Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 3 part 54/87

For the more keenly anyone gazes, the more he sees. Hence it is rightly judged that, to those who see most acutely, some stars remain hidden — apart from those constellations which are said to rise and set in the other part of the world, far removed from us. Finally, whoever boast that they have comprehended and recorded the whole number of the stars — such as Aratus or Eudoxus or any others there may be — the authority of this book holds them in contempt. Here indeed is set down that sentence which the apostle recalls for the commending of God's grace: 'Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness' — lest circumcision should glory and be unwilling that the uncircumcised nations should be admitted to the faith of Christ.

For when this was done, that faith was reckoned for righteousness to the believing Abraham, he had not yet been circumcised. CHAPTER XXIV. Of the meaning of the sacrifice which Abraham was commanded to offer when he had asked to be instructed concerning those things he had believed. In the same vision, while God spoke to him, He also said this to him: 'I am the God who brought you out of the region of the Chaldeans, that I might give you this land, that you should be its heir.' And when Abraham asked according to what sign he should know that he would be its heir, God said to him: 'Take for me a heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a pigeon.' And he took for Him all these and divided them in the midst and set them one against another; but the birds he did not divide.

And there came down, as it is written, birds upon the bodies which had been divided, and Abram sat with them. And about the going down of the sun, a terror fell upon Abram, and behold, a great dark fear came upon him; and it was said to Abram: 'Knowing you shall know that your seed shall be a sojourner in a land not its own, and they shall reduce them to bondage and afflict them four hundred years; but the nation whom they shall serve, I will judge. And after this they shall come out hither with much substance. But you shall go to your fathers in peace, nourished in a good old age. And in the fourth generation they shall return hither. For the sins of the Amorites are not yet filled up unto this present.'

And when the sun was now at its setting, there was a flame, and behold, a smoking furnace and lamps of fire, which passed between those divided pieces. In that day the Lord God made a covenant with Abram, saying: 'To your seed will I give this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaim, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Hivites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.' All these things were done and said by divine power in the vision; concerning each of which to discourse in full would be long and would exceed the aim of this work. Therefore we ought to know what is enough.

After it was said that Abraham had believed God and it was reckoned to him for righteousness, he did not fail in faith when he said, 'Lord God, according to what shall I know that I shall be its heir?' (for the inheritance of that land had been promised) — for he does not say, 'Whence shall I know?' as though he did not yet believe; but he says, 'According to what shall I know?' that to the thing which he had believed some similitude might be applied, by which its manner might be recognized; just as it is not from distrust that the Virgin Mary says, 'How shall this be, since I know not a man?' For that it should come to pass she was certain; she was inquiring the manner in which it should be done, and when she had asked this, she heard —

so here too a similitude was given by means of animals — a heifer and a she-goat and a ram and two birds, a turtledove and a pigeon — that according to these he might know the future which he was already no longer doubting would come to pass. Whether, then, by the heifer was signified the people set under the yoke of the law, by the she-goat that same people destined to become sinful, by the ram that same people also destined to reign (which animals are for this reason called three years old) —

because, since there are notable joints of the times from Adam to Noah, and thence to Abraham, and thence to David, who, when Saul was rejected, was first established by the will of the Lord in the kingdom of the Israelite nation, in this third order, which is extended from Abraham to David, that people grew up as it were bearing the third age — or whether these things signify something else more fitting: in no way, however, should I doubt that spiritual men were prefigured in it by the addition of the turtledove and the pigeon. And therefore it was said, 'But the birds he did not divide,' since carnal men are divided among themselves, but spiritual men in no way, whether they withdraw themselves from the busy intercourse of men, like the turtledove, or dwell among them, like the pigeon;

yet each bird is simple and harmless, signifying that even in that Israelite people, to whom that land was to be given, there would be undivided children of promise and heirs of the kingdom, destined to abide in eternal felicity. But the birds coming down upon the bodies which had been divided indicate nothing good, but the spirits of this air, seeking a certain food for themselves from the division of the carnal. And that Abraham sat with them signifies that even amid those divisions of the carnal there would be true believers who would persevere unto the end.

And that about the setting of the sun a terror fell upon Abraham and a great dark fear, signifies that about the end of this age there will be a great disturbance and tribulation of the faithful, of which the Lord says in the Gospel: 'For then there shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning.' But what was said to Abraham, 'Knowing you shall know that your seed shall be a sojourner in a land not its own, and they shall reduce them to bondage and afflict them four hundred years,' was most plainly prophesied concerning the people of Israel, who were to be in bondage in Egypt — not that that people would spend four hundred years in that same bondage under afflicting Egyptians, but that within those four hundred years this was foretold to come to pass.

