For Adam was first formed, then Eve. — The Holy Spirit seems often (comp. especially Galatians 3:16 and following verses, and 4:22 and following verses, and 1 Corinthians 10:1-10) to have moved St. Paul to weave into the tapestry of his arguments and exhortations to the different churches, facts and principles drawn from Old Testament history. His early training in the great Rabbinical schools of Jerusalem had well supplied him with a vast store of this Old Testament learning.
The argument here based on priority of creation is much assisted by the additional statement of 1 Corinthians 11:9, “neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.” This teaching of St. Paul’s respecting the public position of woman as regards man, in which he shows that she is to hold a subordinate place — is based upon no arbitrary human speculation, but upon God’s original order in creation — that divine order which first created man, and after man’s creation, formed woman as his helpmeet.