On Abraham

Nor is it a mediocre or idle task.

For since the Lord our God endowed this man with a rich dowry of His blessing, that by his grace He might provoke others, and by his institution correct them; and Moses too has described him as one to be imitated by us, so that He might raise up the hearts of men slipping into vice, by the contemplation of this man, as it were from a certain earthly tomb, it ought not to seem a perfunctory matter if we too turn over more scrupulously the footsteps of this same man. For if the wise men of this world, as Plato himself, the prince of philosophers, proposed to pursue not some true thing, but a feigned and shadowed πολιτεία, which we read of (Plato, Bk.

IV of the Republic), in order to teach what sort of commonwealth there ought to be—and thus he thought fit to describe, in some city he had neither heard of nor seen, that which those whose office it is might be trained by, as to how they should govern a commonwealth; and if Xenophon too, that Socratic fellow-disciple of Plato, wished by feigned matters likewise to shape the person of a wise man in that book which he entitles the Cyropaedia, so that from the innermost bosom of Philosophy might proceed the discipline of a just king and a wise man—how much more ought we, not to review a composed figure of a wise man, but a virtue expressed and instituted by divine teaching, and to pursue with greater intentness the ways of him whom Moses so described that he seemed, in a way, to be looking back upon himself?

Truly a great man, and famous for the notable marks of many virtues, whom Philosophy could not equal even in her wishes. In short, less is what she feigned than what he accomplished, and the simple faith of truth is greater than the ambitious lie of eloquence. Let us then consider what sort of devotion was in that man. For that virtue is first in order which is the foundation of the rest: and rightly did God require this first of him, saying, "Go forth from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house". It would have sufficed to say "from your land." For therein was contained also to go forth from kindred, to go forth from the father's house; but he added each item separately in order to test his affection, lest perhaps he might seem to have understood imprudently, or lest some deceit might be devised against the heavenly commands.

But just as the precepts had to be heaped up so that nothing might be concealed, so also rewards had to be set forth, lest perhaps he should despair. He is tested as a brave man, roused as a faithful one, provoked as a just one, and rightly he went forth just as the Lord had spoken to him.

"And Lot went forth with him". Now that saying which is celebrated as great among the sayings of the Seven Sages, ἕπου Θεῷ, that is, "Follow God," Abraham fulfilled, and by deed forestalled the sayings of the wise, and following God went forth from his own land. But since another land had earlier been his—that is, the region of the Chaldeans, from which Thare, the father of Abraham, went forth, and migrated into Charran; and since he took with him his nephew, to whom it had been said, "Go forth from your kindred"—let us consider whether this "going forth from his own land" may not be a going forth from this land, that is, from a certain dwelling of our body, from which Paul went forth, who said, "But our citizenship is in heaven"; and from the allurements and bodily delights which he called, as it were, kindred to our soul, which of necessity suffers along with the body, so long as it clings bound to it by its fetter.

Therefore we must go forth from earthly conversation, and from worldly delights, and from the manners and deeds of the former life, so that we may change not only places but also ourselves. If we desire to cling to Christ, let us abandon corruptible things. Now the corruptible things in us are the flesh, delight, and the voice subject to bodily passions. By "voice," moreover, we understand the passions. Whence, since our soul is διμερής, that is, bipartite, having both a rational and an irrational part, which is divided through the flesh and the allurements of bodily delight and the other passions of the body: the man who is just ought to disjoin and separate the rational part of his soul from the irrational. For this is to go forth from Charran, as it were from certain caverns, and tunnels, and hiding places. For to hide is characteristic of a guilty conscience. Let us therefore, following Abraham, go forth from hiding places.

For if we are sons of Abraham, let us do the works of Abraham; that our works may shine before God and before men. The just man declares his works to the king; the sinner hides himself, just as Adam desired to hide himself, but could not remain hidden. Abraham accordingly obeyed the command, nor is any delay recorded as having intervened.

Having gone forth, he journeyed through the land as far as Sichem, which in Latin interpretation is called "shoulder" or "neck," by which we understand the carrying out of the work prescribed. Since indeed we have it also written below: "He set his shoulder to labor". Whence by the figure of places we perceive it to be expressed that holy Abraham proved his devotion not only by zeal but also by a fruitful efficacy, by which he came even as far as the oak. In which place the Lord appeared to him and said: "To your seed I will give this land". See how by the frequency of the promise He forms and instructs him as one still, as it were, weak; and Abraham himself, mindful of himself, attributes the whole to God, claims nothing for himself. Therefore he also built an altar to God who had appeared to him; and he departed from there to the mountain over against the east of Bethel, desiring to see, while still ahead of him, the rising sun of righteousness.

And therefore he placed his tabernacle not in the valleys but on the mountain, because God is the God of mountains, and not of valleys.

"And he called upon the name of the Lord". Where there is Bethel, that is, the house of God, there too is the altar; where the altar is, there too is the invocation of our God. Not without merit did he make such great progress, because he hoped in God for his help. The athlete of God is exercised, and is proved by adversities: he went into the desert, famine fell upon him, he went down into Egypt. He had learned that in Egypt the wantonness of the young was lascivious, their desire insolent, their intemperance in pleasures unrestrained. He perceived that among such men his wife's chastity would be unguarded, and that his wife's beauty would prove a danger to himself: he advised his wife to say she was his sister. By which we are taught that a wife's beauty ought not to be greatly sought after, since it is often wont to bring death to the husband.

For it is not so much a woman's beauty as her virtue and dignity that delights a husband. He who seeks the sweetness of marriage should not court one of higher fortune than the necessities of a husband can sustain: let her not be adorned with jewels, but with character. A wife often offends her husband if she knows herself to be more noble than he. These things are next to pride. Sara was neither richer in resources, nor more splendid in lineage; therefore she did not consider her husband unequal to her, therefore she loved him as an equal in grace, therefore she was held back neither by wealth, nor by parents, nor by kinsfolk, but followed her own husband wherever he went: she went into foreign lands, declared herself his sister, content, if it must be so, to endanger her own modesty rather than her husband's safety. To protect her husband she feigned a sisterly relation; lest those who plotted against her modesty should slay him as a rival and avenger of his wife.

In the end, as soon as the Egyptians saw her, admiring that she was very beautiful, they brought her in to their king, and dealt well with Abraham, honoring him as the brother of her who had pleased the king.

"But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh with great and most severe afflictions, and his house, because of Sara, Abram's wife". A great testimony and lesson for the guarding of chastity. This passage is so exhortative that everyone should show himself chaste, not covet another's marriage bed, nor assail another's wife in hope of concealment or in the impunity of doing so, nor be provoked by the carelessness or folly of a husband, or by his longer absence. God, the guardian of marriage, is present, from whom nothing is hidden, whom no one escapes, whom no one mocks: He keeps watch in place of the absent husband, He maintains guard—nay, without any watch at all He apprehends the guilty party before he does what he had prepared; He recognizes the crime in the minds of individuals, in the hearts of all.

And even if you deceive a husband in adultery, you do not deceive God: and even if you escape a husband, and even if you elude the judge of the marketplace, you do not escape the judge of the whole world. He avenges more severely the injury of the poor man, the insult to the imprudent husband. For it is a greater injury to have scorned and disregarded the author of the marriage bed than merely its guardian.

Pharaoh himself too, although king of the Egyptians, whom both the arrogance of royal power might make supine, and the wantonness and luxury of Egypt might draw away from zeal for chastity, called Abraham and rebuked him, saying: "What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife: but you told me she was your sister: and I took her to myself as wife? And now behold your wife is before you". Although fierce and barbarous by nature, yet he shows that even in the manners of foreigners and barbarians there is care for modesty, and that the crime of adultery too must be guarded against even by them. He who pleads ignorance condemns intemperance. Nor is it a wonder if a barbarian knows the law of nature: dumb animals, which are bound by no laws, are yet some of them such as not only keep faith of union to their mates, but even preserve the chastity of a single union.