For just as it is written of Terah, the father of Abraham, 'And the days of Terah in Haran were two hundred and five years' — not because they were all spent there, but because they were there completed — so here too it was inserted for this reason: 'And they shall reduce them to bondage and afflict them four hundred years,' since that number was completed in that same affliction, not because the whole was spent there. The years are indeed called four hundred for the fullness of the number, although they are somewhat more, whether they be reckoned from the time when these things were promised to Abraham, or from when Isaac was born, on account of the seed of Abraham, concerning whom these things are foretold.

For they are reckoned, as we have already said above, from the seventy-fifth year of Abraham, when the first promise was made to him, unto the departure of Israel out of Egypt, four hundred and thirty years; of which the apostle thus makes mention: 'But this I say,' he says, 'the law, which was made four hundred and thirty years after, does not annul the covenant confirmed by God so as to make void the promise.' Now then, these four hundred and thirty years could be called four hundred, since they are not much more —

how much more, since some of that number had already passed when those things were shown and said to Abraham in the vision, or when Isaac was born to his hundred-year-old father, twenty-five years after the first promise, when out of those four hundred and thirty there now remained four hundred and five, which God willed to name four hundred. And the rest of what follows in the words of God foretelling, no one would doubt to pertain to the Israelite people. But what is added — 'And when the sun was now at its setting, there was a flame, and behold, a smoking furnace and lamps of fire, which passed between those divided pieces' — signifies that at the end of the age the carnal are to be judged by fire.

For just as the affliction of the city of God, such as never was before, which is hoped to be under Antichrist, is signified by the dark fear of Abraham about the setting of the sun, that is, when the end of the age is now drawing near: so at the setting of the sun, that is, at the very end now, by that fire is signified the day of judgment, which separates the carnal who are to be saved by fire and those to be damned by fire. Then the covenant made with Abraham properly manifests and names the land of Canaan, and in it eleven nations from the river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates. Not, therefore, from the great river of Egypt, that is, the Nile, but from the small one, which divides between Egypt and Palestine, where is the city of Rhinocorura. CHAPTER XXV.

Of Hagar the handmaid of Sarah, whom that same Sarah willed to be Abraham's concubine. From here now follow the times of the sons of Abraham, the one of Hagar the handmaid, the other of Sarah the freewoman, of whom we have already spoken in the previous book. But as for the deed done, in no way is the crime of this concubine to be branded upon Abraham. For he used her to beget offspring, not to satisfy lust; nor insulting his wife, but rather obeying her, who believed it would be a solace for her own barrenness, if she should make the fruitful womb of her handmaid her own by will, since she could not by nature, and by that right of which the apostle says:

'Likewise also the husband has not power over his own body, but the wife,' the wife used her husband for begetting from another what she could not from herself. There is here no lust of wantonness, no foulness of vice. For the sake of offspring the handmaid is handed over by the wife to the husband, for the sake of offspring she is received by the husband; by both is sought, not the luxury of fault, but the fruit of nature. Finally, when the pregnant handmaid grew proud against her barren mistress, and Sarah, with womanly suspicion, rather imputed this to her husband, even there Abraham showed that he was not an enslaved lover but a free begetter, and that in Hagar he had preserved the chastity of his marriage with Sarah, and had fulfilled not his own pleasure but her will;

having received her, not sought her; having approached her, not clung to her; having sown, not loved. For Sarah said: 'Behold your handmaid is in your hands, use her as it pleases you.' O man, manfully using women — his wife temperately, his handmaid compliantly, neither intemperately! CHAPTER XXVI. Of the testification of God to Abraham, in which He promises a son to him as an old man from the barren Sarah, and establishes him father of nations, and seals the assurance of the promise with the sacrament of circumcision. After this Ishmael was born of Hagar, in whom he might suppose to be fulfilled what had been promised to him, when he had wished to adopt his own household servant, God saying: 'This shall not be your heir; but he who shall come forth from you, he shall be your heir.'

Therefore, lest he should suppose this promise fulfilled in the son of the handmaid, when he was now ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said to him: 'I am God; be well-pleasing in My sight and be without blame, and I will set My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.' And Abraham fell upon his face. And God spoke to him, saying: 'And I, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations; and your name shall no more be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, because I have made you a father of many nations; and I will increase you exceedingly 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 between 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 sojourner, 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 in their generations. And this is the covenant which you shall keep between Me and you and between your seed after you in their generations: Every male of you shall be circumcised, and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be for a sign of the covenant between Me and you.'

