Original Solitude. Xxxx Xxxx identifies within the Genesis creation texts three original states which determine man’s condition: solitude, unity, and nakedness without shame. The concept of original solitude is introduced early in his catechesis (TOB 5:1) with thirty-two entries in total.138 The xxxx reads man’s solitude before God as having two meanings: ‘one deriving from man’s very nature, that is, from his humanity [...] and the other deriving from the relationship between male and female’ (TOB 5:2). In the earlier Yahwist story of Genesis 2, man experiences himself as in some sense alone within abundant creation. Man’s consciousness139 of his difference is marked and confirmed by his being the only creature capable of cultivating the land (cf. Gen. 2:5). This is an inter-textual link to Genesis 1:28 where man was mandated by God to ‘fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over’ all living creatures. As intentional transformation of the land is a specifically human activity, and as God enjoined man to work the land, this capacity for work is part of the meaning of his own bodiliness (TOB 6:4). Man comes to knowledge of his own solitude when carrying out his first divine task: naming the other creatures (Gen. 2:19). Xxxx Xxxx sees this task as one amounting to a ‘test’ by 136 Loughlin, "Nuptial Mysteries," 191. 137 Ibid., 188. 138 Waldstein, index: Original solitude. 139 Man is here to be understood as human rather than as male. The first man is only defined as male after the woman is created (Gen. 2:21-22). See TOB 5:2. God (cf. TOB 5:4) as it takes place after the conditions of the covenant have been set; that is, that he will till and keep the garden and forbear to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:15-17). Man passes this test as he realises through the knowledge he gains of the animals that he differs from them all in a profound way. The task of naming the animals functions as a means by which man is guided towards self-knowledge (TOB 5:6). Confirmation that he was learning correctly is marked by God’s accepting the names the man gives; names which, it is inferred, indicate each animal’s ‘specific “differentia”’ (TOB 5:6). It is in gaining knowledge of the world of creatures man learns that there is no creature like himself. This consciousness of his difference is detectable visibly.140 Although the biblical text does not explicitly speak of man’s body, it is ‘precisely as a body among bodies’ (TOB 6:3) that man arrives at his own self-...
