Cosmas Indicopleustes, on Gen 2:18

Why was it that, while all the irrational animals were created by God, male and female at the same time, man alone was not created with the female, but remained quite solitary until the female was made later on? To this enquirer I shall reply that since all the animals were created by God without either the gift of reason, or the capacity of knowing anything, while all the angels, the instant they were created, were rational and knew the Maker of all things from those things which had been produced, one by one, that is, in the six days, it was necessary that man who had been created by God possessed of reason, and as the bond uniting all the creation, should himself be taught to know the Creator of all; but since, as he was not the first but the last of all to be produced, he could neither from the things made before him, nor from himself know God, it was God's pleasure to produce the female not along with him, but afterwards out of him, that he might thereby know that he who had taken out from him a being like himself was his Creator. Wherefore also he threw him into a trance and a deep sleep, in order that by taking his rib from him without trouble and pain as in sleep, he might by the grace of God gain a perception of what had occurred, and celebrate the praises of his Maker, confessing and saying: This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh—she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. As then the angels had been created rational, and from the works produced in the six days had been taught to know him who was the cause of them, so of necessity man also was taught through the female, and learned that God was the Maker both of himself and of the universe; but especially as he had beforehand heard God say: Let us make a helpmeet for him.