'And the child of eight days shall be circumcised, every male of you in your generations. The household servant and the one bought with money from any son of a stranger, who is not of your seed — both the household servant born in your house and the one bought with money shall be circumcised with circumcision. And My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male, who shall not be circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin on the eighth day, that soul shall perish from his kindred, because he has dissolved My covenant.' And God said to Abraham: 'Sarai your wife — her name shall not be called Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and give you a son of her, and I will bless him, and he shall be for 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 at ninety years old bear?' And Abraham said to God: 'Let this Ishmael live in Your sight.' But God said to Abraham: 'Yes, 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. But as for Ishmael, behold, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will enlarge him and will multiply him exceedingly. Twelve nations he shall 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 made concerning the calling of the nations in Isaac, that is, in the son of promise, by whom is signified grace, not nature, since the son is promised from an old man and a barren old woman. For although God also works the natural course of procreation, yet where there is an evident work of God in nature corrupted and ceasing, there grace is the more evidently understood. And because this was to come about not by generation but by regeneration, therefore circumcision was now commanded, when the son was promised of Sarah. And that He commands not only all the sons but also the servants, both home-born and bought, to be circumcised, testifies that this grace pertains to all. For what else does circumcision signify than nature renewed, having put off its old condition?

And what else does the eighth day signify than Christ, who, when the week was completed, that is, after the Sabbath, rose again? The names also of the parents are changed: all things resound newness, and in the old testament the new is shadowed. For what is that which 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. Those words too of his in his heart — 'Shall a son be born to me who am a hundred years old, and shall Sarah at ninety years bear?' — are not those of one doubting, but of one marvelling. But if anyone is troubled by what was said:

'And I will give to you and to your seed after you the land in which you are a sojourner, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession' — how is it to be taken as fulfilled or still to be awaited as to be fulfilled, since no earthly possession whatever can be eternal to any nation: let him know that 'eternal' is interpreted by our translators for what the Greeks call 'aiōnion,' which is derived from 'aiōn'; for 'aiōn' in Greek is called an age. But the Latins did not dare to render this 'saecular' (of the age), lest they should send the meaning far into something else. For many things are called 'secular' which are thus carried on in this age, so that they pass away even in a brief time; but what is called 'aiōnion' either has no end or extends to the end of this age. CHAPTER XXVII.

Of the male who, if he be not circumcised on the eighth day, his soul perishes, because he has dissolved the covenant of God. Likewise it may trouble one how it ought to be understood, what is here said: 'The male who shall not be circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin on the eighth day, that soul shall perish from his kindred, because he has dissolved My covenant,' since this is no fault of the little child, whose soul He said would perish, nor did he himself dissolve God's covenant, but his elders, who took no 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 dissolved God's covenant in that one man, 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 shall 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 a more evident law was given afterward, and the apostle says, 'But where there is no law, neither is there transgression,' how is what is read in the psalm true: 'I have counted all sinners of the earth transgressors,' unless because all who are held bound by any sin are guilty of having transgressed some law?

If, therefore, even the little ones — which the true faith holds — are born sinners not properly but originally, whence we confess the grace of the remission of sins to be 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 have counted all sinners of the earth transgressors,' and 'Where there is no law, neither is there transgression.' And by this, because circumcision was a sign of regeneration, and generation, not without cause, destroys the little child on account of original sin — by which God's covenant was first dissolved — unless regeneration set him free: thus are these divine words to be understood, as though it were said:

'He who shall not have been regenerated, that soul shall perish from his kindred,' because he dissolved God's covenant when in Adam he too sinned along with all. For if He had said, 'Because he has dissolved this My covenant,' He would compel it to be understood of none but this circumcision; but now, since He did not express of what sort of covenant the little child dissolved, it is free to understand it said of that covenant whose dissolving could pertain to the little child. But if anyone contends that this was said of none but this circumcision — that in it the little child dissolved God's covenant, since he was not circumcised:

let him seek some manner of speech by which it may not absurdly be understood that he therefore dissolved the covenant, because, although not by him, yet in him it was dissolved. But in this way too it must be observed that the soul of the uncircumcised little child does not unjustly perish through no negligence of its own, except by the obligation of original sin. CHAPTER XXVIII. Of the changing of the names of Abraham and Sarah, who, although on account of the barrenness of the one, and on account of the old age of both, they could not generate, obtained the gift of fruitfulness. When, therefore, a promise so great and so clear had been made to Abraham, to whom it was most evidently said, 'I have made you a father of many nations; and I will increase you exceedingly exceedingly and 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 be for nations, and kings of nations shall be of him' (which promise we now see rendered in Christ): from then onward those spouses are not called in the Scriptures, as they were before, Abram and Sarai, but as we have called them from the beginning, since they are now so called by all, Abraham and Sarah. But why the name of Abraham was changed, the reason has been given: 'Because,' He says, 'I have made you a father of many nations.' This therefore is to be understood to be signified by 'Abraham'; but 'Abram,' as he was called before, is interpreted 'exalted father.' Concerning the changed name of Sarah, however, no reason has been given;

