genesis 2:18-24. We will see in the Hebrew that there is a third, gender-neutral term referring to humanity in general that is used throughout both creation accounts. Below I have modified the NRSV translation for the sake of utmost preciseness, and so that you can get a feel for how the Hebrew reads.
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; …So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
—Genesis 1:26a-27
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the human should be alone; I will make it a helper as their partner.” …The human gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the human there was not found a helper as their partner. …And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the human he made into a woman and brought her to the human. Then the human said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man this one was taken.”
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
—Genesis 2:18, 20, 22-24
The key Hebrew term I have translated alternately as human/kind is simply the term adam, which has become a common male name. The word adam is a play on words, coming from the word for soil or earth, adamah. In order to preserve this pun we might translate adam as “earthling” instead. In fact, this pun is preserved in the English word “human,” since the word derives from the Latin humus, meaning the same as the Hebrew adamah. Essentially we see that gender did not exist until God “split” the human, called Adam, by taking the rib and creating Eve. Perhaps we could say that Adam only recognized his otherness as man (Hebrew ish) when he saw the woman Eve in her otherness (Hebrew isshah) and burst forth into poetry—the first poem in the biblical canon!
And in what could be considered an etiology (origin story), Genesis 2:24 gives reason for why humans unite as “one flesh” in marriage. Adam was one who was made two, who recognizes his other half and yearns to be made one with her—again. Does this sound familiar?
Rabbinic sources would support this interpretation of an original androgyne, too. Jeremiah ben Eleazar says, “Adam was created as androgynous.” (Bereshit Rabbah 8:1) Samuel ben Nahman also says, “when God created the first human, he gave him two faces, connected back to back.” The two genders are then separated so they can face one another and “relieve their loneliness.” (Reisenberger, Azila Talit. “The Creation of Adam as a Hermaphrodite—and its implications for Feminist Theology.” Judaism, 2001, 42:4, p 450.)
Patristic Support
Turning now to the Church Fathers, we see the same idea of a double being in the first human, and the human’s division. Gregory of Nyssa (4th century), in De Opificio Hominis (On the Making of Mankind) argues that the imago Dei is intended to image the archetype for all humanity: Jesus Christ. In reference to Genesis 1, he quotes Paul from Galatians 3:28 “there is neither male nor female,” saying that this verse “declares that man is thus divided,” that is, according to gender. He continues:
“Thus the creation of our nature is in a sense twofold/double: one made like to God, one divided according to this distinction: for something like this the passage darkly conveys by its arrangement, where it first says, ‘God created man, in the image of God created He him,’ and then, adding to what has been said, ‘male and female created He them,’—a thing which is alien from our conceptions of God.” (De Op. Hom., XVI 181).
Human nature is both single and dual, as Ephrem the Syrian (4th century) tells us. Regarding the account from Genesis 2, Ephrem reinforces the notion of an original twofold human: “God then took [Eve] and brought her to Adam who was both one and two: he was one because he was Adam, he was two because he was created male and female.” (Commentary on Genesis, II.12)
Concerning the Genesis 1 account, he emphasizes the wholeness of Eve, which does diverge some from Plato’s myth. Ephrem states that Eve was in Adam’s flesh, as well as in soul and spirit with Adam, “for God added nothing to that rib which he took out except the structure and the adornment.” (Commentary, I.29.2) “Everything,” he says, “that was suitable for Eve, who came to be from the rib, was complete from the rib alone.” Therefore we maybe would do better to view Adam and Eve indeed as two who were cleft apart from each other, but beings who were always integral and perfect in themselves. This is in contrast to the macabre tale of the Kugelmensch, who have deformed scars following their slicing in half. These scars Zeus directs Apollo to sew up, and so this strangely deformed flesh Apollo tucks into what becomes the human belly button. The Genesis 2 account gives us a beautiful image of God fashioning a flawless creation with His hands, neither Adam nor Eve lacking in form.
Conclusion: La Media Naranja
In Spanish the idiom for one’s other half is media naranja, or half-orange. Quite fitting, all things considered. And I would venture to say that the idea of your significant other being your “other half” comes directly from Plato’s myth, if not simply from the common human experience of our innate condition. Eusebius (4th century), funnily enough, accuses Plato of badly plagiarizing Moses (Praep. Ev. XII, 12:67), begrudging, “It is obvious he is not ignorant of the story,” (my translation) although he insists that that Plato does not understand the original sense or intention of the Genesis accounts.
So what is my point in drawing these parallels? My aim is not to hypothesize about the significance the adam‘s gender, or lack thereof. I also make no statements about a direction of dependence or the dating of either of these texts, even though my doctoral supervisor relishes finding Hellenistic influences in the Hebrew Bible. No, there must be something deeper in meaning, which goes beyond this kind of philological hair-splitting.
If we speak of erotic love in terms of searching for or treasuring our other half; if Scripture itself tells us that the original human was a dyadic being, containing both male and female; if generations of religious interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, have found profundity in this reality, what does that then tell us?
Modern individualistic society, like the American culture I come from, harps on about being self-sufficient, it prizes the individual. Current popular feminism would tell me, as the mother in the 2003 movie Freaky Friday says, “Remember, you are a smart, strong, beautiful, independent woman and you do not need a man to complete you.” Even wider Evangelical culture would emphasize the same ideas; usually it is married couples “exhorting” their single friends that they are indeed made whole in Christ, or some such. Regardless of whatever discourse we tune into: does it matter if an outside source tells me that I am complete, if my own understanding of my soul’s estate and my circumstance in life would say otherwise?
Ask the most fulfilled single person you know, who is also looking for their someone if they feel complete. Ask the newly married couple, trying for children and who have suffered a miscarriage if they feel complete. Ask the transplant from one country to another, when they are severed from their support system if they feel complete. God Himself said when He saw the earthling Adam, who was two in one, that it was expressly “not good for the human to be alone.” (Gen 2:18) And although this story of creation of humanity would seem to center around marriage or romantic love, what it carves out in the clearest block letters is a a stark statement on the inherently incomplete nature of humanity—made even worse after the Fall.
In spite of our cultural, theological, or ideological upbringings, we are all lacking. Any hard-won sense of fulfillment in any arena of our lives quickly fades or sours, and we are left with the gnawing sensation that we are incomplete. What is clear to us both in our souls and in Scripture is this—we need each other. We need communities built on mutual flourishing. I would personally declare that this can only be found when we are collectively striving toward some transcendental purpose. This is the True North, and this is the way to leave a legacy that lasts beyond our lifetimes.
And on that note, I’d like to thank—in alphabetical order—my conversation partners and inspiration for this topic: Doru, Georgios, Irini, Panayiota, Panteleimon. It takes a village to raise a child—or a baby Orthodox! Ευχαριστώ and mulțumesc!
Leslie Flores 