Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 17 part 4/5

O man, using women in manly fashion—his wife temperately, his handmaid obediently, neither intemperately! [XXVI] After this Ishmael was born of Hagar, in whom he might think fulfilled that which had been promised to him, when he had wished to adopt to himself his own home-born servant, God saying: This one shall not be your heir; but he who shall come forth from you, he shall be your heir. Lest, then, he should think this promise fulfilled in the handmaid's son, now when he was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said to him: I am God; be pleasing in My sight, and be without fault, and I will set My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly. And Abram fell upon his face. And God spoke to him, saying:

As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations; and your name shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, because I have made you the father of many nations; and I will increase you exceedingly, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come forth from you; and I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, that I may be God to you and to your seed after you. And I will give to you and to your seed after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. And God said to Abraham: But you shall keep My covenant, you and your seed after you throughout their generations.

And this is the covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your seed after you throughout their generations: Every male among you shall be circumcised, and you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be for a sign of the covenant between Me and you. And a child of eight days shall be circumcised, every male among you throughout your generations. The home-born servant and the one bought with money from any son of a stranger, who is not of your seed, shall by circumcision be circumcised, the home-born of your house and the one bought with money. And My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male, who shall not circumcise the flesh of his foreskin on the eighth day, that soul shall perish from his kindred, because he has broken My covenant.

And God said to Abraham: As for Sarai your wife, her name shall not be called Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her, and will give you a son of her, and I will bless him, and he shall become nations, and kings of nations shall be of him. And Abraham fell upon his face and laughed, and said in his heart, saying: Shall a son be born to me who am a hundred years old? and shall Sarah, ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said to God: Let this Ishmael live in Your sight. But God said to Abraham: Yea, behold, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, to be God to him and to his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, behold, I have heard you;

behold, I have blessed him, and will enlarge him, and will multiply him exceedingly. Twelve nations shall he beget, and I will make him into a great nation. But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time in the following year. Here more openly are the promises concerning the calling of the nations in Isaac, that is, in the son of the promise, by whom is signified grace, not nature, because a son is promised from an old man and a barren old woman. For although God works even the natural course of procreation: yet where the work of God is evident, nature being vitiated and failing, there grace is more evidently understood. And because this was to be not through generation but through regeneration, therefore circumcision was now commanded, when a son was promised from Sarah.

And that He commands to be circumcised not only all the sons, but also the home-born servants and those bought with money, He testifies that this grace pertains to all. For what else does circumcision signify but nature renewed, having put off its oldness? And what else is the eighth day but Christ, who, the week being completed, that is, after the sabbath, rose again? The names too of the parents are changed: all things resound newness, and in the old testament the new is foreshadowed. For what is it that is called the old testament but the concealment of the new? And what else is that which is called the new but the revelation of the old? The laughter of Abraham is the exultation of one rejoicing, not the mockery of one distrusting. His words too, those in his heart:

Shall a son be born to me who am a hundred years old, and shall Sarah, ninety years old, bear?—are not those of one doubting, but of one marvelling. But if anyone is moved by that which was said—And I will give to you and to your seed after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession—how it is to be understood as fulfilled, or still to be awaited as to be fulfilled, since no earthly possession whatsoever can be everlasting to any nation: let him know that 'everlasting' is by our translators rendered for what the Greeks call aiōnion, which is derived from saeculum (age); for aiōn in Greek is called 'age.' But the Latins did not dare to say 'saeculare' (of an age) for this, lest they should send the sense far into something else.

For many things are called 'secular' (saecularia) which are so transacted in this age that they pass away even in a brief time; but that which is called aiōnion either has no end, or extends unto the end of this age. [XXVII] Likewise it can move one, how it ought to be understood which is here said: The male who shall not circumcise the flesh of his foreskin on the eighth day, that soul shall perish from his kindred, because he has broken My covenant—since this is no fault of the little one, whose soul He said would perish, nor did he himself break the covenant of God, but his elders, who did not take care to circumcise him;

unless because even the little ones, not according to the property of their own life, but according to the common origin of the human race, all broke the covenant of God in that one, in whom all sinned. For many things are called covenants of God, besides those two great ones, the old and the new, which anyone is permitted to learn by reading. But the first covenant, which was made with the first man, is assuredly this: In the day that you eat, you shall die the death. Whence it is written in the book which is called Ecclesiasticus: All flesh grows old like a garment. For the covenant from the beginning is: You shall die the death. For since the law was afterwards given more evidently, and the apostle says:

But where there is no law, neither is there transgression—in what way is that true which is read in the psalm: I esteemed all the sinners of the earth to be transgressors, unless because all are guilty of some transgressed law, who are held bound by any sin? Wherefore if even the little ones (which the true faith holds) are born sinners not properly but originally, whence we confess that the grace of the remission of sins is necessary for them: assuredly in that manner in which they are sinners, they are also recognized as transgressors of that law which was given in paradise; so that both are true which are written, both: I esteemed all the sinners of the earth to be transgressors, and: Where there is no law, neither is there transgression.