but, as those say who have written interpretations of the Hebrew names contained in these sacred writings, 'Sarai' is interpreted 'my princess,' but 'Sarah' 'virtue (or strength).' Whence it is written in the epistle to the Hebrews: 'By faith also Sarah herself received strength for the emission of seed.' For both were aged, as the Scripture testifies; but she was also barren, and now bereft 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 by a young man, by an old man she cannot;

although the older man can still beget, but 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 to this end he says that Abraham's body was already dead, since not from every woman who still had some last time of bearing could he himself beget at that age. For we ought to understand his body to be dead in respect of something, not in respect of all things. For if in respect of all things, then it would be 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 afterward begot of Keturah, because the gift of begetting, which he received from the Lord, remained even after the death of his wife.

But for this reason the solution of this question which we have followed seems to me preferable, because a centenarian old man, but of our time, can beget from no woman; not then, when men still lived so long that a hundred years did not yet make a man of decrepit old age. CHAPTER XXIX. Of the three men or angels, in whom the Lord is indicated to have appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre. 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 He was visible even before the garment of the flesh. It belongs indeed to the divine power and to a nature invisible, incorporeal, and unchangeable,

to appear even to mortal sights without any change of itself, not through that which it is, but through something which is subject to it; and what is not subject to it? But nevertheless, if for this reason they affirm that one of these three was Christ — because, when he had seen three, he spoke to 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 bowed himself down to the earth and said: Lord, if I have found grace before You,' and the rest):

why do they not also notice this, that two of them came to destroy the Sodomites, while Abraham still spoke to one, calling Him Lord and interceding that He would not destroy the just together with the impious in Sodom? But those two Lot so received, that even he himself, in his own conversation with them, calls 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, because the Lord spared him. And it came to pass, as soon as they had led him forth outside, that they said: Save your soul, look not back, nor stay in all the region;'

'save yourself in the mountain, lest perhaps you be caught.' And Lot said to them: 'I pray You, Lord, since Your servant has found mercy before You,' and what follows. Then after these words the Lord too answers him in the singular, while He was in the two angels, saying: 'Behold, I have marvelled at your face,' and the rest. Whence it is much more credible that both Abraham in the three and Lot in the two men recognized the Lord, to whom they spoke through the singular number, even when they thought them to be men; for not for any other cause did they so receive them, as to minister to them as to mortals needing human refreshment;

but there was assuredly something by which they so excelled, although as men, that those who showed hospitality to them could not doubt that the Lord was in them, as He is wont to be in the prophets; and therefore they sometimes addressed them in the plural and the Lord in them sometimes in the singular. But that they were angels the Scripture testifies, not only in this book of Genesis, where these deeds are narrated, but also in the epistle to the Hebrews, where, when hospitality was being praised, it says: 'By this, some, not knowing it, have received angels to lodging.' Through those three men, then, when again the son Isaac of Sarah was promised to Abraham, there was given also such a divine answer, that it was said:

Abraham shall become a great and numerous nation, and in him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Here too those two things are most briefly and most fully promised: the nation of Israel according to the flesh, and all nations according to faith. CHAPTER XXX. On Lot delivered from Sodom and on the Sodomites consumed by fire from heaven, and on Abimelech, whose lust could not harm the chastity of Sarah. After this promise, with Lot delivered from Sodom and a rain of fire coming down from heaven, that whole region of the impious city was turned to ashes, where vile acts against males had grown into so great a custom that the laws are wont to grant license to other deeds. Yet this punishment of theirs was also a token of the future divine judgment.

For to what purpose were those who were being delivered by the angels forbidden to look back, except that one must not return in mind to the old life from which a man is stripped through regeneration by grace, if we are thinking of escaping the final judgment? Indeed Lot's wife, where she looked back, remained fixed and, being turned into salt, provided faithful men a certain seasoning, by which they may taste something whereby that example is to be guarded against. From there again Abraham did in 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 rebuked him for having kept silent that she was his wife and having called her his sister, disclosing what he had feared, added this also: