Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 3 part 55/87

For indeed she is my sister by my father, but not by my mother, since she was Abraham's sister by his father, by whom she was his kinswoman. Now she was of such beauty that even at that age she could be loved with desire. CHAPTER XXXI. On Isaac, born according to the promise, to whom a name was given from the laughter of both parents. After these things a son was born to Abraham from Sarah according to God's promise, and he named him Isaac, which is interpreted 'laughter.' For the father too had laughed when the son was promised him, marveling in joy; and the mother too had laughed when through those three men he was again promised, doubting amid joy;

although the angel reproved her, because that laughter, even if it was of joy, was nevertheless not of full faith; afterward she was confirmed in faith by the same angel. From this therefore the boy received his name. For that the laughter belonged not to derisive reproach but to the celebration of joy, Sarah showed when Isaac was born and called by that name; for she said: God has made laughter for me; for whoever shall hear will rejoice with me. But after a little time the handmaid is cast out of the house with her son, and those two testaments according to the apostle are signified, the old and the new, where Sarah bears the figure of the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, of the city of God. CHAPTER XXXII.

On the obedience and faith of Abraham, who was proved by the offering of his son for sacrifice, and on the death of Sarah. Among these events, all of which it would be too long to recount, Abraham is tested concerning the sacrificing of his most beloved son Isaac himself, that his pious obedience might be proved—to be made known to the ages, not to God. For not every testing is to be blamed, since that by which proof is made is even to be welcomed. And for the most part the human mind cannot become known to itself except by responding, not in word but in deed, to its own powers when a testing in some manner questions it; and there, if it acknowledges God's gift, then it is pious, then it is made solid by the firmness of grace, not puffed up by the emptiness of boasting.

Abraham assuredly would never have believed that God was delighted with human victims; although when the divine command thunders forth, it must be obeyed, not disputed. Yet nevertheless Abraham is to be praised because he believed that his son, when he had been sacrificed, would rise again. For God had said to him, when he was unwilling to fulfill his wife's will concerning the casting out of the handmaid and her son: In Isaac shall thy seed be called. And there it certainly follows and is said: But the son of this handmaid also I will make into a great nation, because he is thy seed. How then was it said: In Isaac shall thy seed be called, when God also called Ishmael his seed? But the apostle, expounding what this means, In Isaac shall thy seed be called:

That is, he says, not those who are children of the flesh, these are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. And by this the children of the promise, that they may be Abraham's seed, are called in Isaac, that is, are gathered together in Christ by calling grace. Holding therefore this promise faithfully, the pious father—because through him whom God commanded to be slain it was to be fulfilled—did not hesitate, believing that he who could be given when unhoped-for could be restored to him when sacrificed. So it was understood also in the epistle to the Hebrews, and so expounded. By faith, it says, Abraham, when tested, presented Isaac, and offered up his only son, he who had received the promises, to whom it was said: In Isaac shall thy seed be called, reckoning that God is able to raise up even from the dead. Accordingly it added:

For this reason he received him back also as a figure; whose figure, if not of him concerning whom the apostle says: Who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all? Therefore Isaac too, just as the Lord carried his own cross, so himself carried the wood to the place of the victim, the wood on which he was to be laid. Finally, since Isaac was not to be slain, after the father was forbidden to strike, who was that ram by whose sacrifice the sacrifice was fulfilled with significant blood? Indeed, when Abraham saw it, it was held by its horns in a thicket. Whom then did it figure, if not Jesus, before he was sacrificed, crowned with Jewish thorns? But let us rather hear the divine words through the angel. For the Scripture says:

And Abraham stretched out his hand to take the knife, that he might slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said: Abraham! And he said: Behold, here am I. And he said: Lay not thy hand upon the boy, neither do thou anything to him; for now I have known that thou fearest thy God, and hast not spared thy beloved son for my sake. 'Now I have known' is said for 'now I have caused it to be known'; for God did not as yet not know this. Then, when that ram had been sacrificed for Isaac his son, Abraham called, as it is read, the name of that place: The Lord saw; so that they say today: On the mountain the Lord appeared. Just as it was said: Now I have known, in place of what is 'now I have caused it to be known':

so here 'the Lord saw' is in place of what is 'the Lord appeared,' that is, 'caused himself to be seen.' And the angel of the Lord called Abraham a second time from heaven, saying: By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because thou hast done this thing and hast not spared thy beloved son for my sake, surely in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is by the lip of the sea. And thy seed shall possess by inheritance the cities of the adversaries, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. In this way is that promise concerning the calling of the nations in the seed of Abraham, after the holocaust by which Christ was signified, confirmed also by God's oath.

