Book 1 · Section 45

(45) Why God asks Adam, "Where art thou?" when he knows everything: and why he does not also put the same question to the woman? (#Ge 3:10). The expression, "Where art thou?" does not here seem to be a mere interrogatory, but rather a threat and a conviction: "Where art thou now, O man? from how many good things art thou changed? having forsaken immortality and a life of the most perfect happiness, you have become changed to death and misery in which you are buried." But God did not condescend to put any question to the woman at all, looking upon her as the cause of the evil which had occurred, and as the guide to her husband to a life of shame. But there is an allegorical meaning in this passage, because the principal part is the man, his guide, the mind, having in itself the masculine principle, when it gives ear to any one introduces also the defect of the female part, namely that of the outward sense.