And by this, because circumcision was a sign of regeneration, and not without reason generation destroys the little one on account of original sin, by which the covenant of God was first broken, unless regeneration set him free: thus are these divine words to be understood, as though it were said: 'Whoever shall not have been regenerated, that soul shall perish from his kindred,' because he broke the covenant of God when in Adam he too sinned along with all. For if He had said, 'Because he has broken this covenant of Mine,' it would compel it to be understood of none but this circumcision; but now, since He did not express what kind of covenant the little one broke, it is free to understand it said of that covenant whose breaking could pertain to the little one.

But if anyone contends that this was said of none but that circumcision, namely that in it the little one, because he is not circumcised, has broken the covenant of God: let him seek some manner of speech by which it might not absurdly be understood that he therefore broke the covenant, because, though not by him, yet in him it was broken. But even so it must be observed that the soul of an uncircumcised little one perishes unjustly through no negligence of its own, except by the obligation of original sin. [XXVIII] The promise therefore having been made to Abraham so great and so clear, to whom it was most evidently said: I have made you the father of many nations; and I will increase you exceedingly, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come forth from you.

And I will give you a son of Sarah, and I will bless him, and he shall become nations, and kings of nations shall be of him (which promise we now discern to be rendered in Christ)—from that time onward those spouses are no longer called in the Scriptures, as before they were called, Abram and Sarai, but as we ourselves have called them from the beginning, since so they are now called by all, Abraham and Sarah. Now the reason why the name of Abraham was changed is given: Because I have made you, He says, the father of many nations. This therefore is to be understood to signify Abraham; but Abram, as he was called before, is interpreted 'exalted father.' As to the changed name of Sarah, however, the reason is not given;

but, as they say who have written the interpretations of the Hebrew names contained in these sacred writings, Sarai is interpreted 'my princess,' but Sarah 'virtue.' Whence it is written in the epistle to the Hebrews: By faith Sarah herself received virtue for the emission of seed. For both were elderly, as Scripture testifies; but she was also barren and already destitute of the menstrual flow, on account of which she could no longer bear, even if she had not been barren. Moreover, if a woman be of such advanced age that the customary things of women still flow in her, she can bear from a young man, but not from an old one;

although that old man might still be able, yet to beget from a young woman, just as Abraham after the death of Sarah was able to beget from Keturah, because he found her age vigorous. This therefore is what the apostle commends as marvellous, and for this reason he says that Abraham's body was already as good as dead, since from no woman, to whom there was still some last time for bearing, could he himself at that age still generate. For we ought to understand the body dead in respect to something, not in respect to all things. For if in respect to all things, it is no longer the old age of a living man, but the corpse of a dead one. Although this question is also wont to be solved thus, that Abraham afterwards begot from Keturah, because the gift of begetting, which he received from the Lord, remained even after the death of his wife.

But for this reason that solution of this question which we have followed seems to me preferable, because a centenarian old man—one of our own time, that is—can beget from no woman; not so then, when men still lived so long that a hundred years did not yet make a man of decrepit old age. [XXIX] Likewise God appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre in three men, whom it is not to be doubted were angels; although some think that one among them was the Lord Christ, asserting that even before the garment of the flesh He was visible.

It belongs indeed to the divine power, and to a nature invisible, incorporeal, and unchangeable, to appear even to mortal sight without any change of itself, not through that which it is, but through something that is subject to it; and what is not subject to it? Yet if for this reason they affirm that one of these three was Christ, because, when he had seen three, Abraham addressed the Lord in the singular (for so it is written: 'And behold, three men stood over him, and seeing them he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and he bowed himself to the earth and said: Lord, if I have found grace before thee,' and the rest):

why then do they not also notice this, that two of them came to destroy the men of Sodom, while Abraham was still speaking to one, calling him Lord and interceding that he would not destroy the just together with the wicked in Sodom? Those two, moreover, Lot received in such a way that he too, in conversing with them, addressed the Lord in the singular. For when he had said to them in the plural, 'Behold, my lords, turn aside into the house of your servant,' and the rest that is said there, yet afterward it is thus read: 'And the angels took hold of his hand, and the hand of his wife, and the hands of his two daughters, in that the Lord spared him. And it came to pass, as soon as they had brought him forth outside, that they said: Save thy own soul; look not back, nor stay in all the region round about;

escape to the mountain, lest thou be overtaken.' But Lot said to them: 'I pray thee, Lord, since thy servant hath found mercy before thee,' and what follows. Then after these words the Lord also answers him in the singular, though he was present in the two angels, saying: 'Behold, I have had regard to thy face,' and the rest. Whence it is far more credible that both Abraham in the three and Lot in the two men recognized the Lord, to whom they spoke in the singular number, even while they supposed them to be men; for they received them for no other reason than to minister to them as to mortals in need of human refreshment;

but there was assuredly something by which they so excelled, though appearing as men, that those who showed them hospitality could not doubt that the Lord was in them, as he is wont to be in the prophets; and therefore they addressed both the men themselves sometimes in the plural, and the Lord in them sometimes in the singular. But that they were angels Scripture testifies, not only in this book of Genesis, where these deeds are narrated, but also in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where, as hospitality was being commended, it says: 'By this some, unaware, have received angels as guests.' Through these three men, then, when again a son of Isaac was promised to Abraham by Sarah, a divine response of this kind was also given, that it might be said:

'Abraham shall become a great and numerous nation, and in him shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' And here those two promises, most briefly and most fully, are given: the nation of Israel according to the flesh, and all the nations according to faith. After this promise, when Lot had been delivered from Sodom and a fiery rain came down from heaven, that whole region of the impious city was turned to ashes, where the abomination of men with men had prevailed into such a habit as the laws are wont to grant license for other deeds. But this punishment of theirs too was a specimen of the future divine judgment.

For what does it signify that those who were being delivered by the angels were forbidden to look back, except that we must not in mind return to the old life, from which one is stripped when regenerated by grace, if we intend to escape the final judgment? Finally Lot's wife, at the point where she looked back, remained fixed, and being turned into salt provided to faithful men a certain seasoning, that they might have some taste whereby to beware of that example. Then again Abraham did at Gerar, before Abimelech the king of that city, what he had done in Egypt concerning his wife, and she was likewise restored to him untouched. There indeed Abraham, when the king reproached him for having been silent that she was his wife and having called her his sister, disclosing what he had feared, also added this:

'For indeed she is my sister by my father, but not by my mother, for she was Abraham's sister by his father, being related to him thereby.' She was moreover of such beauty that she could still be desired even at that age. After these things a son was born to Abraham according to the promise of God by Sarah, and he named him Isaac, which is interpreted 'laughter.' For the father too had laughed when he was promised to him, marveling in his joy; and the mother too had laughed when he was again promised through those three men, doubting in her joy; and although rebuked by the angel because that laughter, even if it was of joy, was nevertheless not of full faith, she was afterward confirmed in faith by the same angel. From this, then, the boy received his name.

For that this laughter pertained not to the reproach of mockery but to the celebration of joy, Sarah showed when Isaac was born and called by that name; for she said: 'The Lord hath made laughter for me; for whoever shall hear will rejoice with me.' But after a little while 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, wherein that Sarah bears the figure of the Jerusalem above, that is, of the City of God. Amid these things—all of which it would be too long to recount—Abraham is tempted concerning the offering up of his most beloved son Isaac himself, that his devout obedience might be proved, to be brought to the knowledge of the ages, not of God.

For not every temptation is to be blamed, since that by which proof is made is even to be welcomed with gratitude. And for the most part the human mind cannot become known to itself except by answering, as it were, to an interrogating temptation, its own powers, not by word but by experience; and there, if it acknowledges the gift of God, then it is devout, then it is made solid by the firmness of grace, not puffed up by the emptiness of boasting. Assuredly Abraham would never have believed that God delighted in human victims; yet, when the divine precept thundered, obedience was owed, not disputation. Nevertheless Abraham is to be praised for having believed at once that his son, after being sacrificed, would rise again.

For God had said to him, when he was unwilling to fulfill his wife's desire concerning the casting out of the handmaid and her son: 'In Isaac shall thy seed be called.' And there indeed it 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 called Ishmael too his seed? But the Apostle, explaining what this means, 'In Isaac shall thy seed be called,' says: 'That is, not they who are the children of the flesh, these are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.' And through this the children of the promise, that they may be the seed of Abraham, are called in Isaac, that is, are gathered in Christ by calling grace.

Holding this promise, then, faithfully as a devout father, since through this son it had to be fulfilled, whom God commanded to be slain, he did not hesitate that the one sacrificed could be restored to him, who could be given though not hoped for. So it was understood also in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and so expounded. 'By faith,' it says, 'Abraham, when tempted, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only-begotten, 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 adds: 'Wherefore he received him also for a parable.' Whose parable, if not of him of whom the Apostle says: 'He who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all'?

For this reason Isaac too, just as the Lord carried his own cross, so himself carried to the place of sacrifice the wood upon which he was also to be laid. Finally, since Isaac was not to be slain, after the father was forbidden to strike, what was that ram, by whose immolation the sacrifice was fulfilled with significative blood? Surely, when Abraham saw it, it was held by the 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 Scripture says: 'And Abraham stretched forth his hand to take the sword, that he might slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said: Abraham! And he said: Here am I. And he said:

You shall not lay your hand upon the boy, nor do anything to him; for now I have known that you fear your God, and have not spared your beloved son for my sake.' 'Now I have known' is said for 'now I have caused it to be known'; for God did not not-yet know this. Then, after that ram had been sacrificed in place of his son Isaac, Abraham called, as it is read, the name of that place: 'The Lord saw'; so that they say to this day: 'On the mountain the Lord appeared.' Just as it was said, 'Now I have known,' for 'now I have caused it to be known,' so here 'the Lord saw,' for 'the Lord appeared,' that is, caused himself to be seen. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, saying:

'By myself have I sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not spared your beloved son for my sake, that in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is by the shore of the sea. And your seed shall possess by inheritance the cities of the adversaries, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.' In this manner that promise concerning the calling of the nations in the seed of Abraham—after the holocaust by which Christ was signified—was confirmed even by the oath of God. For often he had promised, but never had sworn. And what is the oath of the true and truthful God but the confirmation of the promise and a certain rebuke of the unbelieving?

After these things Sarah died, in the hundred and twenty-seventh year of her life, and in the hundred and thirty-seventh of her husband. For she was ten years his junior in age; as he himself, when a son was promised to him by her, says: 'If to me at a hundred years old 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 indeed, according to Stephen's account, 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.

Then Isaac took to wife Rebecca, granddaughter of Nahor his uncle, when he was forty years old—namely in the hundred and fortieth year of his father's life, three years after his mother's death. But that he might take her, when the servant was sent to her father in Mesopotamia, what else was signified, when Abraham said to that same servant: 'Put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord God of heaven and the Lord of earth, that you take not a wife for my son Isaac from the daughters of the Canaanites'—what else, but that the Lord God of heaven and the Lord of earth was to come in the flesh, which was drawn from that thigh? Are these small tokens of the foretold truth, which we see fulfilled in Christ?

But what does it mean that Abraham, after Sarah's death, took Keturah to wife? Far be it that we should suspect incontinence, especially at that age and in that holiness of faith. Or were children still being sought to be begotten, when already, God promising, so great a multiplication of children from Isaac—through the stars of heaven and the sand of the earth—was held by a most approved faith? But surely, if Hagar and Ishmael, on the Apostle's teaching, signified the carnal ones of the Old Testament, why should not Keturah and her sons also signify the carnal ones who think themselves to belong to the New Testament? For both are called both wives of Abraham and concubines; but Sarah was never called a concubine.

For when Hagar was given to Abraham, it is thus written: 'And Sarai, Abram's wife, 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 him for a wife.' But concerning Keturah, whom he took after Sarah's death, it is thus read: 'And Abraham, adding again, took a wife, whose name was Keturah.' Behold, both are called wives; both moreover are found to have been concubines, since Scripture afterward says: 'And Abraham gave all his substance to Isaac his son; but 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 have therefore some 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 they who are the children of the flesh, these are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed,' of which it was said, 'In Isaac shall thy seed be called.' For I do not see why Keturah too, taken after his wife's death, should be called a concubine except for the sake of this mystery. But whoever will not accept these things in these significations, let him not slander Abraham. For what if this too was provided against the heretics to come, 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 no sin?

And Abraham died, being a hundred and seventy-five years old. He therefore left his son Isaac, whom he begot at a hundred, seventy-five years old. Now from this 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 to his sixtieth, in which sons were born to him, this is memorable: that when the Lord had granted to him, praying that his wife, who was barren, might bear, what he asked, and she had conceived, the twins, still enclosed in her womb, struggled together. When she was distressed by this trouble, she inquired of the Lord and received the answer:

'Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall be divided from your belly, and one people shall overcome the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger.' This the Apostle Paul wishes to be understood as a great proof of grace, because, before they were yet born and had done anything good or evil, without any good merits the younger is chosen and the elder rejected; whereas, without doubt, as regards original sin, both were equal, but as regards personal sin, neither of them had any. But now the plan of the work I have undertaken does not permit me to say anything more at length on this matter, whereof we have already said much in other places. But as to what was said, 'The elder shall serve the younger,' scarcely any of our writers has understood it otherwise than that the greater people of the Jews should serve the lesser Christian people.