For he had often promised, but had never sworn. But what is the oath of the true and truthful God except the confirmation of his promise and a certain rebuke of the unbelieving? After these things Sarah died, in the one hundred twenty-seventh year of her life, but in the one hundred thirty-seventh of her husband's. For she preceded him in age by ten years, just as he himself said, when a son was promised him from her: If to me at a hundred years a son shall be born, and if Sarah at ninety years shall bear. Then Abraham bought a field in which he buried his wife. Then therefore, according to Stephen's narration, he was settled in that land, since he began there to be a possessor; namely after the death of his father, who is reckoned to have died two years before.

CHAPTER XXXIII. On Rebecca, granddaughter of Nahor, whom Isaac took as wife. Then Isaac, when he was forty years old, took as wife Rebecca, granddaughter of his uncle Nahor, namely in the one hundred fortieth year of his father's life, three years after his mother's death. Now in order that he might take her, when the servant was sent by her father into Mesopotamia, what else was shown, when Abraham said to that same servant: Put thy hand under my thigh, and I will adjure thee by the Lord God of heaven and the Lord of the earth, that thou take not a wife for my son Isaac from the daughters of the Canaanites—except that the Lord God of heaven and the Lord of the earth was to come in the flesh which was drawn from that thigh?

Are these small indications of the foretold truth which we see fulfilled in Christ? CHAPTER XXXIV. What is to be understood in this, that Abraham after Sarah's death took Keturah as wife. But what does it mean, that Abraham after Sarah's death married Keturah? Here let it be far from us to suspect incontinence, especially at that age and in that holiness of faith. Or were children still being sought to be procreated, when already, by God's promise, so great a multiplication of children through Isaac—through the stars of heaven and the sand of the earth—was held by faith most fully proved?

But surely if Hagar and Ishmael, with the apostle as teacher, signified the carnal people of the old testament, why should not Keturah and her sons also signify the carnal ones who suppose themselves to belong to the new testament? For both are called both wives and concubines of Abraham; but Sarah was never called a concubine. For even when Hagar was given to Abraham, it is thus written: And Sarah the wife of Abram took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after ten years that Abram had dwelt in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife. But concerning Keturah, whom he took after Sarah's death, it is thus read: But Abraham, adding, took a wife whose name was Keturah. Behold, both are called wives;

and furthermore both are found to have been concubines, since the Scripture afterward says: But Abraham gave all his substance to Isaac his son, and to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, to the east, into the land of the east. The sons of the concubines therefore have certain gifts, but they do not attain to the promised kingdom—neither the heretics nor the carnal Jews—because besides Isaac there is no heir, and not those who are children of the flesh, these are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed, concerning which it was said: In Isaac shall thy seed be called. For I do not see why Keturah too, taken after the wife's death, should be called a concubine, except on account of this mystery.

But whoever does not wish to take these things in these significations, let him not slander Abraham. For what if this too was provided against the future heretics, the opponents of second marriages, so that in the very father of many nations it might be shown that to marry again after a spouse's death is not a sin? And Abraham died, when he was a hundred and seventy-five years old. He left therefore Isaac his son at seventy-five years old, whom he had begotten at a hundred. CHAPTER XXXV. What the divine response indicated concerning the twins yet enclosed in the womb of their mother Rebecca. Now from this point let us see how through the descendants of Abraham the times of the city of God run on.

From the first year of Isaac's life therefore up to the sixtieth, in which sons were born to him, this is memorable: that, when the Lord had granted to Isaac, who was praying that his wife who was barren might bear, what he asked, and when she had conceived, the twins yet enclosed in her womb struggled. When she was distressed by this trouble, she questioned the Lord and received the answer: Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be separated from thy belly, and people shall overcome people, and the elder shall serve the younger. Which Paul the apostle wishes to be understood as a great document of grace, because, while they were not yet born nor had done anything good or evil, without any good merits the younger is chosen and the elder rejected;

when without doubt, as far as concerns original sin, both were equal; but as far as concerns personal sin, neither of them had any. But the plan of the work I have undertaken does not permit me now to say anything more at length on this matter, whereof I have already said much in other places. But what was said: The elder shall serve the younger, almost none of our writers has understood otherwise than that the greater people of the Jews would serve the lesser Christian people. And in very truth, although this might seem fulfilled in the nation of the Edomites, which was born of the elder—who had two names (for he was called both Esau and Edom, whence the Idumeans)—because it was afterward to be overcome by the people which sprang from the younger, that is, the Israelite, and was to be subjected to it:

nevertheless it is more fittingly believed that this prophecy, by which it was said: People shall overcome people and the elder shall serve the younger, aimed at something greater. And what is this, except that which is evidently fulfilled in the Jews and the Christians? CHAPTER XXXVI. On the oracle and blessing which Isaac received in no other way than his own father, beloved for the merit of that same father. Isaac too received such an oracle as his father had several times received. Concerning which oracle it is thus written: But there came a famine upon the land besides the famine that had come before in the time of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines in Gerar. And the Lord appeared to him and said: Go not down into Egypt;

but dwell in the land which I shall tell thee, and sojourn in this land; and I will be with thee and will bless thee. For to thee and to thy seed I will give all this land, and I will establish my oath which I swore to Abraham thy father; and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and I will give to thy seed all this land, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because Abraham thy father obeyed my voice and kept my precepts and my commandments and my justifications and my ordinances. This patriarch had neither another wife nor any concubine, but was content with the posterity of the two twins begotten from a single intercourse.

He too indeed feared danger because of his wife's beauty, when he was dwelling among strangers, and he did what his father had done, that he should call her his sister and conceal that she was his wife; for she was his kinswoman both by paternal and by maternal blood; but she too remained untouched by the strangers, when it was known that she was his wife. Yet we ought not on that account to prefer this man to his father, because this man knew no woman besides his one wife. For without doubt the merits of his father's faith and obedience were greater, so much so that on account of him God says that he does for this man the good things which he does.

In thy seed, he says, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because Abraham thy father obeyed my voice and kept my precepts and my commandments and my justifications and my ordinances; and again in another oracle: I am, he says, the God of Abraham thy father, fear not; for I am with thee and have blessed thee and will multiply thy seed for the sake of Abraham thy father; so that we may understand how chastely Abraham acted in what shameless men, seeking from the holy Scriptures patronage for their own wickedness, suppose him to have done out of lust; and then that we may also know this, not to compare men with one another by individual goods, but to consider in each one the whole.

For it can happen that someone has something in his life and morals by which he surpasses another, and that this is far more excellent than that in which he is surpassed by the other. And by this, by sound and true judgment, although continence is preferred to marriage, nevertheless a faithful married man is better than an unbelieving continent one. But the unbelieving man is not only less to be praised, but even most to be detested. Let us suppose both good; even so, assuredly the most faithful and most obedient married man is better than a continent one of lesser faith and lesser obedience. But if other things are equal, who would doubt that the continent man is to be preferred to the married one? CHAPTER XXXVII. On those things which were mystically prefigured in Esau and Jacob.

Isaac's two sons Esau and Jacob therefore grow up together. The birthright of the elder is transferred to the younger by a pact and agreement between them, in that the elder immoderately craved the lentils, the food which the younger had prepared, and at that price sold his birthright to his brother with an oath interposed. Here we learn that in eating a man is to be blamed not for the kind of food but for immoderate greed. Isaac grows old and the sight of his eyes is taken away by old age. He wishes to bless the elder son and, not knowing it, blesses the younger in place of him, who in place of the elder brother, who was hairy, places himself under his father's hands, having fitted to himself little kidskins as though bearing another's sins.

Lest this guile of Jacob be thought a fraudulent guile, and lest no mystery of a great matter be sought in it, the Scripture above had foretold: And Esau was a man skilled in hunting, a man of the field; but Jacob was a simple man, dwelling at home. This some of ours have interpreted as 'without guile.' But whether it be said 'without guile' or 'simple' or rather 'without pretense,' which is in Greek 'aplastos': what is the guile, in receiving this blessing, of a man without guile? What is the guile of a simple man, what the pretense of one not lying, except the profound mystery of truth? But of what kind is the blessing itself? Behold, he says, the smell of my son is as the smell of a full field which the Lord has blessed.

And may God give thee of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, and abundance of grain and wine; and let the nations serve thee, and let princes adore thee, and be thou lord of thy brother, and let the sons of thy father adore thee. Whoever curses thee, cursed; and whoever blesses thee, blessed. The blessing of Jacob, therefore, is the proclamation of Christ among all nations. This comes to pass, this is being done. The Law and prophecy is Isaac; even through the mouth of the Jews Christ is blessed by it, as by one unknowing, because it itself is not known. With the fragrance of Christ's name, like a field, the world is filled; his is the blessing of the dew of heaven, that is, of the rain of divine words, and of the fatness of the earth, that is, the gathering of peoples;

his is the abundance of grain and wine, that is, the multitude which grain and wine gathers together in the sacrament of his body and blood. The nations serve him, princes adore him; he is the lord of his brother, because his people rules over the Jews; the sons of his father adore him, that is, the sons of Abraham according to faith, because he himself is also the son of Abraham according to the flesh; whoever curses him is cursed, and whoever blesses him is blessed. Christ, I say, our Christ is blessed even from the mouth of the Jews, who, though erring, nevertheless chant the Law and the prophets—that is, he is truly spoken of; and another is supposed to be blessed, who is awaited by those who err.

Behold, when the elder returns demanding the promised blessing, Isaac is terrified, and recognizes that he has blessed one in place of the other; he marvels and inquires who that one might be; yet he does not complain that he has been deceived; rather, immediately, when the great sacrament had been revealed to him within in his heart, he puts away indignation, he confirms the blessing. Who then, he says, hunted game for me and brought it to me, and I ate of all before thou camest? and I blessed him, and let him be blessed. Who here would not rather expect the curse of an angry man, if these things had been done not by heavenly inspiration but in earthly fashion? Not deeds done, but done prophetically; on earth, but from heaven; through men, but divinely!

If individual points so fruitful in such great mysteries were to be examined, many volumes would have to be filled; but the measure to be moderately imposed on this work compels us to hasten on to other things. CHAPTER XXXVIII. On Jacob sent into Mesopotamia to receive a wife, and on the vision which he dreamed on the way, and on his four women, when he had sought one wife. Jacob is sent by his parents into Mesopotamia, that he might take a wife there. The words of the father sending him are these: Thou shalt not take a wife from the daughters of the Canaanites; arise, flee into Mesopotamia, into the house of Bethuel, the father of thy mother, and take thee thence a wife of the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother. And may my God bless thee and increase thee and multiply thee; and thou shalt become assemblies of nations;

and may he give thee the blessing of Abraham thy father, to thee and to thy seed after thee, that thou mayest become heir of the land of thy sojourning, which God gave to Abraham. Here we now understand the seed of Jacob separated from the other seed of Isaac, which came to be through Esau. For when it was said: In Isaac shall thy seed be called—the seed pertaining indeed to the city of God—from there was separated the other seed of Abraham, which was in the handmaid's son, and that which was to be in the sons of Keturah. But as yet it was ambiguous concerning the two twin sons of Isaac, whether that blessing pertained to both or to one of them; and if to one, which of them it was. Which now has been declared, when Jacob is prophetically blessed by his father and it is said to him:

And thou shalt become assemblies of nations, and may he give thee the blessing of Abraham thy father. Journeying therefore into Mesopotamia, Jacob received an oracle in his sleep, concerning which it is thus written: And Jacob went out from the well of the oath and set out for Haran, and came to a place and slept there; for the sun had set; and he took of the stones of the place and put them at his head and slept in that place and dreamed. And behold, a ladder set firmly upon the earth, whose top reached to heaven; and the angels of God ascended and descended by it, and the Lord leaned upon it and said: I am the God of Abraham thy father and the God of Isaac, fear not; the land on which thou sleepest, I will give it to thee and to thy seed;

and thy seed shall be as the sand of the earth, and it shall spread abroad to the sea and to the south and to the north and to the east; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed. And behold, I am with thee, keeping thee in every way wherever thou goest, and I will bring thee back into this land, for I will not forsake thee, until I do all the things which I have spoken to thee. And Jacob rose from his sleep and said: Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid and said: How terrible is this place! this is nothing else but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose and took the stone which he had placed there under his head, and set it up as a pillar and poured oil upon its top; and Jacob called the name of that place:

the house of God. This pertains to prophecy; nor did Jacob pour oil on the stone after the manner of idolatry, as though making it a god; for he neither adored that stone nor sacrificed to it; but since the name of Christ is from chrism, that is, from anointing, assuredly something was figured here which pertains to a great sacrament. As for that ladder, it is understood that the Savior himself recalls it to our memory in the gospel, where, when he had said of Nathanael: Behold a true Israelite, in whom is no guile—because Israel had seen that vision (for he is Jacob)—in the same place he says: Amen, amen, I say to you, you shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

Jacob therefore went into Mesopotamia, that he might receive a wife from there. But how it came about that he had four women, by whom he begot twelve sons and one daughter, though he had unlawfully desired none of them, the divine Scripture indicates. For he had come to take one; but when another had been substituted for the one, he did not put even her away, whom he had unknowingly used in the night, lest he might seem to have had her in mockery; and at that time, when no law forbade more wives for the sake of multiplying posterity, he took also that one to whom alone he had already given the pledge of future marriage. And when she was barren, she gave to her husband her handmaid, from whom she herself might receive sons;

which the elder sister also, although she had borne children, imitated, since she desired to multiply offspring, and did the same. Jacob is read to have sought none except one, nor to have used many save for the office of begetting offspring, the conjugal right being preserved, so that he would not have done even this, unless his wives had demanded it to be done, who had the lawful power over their husband's body. He begot therefore twelve sons and one daughter from four women. Then he entered into Egypt through his son Joseph, who, sold by his envious brothers, was led thither and there exalted. CHAPTER XXXIX. What was the reason that Jacob was also surnamed Israel.

Now Jacob was also called Israel, as I said a little before, which name the people procreated from him rather obtained. But this name was imposed on him by the angel who had wrestled with him on the way as he was returning from Mesopotamia, most evidently bearing the type of Christ. For the fact that Jacob prevailed over him—over one willing, of course, that he might figure the mystery—signifies the passion of Christ, where the Jews seemed to prevail over him. And yet he obtained the blessing from that same angel whom he had overcome; and so the imposition of this name was a blessing. Now Israel is interpreted 'seeing God,' which will be at the end the reward of all the saints.

Moreover that same angel touched, as it were of one prevailing, the breadth of his thigh, and in this manner made him lame. And so one and the same Jacob was both blessed and lame: blessed in those of that same people who believed in Christ, and lame in the unbelieving. For the breadth of the thigh is the multitude of the race. For there are many in that stock concerning whom it was prophetically foretold: And they have gone lame from their paths. CHAPTER XL. How Jacob is narrated to have entered Egypt with seventy-five souls, although most of those who are mentioned were born at a later time. Seventy-five persons therefore are reported to have entered into Egypt together with Jacob himself, he being counted along with his sons.

In which number only two women are mentioned, one a daughter, the other a granddaughter. But the matter, diligently considered, does not indicate that so great a number existed in Jacob's progeny on the day or in the year in which he entered Egypt. For there are mentioned among them even the great-grandsons of Joseph, who by no means could have existed as yet, since Jacob was then a hundred and thirty years old, but his son Joseph thirty-nine; and since it is established that he had taken a wife in his thirtieth year or later, how could he have great-grandsons within nine years from the sons whom he received from that same wife?

Since therefore Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph, did not yet have sons, but Jacob when entering Egypt found them as boys less than nine years old, in what manner are not only their sons but even their grandsons numbered among those seventy-five who then entered Egypt with Jacob? For there is mentioned there Machir, son of Manasseh, grandson of Joseph, and the son of that same Machir, that is, Gilead, grandson of Manasseh, great-grandson of Joseph; there is also he whom Ephraim, the other son of Joseph, begot, that is, Utalaam, grandson of Joseph, and the son of that same Utalaam, Edem, grandson of Ephraim, great-grandson of Joseph; who by no means could have existed when Jacob came into Egypt and found the sons of Joseph, his grandsons, the grandfathers of these, as boys less than nine years old.