Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 3 part 53/87

For in this way one could be mentioned first who was later in age, just as before were mentioned the sons begotten of Japheth—of the three sons of Noah—who was the youngest of them; then the sons of Ham, who was the middle one; lastly the sons of Shem, who was the first and greatest. Of those nations, however, the names partly remained, so that even today it appears whence they were derived—as from Asshur the Assyrians, and from Heber the Hebrews; partly they have been changed through the antiquity of time, so that scarcely the most learned men, scrutinizing the most ancient histories, have been able to find the origins, not of all, but of some of these nations. For as to the Egyptians being said to have arisen from Ham's son who was called Mizraim, no origin of the name resounds here;

just as neither of the Ethiopians, who are said to pertain to that son of Ham who was called Cush. And if all things be considered, more names appear changed than remaining. Chapter XII. On the point of time in Abraham, from whom a new order of holy succession is woven. Now let us at length consider the course of the city of God also from that point of time which occurred in the patriarch Abraham, whence the knowledge of it begins to be more evident, and where clearer divine promises are read, which we now see being fulfilled in Christ. As then, with holy Scripture pointing it out, we have learned, Abraham was born in the region of the Chaldeans, which land pertained to the Assyrian kingdom.

But among the Chaldeans even then impious superstitions already prevailed, just as among the other nations. There was therefore one house, that of Terah, from whom Abraham was born, in which the worship of the one true God remained, and—as far as is credible—in which alone also the Hebrew language already remained (although he himself, like the now more manifest people of God in Egypt, is reported, on the testimony of Joshua son of Nun, likewise to have served strange gods in Mesopotamia), the rest of the progeny of that Heber gradually flowing off into other languages and other nations.

Accordingly, as through the deluge of waters one house of Noah remained for the renewal of the human race, so in the deluge of many superstitions throughout the whole world one house of Terah remained, in which the planting of the city of God was preserved. Finally, just as there, after the generations down to Noah had been enumerated above together with the number of years, and the cause of the flood set forth, before God began to speak to Noah about the building of the ark, it is said: 'Now these are the generations of Noah'; so here too, after the generations had been enumerated from him who is called Shem, the son of Noah, down to Abraham, then a notable point is likewise set, so that it is said: 'These are the generations of Terah. Terah begat Abram and Nahor and Haran, and Haran begat Lot.'

'And Haran died in the presence of Terah his father, in the land in which he was born, in the region of the Chaldeans. And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves; the name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife Milcah, the daughter of Haran.' This Haran was the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah, which Iscah is believed to be that same Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Chapter XIII. What reason may seem to have brought it about that, in the migration of Terah—by which, forsaking the Chaldeans, he passed over into Mesopotamia—no mention is made of his son Nahor. Then it is narrated how Terah with his people left the region of the Chaldeans and came into Mesopotamia and dwelt in Haran. But it is kept silent about one of his sons, who was called Nahor, as though he had not taken him with him.

For it is thus narrated: 'And Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, the son of his son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, the wife of Abram his son, and led them out of the region of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; and he came into Haran and dwelt there.' Nowhere here is Nahor named, nor his wife Milcah. But we find afterward, when Abraham was sending his servant to take a wife for his son Isaac, it is thus written: 'And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and of all his master's goods with him, and rising up he set out for Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor.'

By this and by other testimonies of this sacred history it is shown that Nahor too, the brother of Abraham, went out of the region of the Chaldeans and established his dwelling in Mesopotamia, where Abraham had dwelt with his father. Why then did Scripture not mention him, when Terah set out with his people from the Chaldean nation and dwelt in Mesopotamia—where not only his son Abraham, but also his daughter-in-law Sarah and his grandson Lot are mentioned as those whom he led with him? Why, do we suppose, unless perhaps because he had fallen away from paternal and fraternal piety and had clung to the superstition of the Chaldeans, and afterward emigrated thence as well, whether by repenting, or having suffered persecution because he was held suspect?

For in the book that is entitled Judith, when Holofernes, the enemy of the Israelites, was inquiring what nation this might be, whether war should be waged against it, Achior the leader of the Ammonites answered him thus: 'Let our lord hear a word from the mouth of his servant, and I will report to you the truth concerning the people that dwells near you in this mountain region, and no lie shall go forth from the mouth of your servant. For this offspring is of the people of the Chaldeans, and formerly they dwelt in Mesopotamia, because they would not follow the gods of their fathers who were glorious in the land of the Chaldeans, but turned aside from the way of their parents and worshipped the God of heaven, whom they had come to know; and they cast them out from before their gods, and they fled into Mesopotamia and dwelt there many days.'

'And their God told them to go out from their dwelling and to go into the land of Canaan, and there they dwelt'—and the rest which Achior the Ammonite narrates. From this it is manifest that the house of Terah suffered persecution from the Chaldeans for the sake of true piety, by which the one and true God was worshipped by them. Chapter XIV. On the years of Terah, who in Haran fulfilled the span of his life. Now Terah having died in Mesopotamia, where he is reported to have lived two hundred and five years, the promises of God made to Abraham now begin to be indicated, in that it is thus written: 'And the days of Terah in Haran were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.'

This, however, is not to be taken as though he spent all those days there, but that he completed there all the days of his life, which were two hundred and five years; otherwise it would not be known how many years Terah lived, since it is not stated in what year of his life he came to Haran; and it is absurd to suppose that in this series of generations—where it is carefully recorded how many years each one lived—the number of the years of the life of this one alone should not have been committed to memory. For as to the fact that the years of certain ones whom the same Scripture mentions are kept silent, these are not in this order in which the reckoning of times is woven by the passing away of begetters and the succession of those begotten.

But this order, which is directed from Adam down to Noah, and thence down to Abraham, contains no one without the number of the years of his life. Chapter XV. On the time of Abraham's departure, by which, according to the command of God, he went out from Haran. But as to the fact that, the death of Terah, Abraham's father, having been mentioned, it is then read: 'And the Lord said to Abram: Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house,' and so on—it is not to be thought that, because this follows in the discourse of the book, it also follows in the time of the events done. For there will indeed be, if it is so, an insoluble question. For after these words of God, which were made to Abraham, Scripture thus speaks: 'And Abram went out, as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him.'

'And Abram was seventy-five years old when he went out from Haran.' How can this be true, if he went out from Haran after the death of his father? For when Terah was seventy years old, as was intimated above, he begat Abraham; and to this number, adding the seventy-five years which Abraham was when he departed from Haran, there come one hundred and forty-five years. Of so many years, then, was Terah when Abraham went out from that city of Mesopotamia; for he was passing the seventy-fifth year of his age, and through this his father, who had begotten him in his own seventieth year, was passing, as was said, his one hundred and forty-fifth.

Therefore he did not go out from that place after his father's death, that is, after the two hundred and five years which his father lived; but the year of his departure from that place, since it was his own seventy-fifth, is without doubt gathered to have been the one hundred and forty-fifth of his father, who had begotten him in his own seventieth year. And through this it is to be understood that, according to its custom, Scripture has returned to a time which that narrative had already passed by; just as above, when it had mentioned the sons of the sons of Noah, it said that they were in their own languages and nations, and yet afterward, as though this too followed in the order of times, it says: 'And the whole earth was one lip, and there was one voice to all.'

How then were they according to their nations and according to their languages, if there was one to all, unless because, by recapitulating, the narrative returned to that which had already passed by? So therefore here too, when it had been said: 'And the days of Terah in Haran were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran,' Scripture then, returning to that which it had for this reason passed over—namely, that first that which had been begun concerning Terah might be completed—says: 'And the Lord said to Abram: Go out from your land,' and so on. After which words of God it is subjoined: 'And Abram went out, as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he went out from Haran.'

Then, accordingly, this came to pass, when his father was passing the one hundred and forty-fifth year of his age; for then it was his own seventy-fifth. This question, however, is solved also in another way, namely, that the seventy-five years of Abraham, when he went out from Haran, should be reckoned from the time when he was delivered from the fire of the Chaldeans, not from the time when he was born—as though he should rather be held to have been born then. But blessed Stephen, in the Acts of the Apostles, when he was narrating these things, says: 'The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him: Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house, and come into the land which I shall show you.'

According to these words of Stephen, God spoke to Abraham not after the death of his father—who indeed died in Haran, where his son also dwelt with him—but before he dwelt in that same city, while however he was already in Mesopotamia. He had therefore already gone out from the Chaldeans. And so, as to what Stephen adds: 'Then Abraham went out from the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran,' this does not refer to what was done after God had spoken to him (for it was not after those words of God that he went out from the land of the Chaldeans, since he says that God spoke to him while he was in Mesopotamia), but pertains to that whole time which he means: 'Then,' that is, 'from the time when he went out from the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran.' Likewise as to what follows:

'And from there, after his father died, He settled him in this land, in which you now dwell and your fathers'—he does not say: 'After his father died, he went out from Haran'; but: 'From there He settled him here, after his father died.' It is therefore to be understood that God spoke to Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran; but that he came to Haran with his father, retaining with himself God's command, and went out thence in his own seventy-fifth year, and in the one hundred and forty-fifth year of his father.

But it says that his settling in the land of Canaan, not his departure from Haran, took place after his father's death; because his father was already dead when he bought the land, of which he there began to be the possessor as his own property. But as to the fact that, to one already established in Mesopotamia—that is, already gone out from the land of the Chaldeans—God says: 'Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house,' it is said not that he should cast out his body from there (which he had already done), but that he should tear away his mind. For he had not gone out thence in mind, if he was held by the hope of returning and by desire; which hope and desire, by God commanding and helping and by him obeying, had to be cut off.

It is, indeed, not incredibly supposed that, when afterward Nahor had followed his father, Abraham then fulfilled the command of the Lord, namely, that with Sarah his wife and Lot his brother's son he should go out from Haran. Chapter XVI. On the order and quality of the promises of God which were made to Abraham. Now the promises of God made to Abraham are to be considered. For in these the more open oracles of our God—that is, of the true God—began to appear concerning the people of the godly, whom the prophetic authority foretold. The first of these is read thus: 'And the Lord said to Abram: Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house [and go] into the land which I shall show you;'

'and I will make you into a great nation and bless you and magnify your name, and you shall be blessed; and I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you; and in you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed.' It is therefore to be observed that two things were promised to Abraham: one, namely, that his seed would possess the land of Canaan, which is signified where it is said: 'Go into the land which I shall show you, and I will make you into a great nation'; but the other far more excellent, not concerning the carnal but the spiritual seed, through which he is the father not of one nation, Israel, but of all the nations which follow the footsteps of his faith—which began to be promised in these words: 'And in you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed.'

Eusebius thinks this promise was made in the seventy-fifth year of Abraham's age, as though as soon as it was made Abraham went out from Haran; since Scripture cannot be contradicted, where it is read: 'Abraham was seventy-five years old when he went out from Haran.' But if this promise was made in that year, then surely Abraham was already lingering in Haran with his father. For he could not go out thence unless he had first dwelt there. Is then any contradiction made to Stephen, who says: 'The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran'?

But it is to be understood that all these things came to pass in the same year: both God's promise, before Abraham dwelt in Haran, and his dwelling in Haran, and his departure thence; not only because Eusebius in his Chronicles reckons from the year of this promise and shows that after four hundred and thirty years the exodus from Egypt took place, when the Law was given, but also because the apostle Paul mentions this. Chapter XVII. On the three more excellent kingdoms of the nations, of which one—that is, of the Assyrians—was already eminent more loftily when Abraham was born. About the same time there were eminent kingdoms of the nations, in which the earthborn city—that is, the society of men according to..

the man living, under the dominion of the deserter angels, was more notably eminent—namely three kingdoms, of the Sicyonians, of the Egyptians, of the Assyrians. But that of the Assyrians was much more powerful and lofty. For that king Ninus, son of Belus, had subjugated the peoples of all Asia, India excepted. I now call it Asia, not that part which is one province of this greater Asia, but that which is named the whole of Asia, which some have placed in one of the two parts, but most in the third part of the whole world, so that the whole are Asia, Europe, and Africa; which they did not by an equal division. For this which is named Asia stretches from the south, through the east, as far as the north;

but Europe from the north as far as the west, and thence Africa from the west as far as the south. Whence two are seen to hold half the world, Europe and Africa, but Asia alone the other half. But those two parts have been made for this reason, that between them both there enters in from the Ocean whatever of waters flows between the lands; and this makes for us the Great Sea. Wherefore if you divide the world into two parts, of the East and of the West, Asia will be in one, but in the other Europe and Africa. For which reason, of the three kingdoms which then excelled, that of the Sicyonians was not under the Assyrians, because they are in Europe; but as for the Egyptians, how were they not subject to those by whom all Asia was held, the Indians alone, as is reported, excepted?

In Assyria, therefore, the dominion of the impious city had prevailed; the head of this was that Babylon, whose name is most fitting for an earthborn city, that is, 'confusion.' There Ninus was already reigning after the death of his father Belus, who first reigned there sixty-five years. But his son Ninus, who succeeded his deceased father in the kingdom, reigned fifty-two years, and had been in the kingdom forty-three years when Abraham was born, who was born about the one thousand two hundredth year before the founding of Rome, as it were another Babylon in the west. Chapter XVIII. On the renewed address of God to Abraham, in which the land of Canaan is promised to him and to his seed.

Abraham then, having gone out from Haran in the seventy-fifth year of his age—and the one hundred and forty-fifth of his father—proceeded with Lot his brother's son and Sarah his wife into the land of Canaan, and came as far as Shechem, where again he received a divine oracle, concerning which it is thus written: 'And the Lord appeared to Abraham, and said to him: To your seed I will give this land.' Nothing here is said of that seed in which he was made the father of all nations, but only of that seed of which he is the father of the one nation of Israel; for by this seed that land was possessed. Chapter XIX. On Sarah's chastity in Egypt, preserved by God, whom Abraham had said to be not his wife but his sister.

Then, an altar having been built there and God having been invoked, Abraham set out thence and dwelt in the wilderness, and was thence compelled by the necessity of famine to go into Egypt. There he said his wife was his sister, lying in nothing; for this also was true, because she was near in blood—just as Lot also, since he was the son of his brother, was called his brother by the same nearness of kin. And so he kept silent about her being his wife, he did not deny it, committing the protection of his spouse's chastity to God and, as a man, guarding against human snares; since, if he were not to guard against the danger as far as it could be guarded against, he would be tempting God rather than hoping in God. On this matter, against the calumniating Faustus the Manichee, we have said enough. Finally that came to pass which Abraham had presumed concerning the Lord.

For Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who had taken her to himself as a wife, being grievously afflicted, restored her to her husband. Here far be it that we should believe she was defiled by another's embrace, because it is much more credible that Pharaoh was not permitted to do this by the great afflictions. Chapter XX. On the separation of Lot and Abraham, which pleased them with charity preserved. Abraham, then, having returned from Egypt to the place whence he had come, now Lot his brother's son departed from him into the land of the Sodomites, with charity preserved. For they had become rich and had begun to have many shepherds of flocks, and these quarreling among themselves, in this way they avoided the contentious discord of their households. For from this, as human things are, even between themselves some quarrel might have arisen.

Accordingly, the words of Abraham, guarding against this evil, are these to Lot: 'Let there be no quarrel between me and you, and between my shepherds and your shepherds, for we men are brothers. Behold, is not the whole land before you? Depart from me; if you to the left, I to the right; or if you to the right, I to the left.' Hence perhaps was established among men the peaceable custom that, when anything earthly is to be divided, the elder divides and the younger chooses. Chapter XXI. On the third promise of God, by which He pledges the land of Canaan to Abraham and to his seed for ever.

When therefore Abraham and Lot had separated and were dwelling apart by the necessity of sustaining the household, not by the foulness of discord, and Abraham was in the land of Canaan while Lot was in Sodom, by a third oracle the Lord said to Abraham: 'Lifting up your eyes, look from the place in which you now are, to the north and the south and the east and the sea; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your seed unto the age, and I will make your seed as the sand of the earth. If anyone can number the sand of the earth, then your seed shall be numbered. Rising, walk through the land in its length and in its breadth, for to you I will give it.'

In this promise, whether there is also that one by which he was made the father of all nations, does not evidently appear. For it can seem to pertain to this: 'And I will make your seed as the sand of the earth,' which was said by that figure of speech which the Greeks call hyperbole; which is surely tropical, not proper. Yet that Scripture is wont to use this, as it does the other tropes, no one who has learned it doubts. But this trope, that is, mode of speaking, occurs when that which is said is far more ample than what is signified by what is said. For who does not see how incomparably more ample is the number of the sand than can be the number of all men from Adam himself down to the end of the age?

How much more, then, than the seed of Abraham—not only that which pertains to the nation of Israel, but also that which is and shall be according to the imitation of faith throughout the whole world among all nations! Which seed, in comparison with the multitude of the impious, is surely among the few; although even these few make up their own innumerable multitude, which was signified, according to hyperbole, by the sand of the earth. Indeed this multitude which is promised to Abraham is innumerable not to God, but to men; but to God not even the sand of the earth is innumerable.

Accordingly, because not only the nation of Israel, but the whole seed of Abraham—in which is also the promise of more sons not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit—is more fittingly compared to the multitude of the sand, the promise made of both things can here be understood. But we have said that it does not evidently appear, because the multitude of that one nation also, which was born according to the flesh from Abraham through his grandson Jacob, grew to such an extent that it well-nigh filled all parts of the world. And therefore it too could be compared, according to hyperbole, to the multitude of the sand, because even this alone is innumerable to man. That land alone, certainly, which is called Canaan, no one doubts to have been signified. But as to what was said:

'To you will I give it, and to your seed for ever' — this may trouble some, if they understand 'for ever' as meaning 'unto eternity.' But if in this passage they take 'for ever' to mean this present age, then, just as we faithfully hold that the beginning of the age to come takes its start from the end of the present one, nothing will trouble them; for although the Israelites were driven out of Jerusalem, they still remain in other cities of the land of Canaan, and will remain unto the end; and the whole of that land, when it is inhabited by Christians, is itself also the seed of Abraham. CHAPTER XXII. Of the enemies of the Sodomites overcome by Abraham, when he also rescued Lot from captivity and was blessed by Melchizedek the priest.

Having received this answer of promise, Abraham journeyed and dwelt in another place of the same land, by the oak of Mamre, which was at Hebron. Then, when enemies who had fallen upon Sodom — five kings waging war against four — had conquered the Sodomites and Lot too had been taken captive, Abraham delivered him, leading with him into battle three hundred and eighteen of his own household servants, and he won the victory for the kings of Sodom; yet he was unwilling to take away anything of the spoils, though the king whom he had conquered for had offered it. But assuredly he was then blessed by Melchizedek, who was the priest of God Most High; concerning whom, in the epistle which is inscribed 'to the Hebrews,' which very many say is by the apostle Paul, though some deny it, many great things have been written.

For there first appeared that sacrifice which is now offered to God by Christians throughout the whole world, and there was fulfilled that which, long after this was done, is spoken through prophecy concerning Christ, who was yet to come in the flesh: 'You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek' — that is, not after the order of Aaron, which order was to be taken away when those things shone forth which were foreshadowed by those shadows. CHAPTER XXIII. Of the word of the Lord to Abraham, by which is promised him a posterity to be multiplied according to the multitude of the stars; believing which, he was justified while still in uncircumcision. Then too came the word of the Lord to Abraham in a vision.

When He promised him protection and a very great reward, Abraham, anxious about posterity, said that a certain Eliezer, a servant of his household, would be his heir; but at once an heir was promised him, not that servant, but one who should come forth from Abraham himself, and again a seed innumerable, not as the sand of the earth, but as the stars of heaven; whereby it seems to me rather that a posterity sublime in heavenly felicity is promised. For as regards multitude, what are the stars of heaven compared with the sand of the earth? — unless one say that this comparison is alike in so far as even the stars cannot be numbered, since it is not to be believed that all of them can be seen.