So the law of nature is greater than the prescription of laws. It is no wonder, then, if this Egyptian king too feared God, though he did not fear man, and paid the penalty of adultery, though he was liable under no laws: and as soon as he learned she was another's wife, he not only restored her to her husband, but even gave him escorts to conduct him away; lest anyone of the barbarous populace should offer violence either to the man's property or to his wife's modesty.

This is a most beautiful passage for arousing zeal for devotion, showing that he who follows God is always safe. And therefore we ought to prefer God above all things, and neither the regard for our homeland, nor the affection for parents and children, nor consideration for a wife ought to recall us from the carrying out of the heavenly precepts; because God bestows all those things on us, and is able to preserve what He gives. So then, great is the example of Abraham's devotion, in that he went down into Egypt with a beautiful wife. The just man had indeed care for his wife's conjugal modesty: but greater was his zeal to hasten his devotion, lest he should seem to have preferred the guarding of the marriage bed to the heavenly commands. Therefore, because for God's sake he despised all things, he received back from God all things multiplied: but God granted the first reward to chastity, which He knew was pleasing to his wife.

For because in his zeal to fulfill the heavenly oracle he also led his wife into danger of her modesty, He also defended the chastity of the marriage.

The first place, then, in just order, devotion claimed for itself. Let us look also at the grace of the other virtues. Holy Abraham was charmed by the presence of his nephew, to whom he showed a father's affection. A quarrel arose between the servants of the nephew and of the uncle. He, being the more prudent, noted that the concord of masters is wont to be dissolved by the dissensions of servants, and cut off the fiber of discord, lest the contagion should spread. For he thought it more tolerable that the bond of companionship should be set apart than that their mutual grace should be sundered. This is what you too ought to do, if perchance you should fall into some such situation, that you remove the seed-bed of dissension. For you are not stronger than Abraham. He judged that the quarrels of servants ought to be avoided, not despised. And if you are stronger, beware lest another, weaker, lend his ear to the whisperings of servants. Undivided servants often sow discord between kinsfolk.

Divide rather, so that friendship may remain. An undivided household does not sustain two masters. Is it not better to part with grace, than to dwell together with discord?

The Patriarch also teaches what sort of division ought to be made. Let the stronger divide, the weaker choose, so that he may have nothing to complain of. For he will not be able to find fault with the part he has himself chosen. There remains no occasion for drawing back for one to whom the option of choosing is given, nor is the one who divides burdened. For the more prudent one is, the more cautious; so that he is neither cheated in the division, nor defrauded in the choice.

Abraham divided, because, it says, the land could not bear them to dwell together, because they were exceedingly rich. It is a worldly fault that the land cannot contain the rich. For nothing is sufficient for the greed of the rich. The richer a man becomes, the more avid he is for possessing. He desires to extend the boundaries of his field, and to shut out his neighbor. Was Abraham of this sort? By no means, although at the beginning he too was less perfect. For whence could perfection be before the coming of Christ? He had not yet come who would say: If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, follow me. Nevertheless, as one least avaricious he offers a choice, and as one just he cuts off dissension. Let there be no strife, he says, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen, for we are brethren. Behold, is not the whole land before thee?

Depart from me: if thou go to the left hand, I will go to the right: or if thou go to the right hand, I will go to the left.

And Lot lifted up his eyes, and chose the well-watered region, it says, of the Jordan; because it was all irrigated, and it was like the paradise of God.

Very often possessions come by inheritance, some more useful, others more pleasant. They are not always assigned in equal portion. For the merit of each begins to be diminished. But if the shares cannot agree with the more useful, let the pleasant be joined to the useful. The dispositions of men are diverse: useful things delight some, pleasant things others. The weaker man chooses the more pleasant things, and disdains the useful. A steward is sometimes useful, or the manager of a field is compared to a townsman. If the chooser is unwise he either chooses a cook, or a singer whom he thinks of more charming grace, and rejects the more useful. Often too, where the fruits are not unequal, the more prudent man declines the pleasant things. They quickly stir up envy, quickly they arouse the mind of the greedy man against themselves. Here, however, Scripture said nothing about one part being more useful, the other more pleasant; lest Abraham should seem to have caught the eyes of the young man by design.

It described one pleasant part, it did not add another more useful one. It was necessary that he make two parts out of the whole region: then he was dividing what was present, not what was absent. One region could not contain both. What could be of the highest justice, he offered as a choice.

Lot chose the pleasant part, which quickly fell under the eyes of robbers. Hence war arose among kings, the victory of enemies, the captivity of the inhabitants. And so Lot too paid the price of his weaker counsel, deceived not by the barrenness of the land, but by the envy attaching to its pleasantness, so that he himself was even led away captive; since by the fault of a servile wickedness he had turned aside from the better part, and had chosen the portion of the most shameful men; for Sodom is luxury and wantonness. And therefore in Latin interpretation Lot is called "declination," because he who chooses vices is the one who turns aside from virtue, and deflects from equity.

When Abram learned of this, he numbered his own home-born servants; and with three hundred and eighteen men he obtained the victory, and freed his nephew. The affection of the division is proved, in that he so loved his nephew that for his sake he did not shrink even from the danger of war. What does "he numbered" mean? It means, he chose. Whence that is referred not only to the knowledge of God, but also to the grace of the just, which the Lord Jesus said in the Gospel: And the very hairs of your head are all numbered. For the Lord knows those who are His own: but those who are not His own He does not deign to know. He numbered, moreover, three hundred and eighteen, that you might know that not the quantity of the number, but the merit of the election was expressed. For he enlisted those whom he judged worthy of the number of the faithful, who would believe in the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For the Greek letter signifies three hundred, and eighteen expresses the sum IH. By the merit of faith, therefore, Abraham conquered, not by a numerous army. In fine, he triumphed with a few home-born servants going forth, over those to whom the arms of five kings had yielded.

But he who conquers ought not to arrogate the victory to himself, but to render it to God. This Abraham teaches, who, made humbler by the triumph, was not made prouder. Indeed he offered a sacrifice, he gave tithes; and therefore Melchisedech, who by Latin interpretation is called king of righteousness, king of peace, blessed him: For he was priest of the most high God. Who is the king of righteousness, priest of God, save he to whom it is said: Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech, that is, the Son of God, priest of the Father, who by the sacrifice of His own body reconciled the Father to us for our sins.

How great a thing, moreover, is this, that he wished nothing of the spoil of victory to touch him, and did not accept it even when offered? For the acceptance of a reward diminishes the fruit of a triumph, and gnaws away the grace of a benefit. For it matters very much whether you have fought for money, or for glory: the one is reckoned in the place of a hireling; the other is held worthy of the glory of a preserver. Justly does the saint refuse to appropriate anything from the spoil, even when offered, lest he who gave it should say: because I have made him rich; he attests that this alone is sufficient for him, that he has provided food for the young men who fought. Someone will say: Since he himself conquered, how does he say to the king of Sodom, I will take nothing from thee; when the spoil surely was in the power of the victor? He teaches military discipline, that all things should be preserved for the king.

Indeed he asserts that a portion of the profit should be given to those who had perhaps allied themselves with him as helpers, as a reward for their labor.

And therefore, since he sought no reward for himself from man, he received it from God, as we read it written; for after these words the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying: Fear not, Abram, I will protect thee, thy reward shall be very great. The Lord is not slow to reward, and He both promises quickly and bestows abundantly; lest through some delay repentance for having disdained present things should creep into weak minds: and as it were by a certain usurious bounty He recompenses, so as to restore more abundant things to him who was not captivated by the offer of present things.

Let us also consider what reward he asks from the Lord Himself. He does not demand riches like a greedy man, not length of this present life, like one fearful of death, not power; but he seeks a worthy heir of his labor: What, he says, wilt thou give me? I go childless. And below: because thou hast given me no seed, my home-born servant shall be my heir. Let men, therefore, learn not to despise marriages, nor to join themselves to unequal partners; lest they beget children of such a kind that they cannot have them as heirs; so that at least out of regard for transmitting an inheritance, if they are moved by no consideration of modesty, they may strive for a worthy marriage.

But if Abraham's judgment avails little for correction, receive the oracle of God, condemning inheritance of this kind: This one, He says, shall not be thy heir: but another who shall come forth from thee, he shall be thy heir. Whom does he call "another"? For Agar too bore a son, Ismael, but He does not mean him, but means holy Isaac. And therefore He added: Who shall come forth from thee. For he truly came forth from Abraham, who was begotten of a lawful marriage. But through Isaac the lawful son, we can understand that true lawful heir, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom at the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew we read to be the son of Abraham, who showed himself the true heir of Abraham, illuminating the succession of the author, through whom Abraham looked up into heaven, and recognized the splendor of his posterity to be no less illustrious than the brightness with which the heavenly stars shine.

For as star differs from star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead, says the Apostle. Because, granting a share in His resurrection, He made men, whom death used to hide in the earth, partakers of the heavenly kingdom.

But how has the progeny of Abraham been spread abroad, if not through the inheritance of faith, by which we are made equal to heaven, joined to the angels, made equal to the stars? Therefore He says: So shall thy seed be. And Abraham, it says, believed God. What did he believe? That Christ would become his heir by taking on a body. That you may know that he believed this, the Lord says: Abraham saw my day, and was glad. Therefore it was reckoned to him for righteousness, because he did not seek a reason, but believed with most ready faith. It is good that faith should go before reason; lest we should seem to demand a reason from the Lord our God as we would from a man. For how unworthy it would be that we should believe another on human testimony, and not believe God on His own oracles concerning Himself! Let us therefore imitate Abraham, that we may be heirs of the earth through the righteousness of faith, by which he became heir of the world.

But perhaps someone may say: How do you propose Abraham for us to imitate, when he took a son by a handmaid? Or what does it mean that so great a man was subject to this error, whose so great works of God we admire? And therefore, lest, after the manner of sailors, we should seem to have avoided this place, which many think is shoal water, it is my concern to explain the reason of it. I do not deny that Abraham took a son by the handmaid; that you might know that Abraham was not of some higher nature and substance, but one out of the number and frailty of all men. Indeed he was called even out of the region of the Chaldeans, whom we have learned to be more devoted to vain superstition than others; and therefore he found greater favor with God, because he renounced the former things, and stretched himself forward to the earlier things, that he might follow God.

For he has been set before you to be imitated, that you too might understand, that if you renounce your sins, you can merit the mercy of the Lord.

Yet some may be moved by the fact that, while he was already speaking with God, he went in to the handmaid, as it is written: For Sara said to Abram: Behold, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: go in therefore to my handmaid, that thou mayest have children by her. And so it was done. But let us consider, first, that Abraham lived before the law of Moses, and before the Gospel: adultery did not yet seem to be forbidden. The penalty of a crime dates from the time of the law that forbade the crime: nor before the law is there any condemnation of a matter; but it comes from the law. Abraham, therefore, did not offend against the law, but preceded the law. God, in paradise, though He praised marriage, had not condemned adultery. For He does not will the death of the sinner, and therefore He promises what belongs to reward: what belongs to punishment, He does not exact. For He prefers to provoke by gentle means, rather than to terrify by harsher ones.

And you sinned when you were a gentile, you have an excuse: you have come to the Church, you have heard the law: Thou shalt not commit adultery; now you have no excuse for the offense. Yet since my discourse here is with those who have given their name to the grace of baptism, if anyone has committed so great a crime, let him know that pardon is to be granted him; but let him know that, as one who has committed a crime, he must abstain for the future. Indeed, to that adulteress whom the scribes of the Pharisees brought before Him in the Gospel, the Lord indeed forgave what was past, but said: Go, and from now on see that thou sin no more. What He says to her, He says to you. Did you, a gentile, commit adultery? Did you, a catechumen, commit it? It is forgiven you, it is remitted to you through baptism. Go, and after this see that you do not sin. You have one defense of Abraham.

The second defense is this, that not inflamed by any ardor of wandering lust, not captivated by the charm of a wanton beauty, did he prefer the companionship of the handmaid to the marriage bed; but out of desire for seeking posterity and propagating offspring. Still after the flood there was a scarcity of the human race: there was also a religious scruple, lest anyone should seem not to have paid his debt to nature. Indeed the holy daughters of Lot too had this reason for seeking posterity, lest the human race should fail; and therefore he covered a private fault under the excuse of public duty. Nor is it without purpose that his wife is introduced as the author of the deed; that the husband might be excused, lest he be thought to have been carried away by wandering error: at the same time that women might learn to love their husbands, and not be stirred up by vain suspicion of a rival, nor envy their stepchildren, if they themselves have not received children.

It was the care of a good wife to excuse her own barrenness before her husband; and lest there should be a reason for her husband not having children, she urges him to go in to her handmaid. This Lia did, this Rachel did afterward. Learn, woman, to lay aside jealousy, which often incites women to madness.

But I warn you too, men, especially you who are striving toward the grace of the Lord, not to join yourselves to an adulterous body (for he who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her), nor to give this occasion of divorce to women. Let no one flatter himself with the laws of men. Every act of fornication is adultery, nor is it lawful for the husband what is not lawful for the wife. The same chastity is owed by the husband as is owed by the wife. Whatever has been committed against her who is not a lawful wife is condemned by the crime of adultery. You have therefore understood what you ought to guard against, lest anyone show himself unworthy of the sacraments.

Receive also another lesson, that intemperance of this sort dissolves the charity of marriage, makes maidservants haughty, wives wrathful, spouses discordant, concubines insolent, husbands shameless. As soon as the maidservant conceived by her master, she began to despise her mistress, as being richer in offspring; the mistress grieves at being scorned, and charges her husband as the author of her injuries. Indeed Sara herself had given her husband power over her maidservant, and afterward says to him: I suffer wrong from you: I gave my handmaid into your bosom; but when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised, she says, before her: let God judge between me and you. How great the grief, how heavy the complaint of women is, is set forth by the reading. Suppose an improvident and fickle husband who knows not how to accommodate himself, and he furnishes grounds for divorce. But Abraham, a man moderate and prudent, says: Behold, your maidservant is in your hands, use her as it pleases you. For he preferred to keep his wife rather than the servant.

Yet even this was not a full remedy. The angry wife received the power, and used the vengeance permitted her without moderation. But if Sara did not keep moderation, who will keep it? And so it is written: And Sara afflicted her, and she fled from her face. There are two things which the Scripture comprehends: that it might express both the mistress's grave indignation, and the maidservant's swelling and pride. That Sara afflicted her is referred to the wrath of the one afflicting; that Agar fled shows that she could not bear reproach with servile patience, she who claimed for herself the height of her master's companionship: she was indignant at the injury, she who had put on insolence. Indeed, when the angel asked her where she was going, she answered: I flee from the face of Sara my mistress.

And this too is a mark of immoderate swelling, that she first said the name Sara, and only afterward signified "mistress." The former was set first for the sake of the injury, the latter added to express the person. The maidservant's insolence did not please the angel; and so he said to her: Return to your mistress. Surely the angel would not have failed to notice it, had she fled overcome by the force of punishments, and he would rather have reproved the cruelty of the one beating than the departure of the one fleeing; but to show that she was fleeing as one proud, so that she might not be proud toward her mistress, he added: And humble yourself under her hands. I wish, then, that no one should fall into this fault; but if anyone should fall into it, let him learn to make his maidservant humble herself to his wife, lest, while he wishes to vindicate the maidservant, he cast out the wife.

So Abraham too was one of the gentile people, and for the sake of posterity had gone in to the maidservant; because his wife, wishing to cover over her own barrenness, had been the author of that deed to her husband: and yet it is not without purpose that after this God immediately, whether to approve his other deeds, or as a kind of penance for this deed, said to him: I am your God, be well-pleasing in my sight, and be without complaint, as though he had not yet fully merited it, he who despaired of his barren wife's childbearing and sought posterity from the maidservant. Be, He says, without complaint, that is, irreproachable; so that your wife may not complain of you, nor anyone reproach your deeds. For He changes his name, adding a letter, so that from Abram he should be called Abraham, that is, from "vain father," as the Latin interpretation has it, he should be called "exalted father," "chosen father"; or from being a father he should become a father of a son.

He was vain when he did not know God; he became chosen after he came to know God. He was a father when he had offspring from the maidservant, but he was not a father of a son; for he had no son who was not received in lawful marriage. Sara bore, and he became father of a son. He is commanded to be circumcised, about to receive the inheritance of the true seed. Is it not evident that the circumcision of the flesh is a precept of chastity, that one may cut off the lust of the flesh, and rein in untamed desires of luxury and wantonness? For under the name of circumcision it is prescribed that all the stench of impurity be wiped away, and the incentive of lust removed. We have used two defenses.

There is a third also, which the authority of the Apostle Paul furnishes us, who says: The things which Abraham did, that he should receive offspring from the maidservant, were done as a figure, and spoken according to allegory. Allegory is when one thing is done and another is figured; as the Apostle himself also teaches, saying: You who wish to be under the law, have you not read the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the maidservant and one by the free woman; but he who was of the maidservant was born according to the flesh, while he who was of the free woman was by promise: which things are spoken by allegory.

For these are the two testaments: one indeed from Mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Agar, showing that two peoples flow from Abraham's generation: one, the Jews, who serve the letters of the law, in that they seem to be born of the maidservant unto bondage; the other, the Christian, who has received the liberty of heavenly grace for the remission of sins. What you think, then, to be sin, you perceive to be a mystery, by which those things which were to come in later times were revealed. Then he adds: But you, brethren, are children of promise as Isaac was. Therefore, he says, seek not the works of the law; since man is not justified by the works of the law, except through the faith of Jesus Christ. And that you may know he said this to Christians: And we, he says, believe in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law.

Let us acknowledge, then, that these things which happened in figure were not a crime to them; but they will be to us, if we are unwilling to beware of what was written for our correction: but let us rather see to it that, since we are children of the free woman, who is Sara, we may not be bound by the snares of the law, since Abraham kept the free woman and cast out the maidservant.

At this point I know that many are troubled: for if circumcision is good, it ought to be kept even today; if useless, it ought not to have been commanded, especially by a divine oracle. But since the Apostle Paul has said: That Abraham received the sign of circumcision, surely a sign is not the thing itself, but belongs to another thing, that is, it is not the truth but the indication of the truth. Then he himself expounded and expressed it, saying: He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith. Whence we understand not unfittingly that bodily circumcision is a sign of spiritual circumcision. Therefore the sign remained until the truth should come. The Lord Jesus came, who says: I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Because He circumcised not a small part of the body in sign, but the whole man in truth, He took away the sign and brought in the truth; because after that which is perfect came, that which was in part was made void; and therefore the circumcision of the part ceased where the circumcision of the whole shone forth. For now not in part, but the whole man is saved, saved in body, saved in soul. For it is written: Whoever wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. This is the perfection of circumcision; because through the offering of the body the soul is redeemed, of which the Lord Himself says: He who shall lose his soul for my sake shall find it.

There remains now that part of the question, whether the part ought to have been sent ahead, since the perfection was to come. This point is easy to resolve, if we consider to whom the part was entrusted, and to whom the perfection was reserved. For the part was entrusted according to the law to the people of the Jews, that stiff-necked people, that weak people, that people which did not know its own God. Since, then, they could not bear the part, how could they have kept the perfection? Just as if you would teach a little boy his letters, you must begin with him from the single elements of the letters, so that from single characters you lead him to syllables, from syllables in order to words, and to speech. Nor can anyone sail the sea without fear, unless he has first sailed on rivers.

Finally, if you wish to entrust to a boy any part of a journey to complete, or of a burden to lighten, and to a more grown man, are the burdens to be equalized, or the labor to be equalized? So, then, you should know that the perfection of circumcision was reserved for those who, instituted by Christ, would seem fit for stronger things; that they might be proved faithful, of whom an innumerable multitude would take up the cross and devote their soul for Christ, and the unbelievers could not resist, who thought that salvation was to be sought in the immolation of the whole body, who reckoned the scant blood of their circumcision to be salutary.

It must also be considered that God called him while he was set in uncircumcision, and while he still remained in uncircumcision, the inheritance of the lawful son was promised him; so that you may believe him to be not only the father of the Jews, as they themselves assert, but through faith the author of all who believe. Sara also, before her husband's circumcision, by the addition of one letter, is blessed with no small recompense, that she should have the primacy of virtue and grace; of whom nations and kings of the gentiles are promised to be, so that in her a type might be established not of the Synagogue, but of the Church. And as for the fact that, when a son was promised of her, Abraham laughed, this was a sign not of unbelief but of exultation. For he fell upon his face, worshipping, and believed, and added: Shall a son be born to me who am a hundred years old, and shall Sara, who is ninety years old, bring forth?

And he said: O that Ismael might live in Your sight. He is not incredulous in the promises, nor covetous in his wishes. That is, I do not doubt that You will do it, that You will grant a son even to an old man of a hundred years, and, as the author of nature, relax the bounds of nature. Blessed is he to whom such things are granted: but yet even here, this Ismael whom I have of the home-born maid, if he may live in Your sight, grace abounds for me. Then the Lord both approved his affection, and did not refuse his petition, and confirmed His own promises.

The promise of a son to Abraham as he ministers, as also the rite of Sara is set forth.

We have spoken of Abraham's devotion, and faith, of his prudence, justice, charity, frugality; now let us also speak of his hospitality. For it is no small virtue. Whence the Apostle also taught, by the authority of a double writing, that it ought to be present chiefly in a bishop; that he be ready for those who come, and go to meet them, and search out the roads, and be present to those not seeking him, and snatch up those passing by. Abraham was sitting before the door, sitting at noon. When others were resting, he was watching for the arrival of guests. Deservedly God appeared to him at the oak of Mambre, because he sought most zealously the fruit of hospitality.

And looking up, he says, with his eyes he saw, and behold, three men stood near him. And when he saw them, he ran to meet them. See first the mystery of faith. God appeared to him, and he beheld three. To him for whom God shines forth, he sees the Trinity; he receives not the Father without the Son, nor confesses the Son without the Holy Spirit. This more fully elsewhere. Now the purpose is to pursue the moral sense of the passage. He does not sit idle who looks afar off; nor content with having looked, he ran to meet them. He hastened to meet them, because it is not enough to act rightly, unless you also hasten to do what you do. For the law commands that the passover be eaten in haste. For devotion that is prompt bears richer fruits. Learn, then, how eager you ought to be, that you may be able to anticipate the guest; lest someone else anticipate you, and cheat you of the abundance of a good gift.

Hospitality is good, it has its own reward, first that of human favor, then, what is greater, that of divine recompense. All of us in this sojourn are guests; for we have lodging only to dwell in for a time: we soon depart. Let us beware lest, if we are hard or negligent in receiving guests, we too, after the course of this life, be denied the lodgings of the saints. Whence in the Gospel the Savior says: Make friends for yourselves of the mammon of iniquity, that they may receive you into their eternal tabernacles. Then also in this very body the necessity of wandering as a stranger often arises from thirst. What, then, you deny to others, you decree against yourself; and what you bestow on others, by that you will make yourself appear worthy. If all were to follow this opinion of not receiving guests, where would rest be for wanderers? Having then abandoned human dwellings, we shall seek out the retreats of wild beasts, the lairs of beasts.

But you plead poverty. The guest does not ask riches of you, but grace; not an adorned banquet, but a food that comes to hand. Better, it says, is hospitality with vegetables in friendship and grace, than if you should kill fatted calves at the manger with enmities. These things are pleasing to men, and acceptable to God. Whence the Lord Jesus in the Gospel asserts that whoever shall give to a guest a cup of cold water shall not be without a share of heavenly rewards. Finally Jacob gave Rachel's sheep to drink, and found favor, and acquired a wife. Then, who knows whether you receive God when you think you receive a guest? Abraham, while offering hospitality to travelers, received in his hospitality God and His angels: although even when you receive a guest, you receive God, as you read written in the Gospel, where the Lord Jesus says: I was a stranger, and you took me in [lacuna] For what you have done to one of these least, you have done to me.

That widow who received Elijah for one hour's hospitality, and fed him with scant food, found perpetual sustenance for the whole time of the famine, and received a wonderful reward, so that the meal never failed from the jar. Elisha also, having granted the resuscitation of the child who had died, paid the rent of his hospitality.

Not only readiness in receiving, however, but also the diligence and affection of the one receiving is required. Abraham teaches you both. He ran to meet them, and asked first, saying: Lord, if I have found favor before you, do not pass by your servant: let water be brought, and let your feet be washed, and refresh yourselves under the tree: and I will bring bread, and you shall eat, and afterward you shall pass on: for this reason have you turned aside to your servant. He saw three, and called one Lord, confessing himself the servant of Him alone. Then, turning to the two whom he thought to be attendants, he is eager to render service to them also, no longer bound by the strict obligation of servitude, but by the winning name of diligence, and the practice of attendance.

And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said to her: Hasten and knead three measures of fine flour, and make bread baked under ashes. A good husband does not allow his wife to be without a share in a religious duty, nor does he greedily claim the whole task for himself. Rightly, then, is it kept for both piety and modesty's sake. What belongs to piety, he wishes to be shared; what belongs to modesty remains whole to Sarah. Before the tent the husband watches for the arrival of guests; within the tent Sarah guards a woman's modesty, and safely performs womanly tasks in modesty. Outside the husband invites, inside Sarah prepares the banquet. Nor does Abraham alone hasten, but he also told his wife to hasten, showing her a partner of his devotion, not unequal in faith.

Knead, he says, three measures of fine flour, and make bread baked under ashes. In Greek they are called εγκρυφια, that is, hidden things; because every mystery ought to lie hidden, and be as it were covered by faithful silence, lest it be rashly divulged to profane ears. On this the divine majesty is fed, this affection it feasts upon, which is sparing of speech, and does not bring sacred things into the open. Briefly, moreover, Sarah teaches the mystery of faith, making three measures of one fine flour, which bears the type of the Church, to which it is said: Rejoice, you barren one who do not bear; break forth and cry out, you who are not in labor. For she it is who cherishes faith with an inward spirit, asserting the Trinity of the same divinity, worshiping with equal measure and reverence the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, celebrating together the unity of majesty, and distinguishing the properness of the persons; with this confession of faith knead your devotion.

Let the woman offer fine flour, that is, the interior part of that spiritual wheat or grain of which it was said, that unless it fall into the ground, it bears no fruit. Whence also Mary first saw the mystery of the Lord's resurrection, and hastened, not to tell everyone indiscriminately, but only to bring the news of the sacred salvation to Peter and John. Let the man run to the oxen, take a calf, and receive the sacrament of the Lord's passion with hastened, diligent zeal, not relaxed in slow leisure; let him hand it over to the boy who keeps the innocence of tender age, who knows not guile, who does not know how to report it, who guards the chastity of an uncorrupted body of whom the Lord Jesus says: Unless you turn and become like this child, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. To this boy and to those like him even holy David assigns the office of divine praise, saying: Praise the Lord, you children.

Nor is it without purpose that he ran to the oxen, and took a tender and good calf, and set it before them with milk. Finally, in Exodus also, when Moses was declaring the Lord's Passover, he says: A lamb without blemish, clean, complete, a year old, a male shall it be for you, from the sheep or from the goats. You shall take it, he says, and the whole assembly of the synagogue shall kill it toward evening. Whence here also it is described as noon, when Abraham offers hospitality to the Lord. But at supper the calf is sacrificed, and eaten with milk, that is, not in blood, but with purity of faith. A good calf, as one who would wash away sins. Tender, because it accepted the yoke of the law not with a stiff neck but meekly, and did not refuse the gibbet of the cross.

And rightly tender, of whose head and feet and inward parts nothing was left, and whose bone was not broken, but the whole of it yielded to the food of the feasters. Such a one did the shadow of the Law prefigure for us, such a one the truth of the Gospel showed forth.

They ate, it says: but Abraham stood under the tree. We observe the duty of humility commending humility. Abraham stood, and do you occupy the first place at the table? Finally, that humility found grace, so that a son was promised to him.

And he said to him: Where is Sarah your wife? Who answered, and said: Behold, in the tent.

Did the Lord not know, who in what follows announces the future destruction of the Sodomites, where Sarah was? He did not fail to know; but He wished to teach us how great modesty women ought to have; lest by a bold encounter with guests they turn eyes upon themselves; that with modesty preserved they may perform their service. Abraham too impresses upon your ears that Sarah dwells in the tent; that you may learn what you should require of a wife. In more advanced age Sarah still guards a youthful modesty; therefore the Lord promised her a son. It had ceased, it says, to be with Sarah after the manner of women. This is not added idly, lest you should think it was still within a woman's natural capacity to bear a child.

And Sarah laughed. I think this a sign more of the future than of unbelief. For she laughed, though not yet knowing why she laughed, because she was to bear in Isaac a joy that would be public. Therefore she denied she had laughed, because she did not know; therefore she laughed, because she prophesied.

And the men rising up looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah. Just as the Lord's visitation is shown to those who fear Him, so also the punishment of sin is stored up for the impious. Abraham was escorting the guests, adding services to the grace of hospitality. But the Sodomites, in return for services of piety, heaped up the crimes of impurity.

I will not hide, says Abraham, from my boy what I am about to do. Scripture had marked Abraham above as of elderly age, since he had advanced to ninety-nine years: how does it call him this boy? But since it has described him as forgetting his old age, an untiring investigator, unwearied in running, most patient in standing, most zealous in escorting, does not the name "boy" seem fitting for such duties? Rightly is he called a boy, who knew no elderly disdain, who showed the innocence and obedience of boyhood. Thus is given to the just man the grace of blessing, and the inheritance of posterity.

The offense of sinners is then set forth. The outcry, it says, of Sodom and Gomorrah has been filled up. Great is the patience of the Lord, that He does not punish the sinner at once, but delays long, waiting for correction; nor is He moved to avenge, unless the sinner exceeds the measure. Whence also the Lord Jesus in the Gospel says to the Jews: Fill up the measure of your fathers.

I will go down, therefore, that I may see, according to the outcry of them that comes to me, whether they have accomplished it altogether: but if not, that I may know. The Lord did not fail to know the sins of the Sodomites; but for your instruction He spoke words of this kind, that you should search more closely into the deeds of those on whom you think vengeance ought to be taken. I will go down, He says, that I may see, that is, take care that you also go down; go down with the zeal of investigation, lest anything escape or lie hidden from one who is absent; that you may catch the crime with your own eyes. Those placed at a distance can be ignorant of many things. And what outcry does He mean, but perhaps that to Him whom nothing escapes, all things cry out, and the crimes of individuals seem to cry out?

Finally it is said to Cain: The blood of your brother cries out to me from the ground, that is, your murder does not lie hidden, but cries out. Thus God is, as it were, roused by the outcries of our misdeeds, so that He at length avenges, though He readily forgives.

Finally, when Abraham asked that He not destroy the just together with the unjust, as it were, and inquired: If there be fifty just men in the city, will you destroy them? He answered: I will not destroy the city, if there be fifty just men in it, and I will spare the whole place. And so, through the order of questions and the exchange of answers, even if He should find ten just men in the city, He nonetheless promises impunity to the whole people because of the justice of the few. Whence we learn how great a wall a just man is to his homeland, how we ought not to envy holy men, nor rashly detract from them. For their faith preserves us, their justice defends us from destruction. Sodom too, had it possessed ten just men, could have avoided perishing.

What, moreover, is the meaning of the fact that those who had come to Abraham together with the Lord went as men to Sodom, unless to make more bitter their crime, that the impious should attempt with greater sacrilege to do violence to those whom the just man had honored? For as to their being called men, the reason is plain: because they presented the appearance of men.

They came to Sodom in the evening, at noon to Abraham; because to the just man the presence of angels shines forth, but to the impious it brings darkness. Yet this can also be referred to the time of the Lord's Passion, in that they came in the evening to him who was to be freed from the contagions of the Sodomites and from the destruction of the whole city. It was evening before Christ came, because the whole world was in darkness. It was evening for all whom the dark filth of monstrous crimes oppressed. The Lord Jesus came, redeemed the world with His blood, brought light. But two angels came into Sodom at evening. Where grace is to be bestowed, Christ is present; where severity is to be exercised, only the ministers are present, Jesus is absent.

Lot was sitting at the gate. The adversities of captivity had amended holy Lot, and had made him more watchful. So with advancing age he had learned to imitate his kinsman. He sat, then, at the gate, to receive those who arrived. Finally he rose up to meet them. The more perfect one ran to meet them: this one rose up, and worshiped with his face to the ground, and said: Behold, my lords, turn aside into the house of your servant. And he compelled them to turn aside, though they said: We will lodge in the street. Here is commended the sanctity of the just man, and the graciousness of the angels. They did not wish their arrival to seem too burdensome to their host; he indeed knew among whom he dwelt; yet he exposed his own house to the dangers from which he was rescuing his guests. Surely the more slowly they yielded, the more fully, by testing longer, did they give proof.

But the men of the city of Sodom surrounded the house, from the youth even to the old man, all the people together. The equity of the divine judgment is here set beforehand, lest anyone should say: What have the children done, that all should be involved in the destruction? Thus there was no just man there, none innocent. Hear Scripture testifying that they surrounded the house from the youth even to the old man, all the people together. No age was free of guilt, therefore none was free of ruin. And he who had not the ability to commit the crime, had the desire. The strength of old men was spent, but their mind full of lust. Holy Lot offered the modesty of his daughters. For although that too was a disgraceful impurity, still it was less against nature to lie together than to sin against nature. He preferred the hospitable grace of his house to the modesty of his family, a grace inviolable even among barbarous nations.

Finally, hospitality is there unoffended, where not even kinship is safe enough.

But the angels struck them with blindness, so that they could not even find the door of the house which they were desiring to open. There indeed the wonderful power of the angels is shown; that, blindness having been cast upon the impure, the doors of the house were not found. But this too is shown, that all lust is blind, and does not see before itself. And that holy Lot was recalled into the house by the hands of the guests shows that, forgetful of danger, mindful of faith, he had not snatched himself from danger, but offered himself to it.

A place of piety is set forth, in that, once the overthrow of the whole region had been made known to him by the angels, holy Lot is introduced as having sons-in-law, and as warning them to flee; at the same time, lest by abandoning them, and by not warning them, he might seem less devoted toward his daughters’ husbands: or lest the cause of their error might be laid to his own charge—since, deprived of the companionship of a man, they had, once he was drunk, sought union with their father. Scripture, then, does not leave the holy man undefended; since he is represented both as having given his daughters to husbands, and as having warned his sons-in-law. But it seemed to them that he was mocking them, and yet Lot still delayed, so as to persuade his sons-in-law; and he would scarcely have set out to escape, had he not been compelled to go forth by the angels urging him and holding his hand.

He did not, then, set out of his own accord, but was led out: and he received the command not to look back, nor to linger in all that region, but to go up into the mountain. When this is said to him, it is said to all. If you too, then, wish to escape, do not look back, but forward. Look where Christ is, who says to you: Get behind me, as He says to Peter: Get behind me, so that he might follow Christ, might see Christ. Behind is Sodom, full of shame; behind is Gomorrah, teeming with vices, a region of crimes. Touch not, says the Apostle, taste not, handle not, all of which things lead to corruption. Flee, then, Sodom, leave Gomorrah quickly, forsake the elements of this world, lest impending dangers entangle you: do not linger while fleeing, nor delay in the whole region of vices. He who did not look back, escaped; she who looked back, could not escape.

Now the daughters of holy Lot are excused, because they thought that not merely the neighboring region but the whole world had perished in that destruction, and that they alone, with their father, had survived out of all peoples. And so, lest the human race should fail, they sought union with their father, that they might raise up from their own father the seed of human generation. It was not, then, the vice of lust, but a remedy of generation, which I do not think should be reckoned in the place of a crime. For Eve too was taken from man, from whose rib the woman was built, bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh; yet for the sake of the course of human succession she was joined to the man. Nevertheless the consciousness of the just man is withdrawn from this act; for, drunk with wine, he did not know what he was doing.

Hence it is no wonder if the girls were deceived by an opinion which supposed that all the peoples of the world had perished. Not the same excuse would hold for holy Lot, who had heard from the angels that it was that place, not the whole world, that was to perish.

Surely we learn that drunkenness is to be avoided, through which we cannot guard against crimes. For what we avoid while sober, we commit unknowingly through drunkenness. It is not enough that it inflames lust, kindles the desires of the body: it also undermines the mind itself, seizes the soul, wrests away the senses. Those who indulge too much in wine do not know what they are saying; they lie buried in it. And so, if men have done wrong through wine, before wise judges the deed is indeed pardoned; but the authors are marked with the charge of levity. How great is the very disfigurement, that the powers are dissolved, that the gait totters?

Many think themselves strong; are they stronger than Lot? Are they more continent than Noah? Scripture has by no means set forth the vices of the patriarchs, whom we read to have been overcome by wine, for their own sake—but that you might learn what to guard against. That one lay naked; this one lay open to the error of his daughters. Even just Noah was deceived, because the power of wine was not yet known: but in him you have been instructed, so that you might not be ignorant. Lot entrusted himself to his daughters, and, undone through drunken old age, unwittingly committed incest: so drink in such a way that you not be caught. Let the patriarchs instruct you, not only by their teaching but even by their errors. Therefore the example of drunkenness was repeated, that the teaching of caution might be confirmed.

Finally, Sarah’s chastity is tested again, that it may be proven of all. For Abimelech too had taken her for his wife, and God said to him at night: Behold, you shall die because of the woman. We observe that adultery is punished by divine judgment with death. And so He added: But she is dwelling with a man. Indeed every union of man and woman not celebrated under the lot of lawful marriage has its own guilt. Learn, then, you who press on toward the grace of baptism, as candidates, so to speak, of the faith, the sober discipline of continence. No one is permitted to know a woman except his wife. And so the right of marriage has been given to you, lest you fall into a snare and sin with another’s wife. You are bound to your wife; do not seek release: for it is not lawful for you, while your wife lives, to take another wife.

For to seek another, when you have your own, is the crime of adultery—the more grievous in that you think authority for your sin should be sought in law. It is more tolerable if the fault lies hidden than if authority is claimed for the fault. Nor is this the only adultery, to sin with another’s spouse, but everything that lacks the power of marriage: yet this passage teaches that the crime is graver where the rights of a celebrated marriage are violated, and the modesty of a wife is undone. And so, when Abimelech pleaded that he had not known she was another’s wife, whom her own husband had said was his sister, the Lord answered him: And I know that you did this with a pure heart, and I spared you, that you should not sin against me: for this reason I did not allow you to touch her.

We recognize that God is, as it were, the president and guardian of marriage, who does not allow another’s bed to be defiled: and that whoever does so, sins against God, whose law he violates, and forfeits grace. And therefore, because he sins against God, he loses fellowship in the heavenly sacrament.

Perhaps you are moved by the question of why Pharaoh was so heavily afflicted with troubles by almighty God, as we read above, though he too had not known that Sarah was Abraham’s wife, having heard she was his sister: whereas Abimelech received no punishment. But you should know that the king of Egypt was a leader in vices, who, the more license he had, the more shameful deeds he committed: whereas Abimelech was so accounted faithful before God that he deserved to hear: And I know that you did this with a pure heart—a king not of affliction, as the Egyptian, but of fortification, as the interpretation of Gerar, over which he ruled, teaches. There is no doubt, then, that by his other deeds the Lord’s indignation was recalled, for He is truly the judge of the inner conscience, and the interpreter of the soul and mind.

Finally, unlike that Pharaoh who, when confronted by Moses, refused and spurned the command of God, nor did he delay obedience: but he immediately called Abraham, restored his wife to him, fined himself with a price for having looked upon another’s wife, and paid the dowry of her honor.

From this too it can be gathered that King Abimelech deserved milder treatment, in that Abraham asked and obtained mercy for him. For his wife bore children, and so did his handmaid, whom God had before closed up on account of Sarah, Abraham’s wife: which likewise pertains to the divine dispensation, so that the birth granted to Sarah by God’s promise might also be supported by this testimony; since you observe that by God’s displeasure even fertile women become barren, and again, by the Lord’s will, barren women become fertile, according to what is written: Have not I made the barren woman bring forth, says the Lord? Although this may be taken as spoken with reference to the mystery of the Synagogue and the Church; for the Synagogue too has ceased to have offspring, being deprived of a succession of posterity, while the gathering of the nations, which was barren when it did not know God, has begun to have eternal offspring.

Whence it is read: Rejoice, O barren one, who do not bear: break forth and cry out, you who are not in labor; for the children of the desolate are more than of her who has a husband.

Now Isaac was born to Abraham when he was a hundred years old. And you, if you shall be made perfect, will have as posterity an inheritance of joy and exultation. And Sarah said: The Lord has made laughter for me: for whoever hears will rejoice with me. This is by no means to be understood of this kind of generation, which is subject to many mischances, so that sometimes it would have been better not to have generated: but of that generation whereby every sinner, doing penance, when he is redeemed from death, is wont to bring joy to the angels.

And Sarah said: Who will announce to Abraham that Sarah gives suck to an infant? A moral point. Women are urged to remember their own dignity, and to nurse their own sons. For this is the grace of mothers, this the honor, whereby they commend their sons to their own husbands. Moreover, sons are wont to love more those whom their own mothers have nursed at their own breasts.

And Abraham made a great feast on the day his son Isaac was weaned. This is no small or ordinary thing. For it was not because the boy was withdrawn from his nurse’s milk that Abraham put on a great banquet: but because Isaac was accounted fit for the food of a stronger grace, and the nourishment of virtue, not still to be given milk to drink, as the Corinthian was; but, strengthening the sinews of his mind with the more solid feasts of heavenly commands.

Prosperity is soon followed by envy. Sarah had given birth, had weaned her son: She saw the handmaid’s son playing with her son Isaac, and said to Abraham: Cast out the handmaid and her son; for the son of the handmaid shall not be heir with my son Isaac. This seemed harsh to Abraham, that he should cast out his own son, even though he was the one he had begotten from a slave-woman. And you too, do not mingle yourself with a handmaid, lest you take a son from her, and your wife not suffer him to become co-heir with her own son. For you see that hereby the grace of marriage is dissolved. Certainly if you have fallen, and have a son, cast out the handmaid and her son. For it is better that the handmaid depart rather than the wife, and that the handmaid’s son be cast out rather than the legitimate one.

But if you have hesitated, if you have despised your wife’s judgment and it has seemed harsh to you, God says to you what He said also to Abraham; for what He said to him, He says to you, and says to all: Let it not be harsh in your sight concerning the boy and the handmaid. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice; for in Isaac shall your seed be called. Nowhere else did He say: Listen to the voice of your wife, except here—that is, you have done injury to your wife, and have not soothed her feeling, you have taken a son from the handmaid, and have not honored the wife’s son. Can your seed possibly be called in the handmaid’s son? By no means; for in the legitimate son is the true succession. But you fear, because he is your son, lest, cast out, he perish and die. My grace will not be lacking to him.

Our God nourishes all, He suffices for all, both the just and the unjust. Indeed, He makes His rain fall upon the just and the unjust. As Abraham did, do you also. Cast out the handmaid, that your wife may remain secure and undisturbed at home. Cast out also the handmaid’s son, that he who does not have the privilege of birth may not have a share in the inheritance.

And it came to pass after these words, that God tempted Abraham. God tempts in one way, the devil in another. The devil tempts in order to overthrow; God tempts in order to crown. Indeed He tempts those already proved to Himself. Whence David also says: Try me, O God, and tempt me. And He first proved holy Abraham, and thus tempted him; lest, if He had tempted him before He had proved him, it would have been too heavy a burden. He proved him when He commanded him to go out from Haran, and found him obedient. He proved him when, relying on the title of faith, he freed his nephew, when he touched nothing of the spoil, when He promised the old man a son, and when, though he was a hundred years old, and considered the deadened organs of Sarah, yet he believed, nor did he waver in faith, though he might have wavered on the grounds of sterility or old age: He proved him by his diligence in hospitality.

Him, therefore, once proved, He thought fit to be tempted, as being stronger, with greater and somewhat harder commands. And by this example indeed we are taught that a man is proved by true things, but is tempted by things composed and feigned. For God did not wish the son to be slain by the father, nor did He wish this act to be carried out—He who offered a ram to be sacrificed in place of the son—but He was testing the father’s affection, whether he would set God’s commands above his son, and would not, out of regard for fatherly love, bend the force of his devotion.

And he said to him: Abraham, Abraham. By the repetition of the name he rouses the mind, that he might be more ready. Then he answered: Behold, I am here. And he said: Take thy most beloved son, whom thou hast loved, Isaac, and go into the high land, and thou shalt offer him to me as a holocaust upon one of the mountains which I shall tell thee. He does not allow the father's affection to be idle. From the beginning he stirs him and pierces him with the goads of piety, and adds to the name of the relationship the name of the son, and the force of love. He did not think it sufficient to say "son," he adds, "most beloved, whom thou hast loved, Isaac." What is the meaning of his saying, "whom thou hast loved," and not "whom thou lovest"?

We may indeed use, for the defense of Scripture, the divine custom, because it often puts the past tense for what is to come or for the present, as you have in the Gospel: "This is my most beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased", although the Father is always pleased in the Son. And in the Psalm you have: "The Lord said to my Lord, sit thou at my right hand", although he always sits. Yet we may also take "most beloved" as referring to the present, and "whom thou hast loved" to signify that he expressed the beloved not by some recent impulse of love but by a love long ingrained and tested. For what is increased for a time is also dissolved in time; but what has pleased for a long time or always cannot quickly be abolished. It may also not seem absurd that we love more those who are about to die. This is, "whom thou hast loved before," as if he now loves him who is to be sacrificed.

Nor did he add idly the name of holy Isaac, that is, him whom thou didst receive as an only son from thy wife, whom thou didst receive in old age, whom thou didst receive as the reward of thy faith, the recompense of thy works, whom thou didst receive by the promise of God, not by the fecundity of a spouse from whom thou mightest hope for another. "Thou shalt offer to me a holocaust": but first go into the high land. A space is interposed, lest the affection seem to be suddenly hurried, so that by that delay the grace of piety might steal upon the father's desire. He added: "upon one of the mountains which I shall tell thee." And here likewise, so that while the old man ascended, the impetus might be broken, the right hand grow weary, the resolve fail: while he sought to learn the mountain, he might unlearn the preparation.

Rising, moreover, not only on the following day but even at dawn, so that the night might seem to have brought delay to the zeal of the hastening father: "He saddled his ass, and took with him two young men, and Isaac his son, and cut wood for the holocaust". We are taught to bring all things ready for sacrifice: we learn also to claim for ourselves the preparation of the sacrifice, and the duty of ministry, not to delegate it to others. Abraham, an old man, rich in flocks and abounding in servants, did not seek the ranks of his retinue: he himself also cut the wood, and did not omit services greater than his strength.

"He came to the place which God had told him, on the third day". And with two others he himself, the third, sets out, carrying his victim with him, and on the third day comes to the place of sacrifice. This number is salutary, and fitting for those about to sacrifice. Indeed also in what follows, Moses says to Pharaoh king of Egypt: "We will go a journey of three days, and will sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he told us". And rightly is the sacrifice of the Trinity celebrated on the third day.

"And Abraham, looking up with his eyes, saw the place afar off". He who hastens to fulfill explores carefully. Although he hastened his aged step with zeal, yet thinking this too slow, he went ahead with his eyes: the offices of each member were vigorous, although aged members could not be vigorous. The sight of old men is usually dulled, so that they do not easily perceive even things nearby. This man not only saw the place, but even, being placed far off, beheld it.

Nor did he doubt that he had seen, but he said to his servants: "Sit here with the ass: I and the boy will go on as far as yonder; and when we have worshipped, we will return to you". Rightly is there a type in the ass, because the truth also is in the foal of an ass. For in this animal is figured the people of the Gentiles, formerly subject to burden, now subject to Christ. Isaac therefore is a type of Christ about to suffer. He came on an ass, that the people of the nations, about to believe, might be signified. And therefore also the Lord, when he came to undergo the passion for us, untied the foal of an ass, upon which he himself sat, it too being gentle and tame, already entrusting its back to Christ.

But when he says: "I and the boy will pass over the way," it shows that the father would not fail in so great a preparation, that the son would not yield; or that they would pass through, by the remedy of piety, the harshness of so great a deed. He added: "We will return to you." He prophesied what he did not know. He alone was arranging to return, the son having been sacrificed: but the Lord spoke through his mouth what he was preparing. But he spoke deceptively to the servants, lest, the business being known, someone might hinder, or interrupt with groaning or weeping.

"And he took the wood of the holocaust, and laid it upon Isaac his son: he himself carried in his hand the fire and the knife". The victim is consecrated by sacred ministries, and the future is commended. This is the carrying of the sacrifice of piety in advance by pious ministry. Isaac carried the wood for himself, Christ carried for himself the gibbet of the cross. Abraham accompanied his son, the Father accompanied Christ. Neither was Isaac alone, nor was Jesus alone. Thus he says: "You will leave me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me".

"And Isaac said to Abraham his father, Father. And he said: What wilt thou, my son?" The father's affection is struck by words of piety, and is tossed by waves this way and that. The son calls the father: the father says, "My son"; so that by the very sound of the words the father might recognize himself: how impossible it is that he should be able to strike him to whose wound he would wish to submit himself. These names are wont to work the grace of life, not the ministry of death: these words are wont to incite to piety, not to death.

Isaac added, saying: "Behold the wood, where is the sheep for a holocaust?" And here too he prophesies in word, not in knowledge. For the sheep was being prepared by the Lord for the sacrifice. Abraham then answered likewise: "God will provide himself a sheep for a holocaust, my son". A minister unbending from zeal of devotion does not fear frequently to call him "son"; so grounded is he in the solidity of his purpose: and he thought himself the better father for this, he judged that his son would remain his forever if he sacrificed him to God.

Nor did he only prophesy this, which soon happened, that God provided for himself a victim in place of Isaac, and gave the son back to the father: but rather this greater thing, that this victim was not of divine appointment: but there would be another victim which God would prepare for himself, that he might cleanse the whole world: that victim would be more acceptable to all, for whose sake many fathers would offer their sons, and would not fear to be separated in this age from their sons. Daily fathers offer their sons, that they may die in Christ, and be buried together with him in the Lord. How many fathers, their sons slain by martyrdom, have returned more joyful from their tomb!

Abraham came to the place foreordained for sacrifice; and he built an altar there, and laid the wood in order. What great efforts on the part of one about to sacrifice, lest he be thought suddenly seized to sacrifice! And having bound the hands and feet of Isaac his son, he laid him upon the altar upon the wood. The father binds his son's bonds with his own hands, lest the son, by fleeing and being roused by the force of the fire, incur sin.

And the Angel said, Abraham, Abraham. The divine voice held his hand, so to speak, and forestalled the blow of his brandished right hand. Nor did he call once only; lest either he not fully hear, or think it a chance voice. He called back in the same way as he had commanded. He repeated the voice, as though fearing lest he be forestalled by the zeal of devotion, and one voice not be able to recall the impetus of the one striking. "Lay not," he says, "thy hand upon the boy, neither do thou anything to him; for now I know that thou fearest thy God, and hast not spared thy most beloved son for my sake": that is to say: I sought your affection, I did not require the deed. I tried your mind, whether you would not spare even your most beloved son for my sake. I do not take away what I myself gave, nor do I grudge the heir whom I bestowed on one who had none.

Nor did he idly here too call him his most beloved son, so that he might show that what he had said above, "whom thou hast loved," was said in such a way that you should not think he had now ceased to love him.

And Abraham looked up and saw, and behold a ram caught by his horns in a thicket. Why a ram? As excelling, indeed, the rest of the flock. Why suspended? So that you might perceive that that victim was not earthly. For what reason suspended by the horns, unless because he raised his flesh from the earth by a higher power? According to what is written: "Whose government is upon his shoulders". Who indeed is signified, but he of whom it is written: "He has exalted the horn of his people"? Our horn is Christ, who excelled all, as we read, "Beautiful in form beyond the sons of men". Alone raised up and exalted from the earth, as he himself teaches us, when he says: "I am not of this world, I am from above". This one Abraham saw in that sacrifice, this one's passion he beheld. And therefore the Lord himself says of him: "Abraham saw my day, and rejoiced".

Whence the Scripture: "Abraham called the name of that place, The Lord sees; so that they say to this day: In the mountain the Lord appeared", that is, because he appeared to Abraham, revealing the future passion of his body, by which he redeemed the world: showing also the kind of passion, when he showed him suspended. That thicket is the gibbet of the cross. And on this wood the most excellent leader of the flock, being exalted, drew all things to himself; that he might be known by all. Whence he himself also says: "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you shall know that I am he". Hence too Abraham merited God.

This, then, is the third blessing. For he received three full blessings: one after the victory, by which he freed his nephew, when Melchisedech met him, when the Lord said to him: "Look up to heaven, and number the stars, if thou canst: so shall thy seed be. And Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice": another when Abraham was commanded to be named, and received the seal of circumcision: the third here, when he did not hesitate to offer his most beloved son as a holocaust to God. This blessing again surpassed the former ones. For in those he promised that there would be a propagation of Abraham's seed: but in this he says: "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast heard my voice". Let us too hear the voice of our God, and obey his commands, if we wish to find grace with him.

The passage that follows contains the death of his wife, the husband's weeping, the office of burial; by which the marital affection is proved. "And Abraham rose up," it says, "from before his dead". We are taught not to cling too long to the dead, but to render as much duty as is sufficient. He hastened, moreover, to pay the price for the place of burial, though it was offered free; that we might build the tombs of our parents or kin not on other men's ground but rather our own. For often, along with the alienation of possessions, those places are sold in which are the burials. But Abraham did this for this reason, because there were not yet at that time temples of God of this kind, in which the remains of the faithful might be laid up for the Lord.

Abraham had grown old: and so, as befits a good father, he ought to provide a wife for his son: but on account of the oracle of God he could not return to the place whence he had been commanded to depart. He was dwelling, moreover, in the land of the Canaanites, from whose race he shunned seeking a lawful succession for himself.

And he called the elder servant of his house, and told him to go to Charran, and to seek from his own kin a wife for his younger master. Learn from this that even servants of an older age are called "boys" by their masters, or by any who are their superiors. Whence also a certain poet thought this should be followed: whether in the usage of those who seem to themselves learned and wise he himself found this, or whether he transferred it from our writings, or found it already transferred:

Feed the cattle as before, boys, drive the bulls to them.
(Virg. Ecl. 1.)

Hence too we say "boys" when we mean servants, expressing not age but condition.

Observe now the virtues of a good father of a household, and consider first, what task, and to whom he entrusts it; that you too may so train your servants that they show a paternal affection toward your children, and carry out their duties. There was found among the servants an elder one, yet one who was chosen for the seeking of a wife for the younger master, and was bound by an oath to place his hand under the thigh of his master. By "thigh" we understand generation; and the generation of Abraham is Christ. Whence the Apostle says: To Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He does not say, "and to seeds," as if of many; but as of one, "and to thy seed", which is Christ; showing through him that the holy sacrament will be for us, and through him that safe help will come.

He bound him, moreover, that he should not fetch a wife for his master from the seed of the Canaanites, whose ancestor had not honored his father, and therefore transmitted an inheritance of curse to his own; that we may recognize that faith, and a certain inheritance from the lineage of the founder, ought to be sought in those whom we wish to join to ourselves. For with the holy man thou shalt be holy, and with the perverse thou shalt be perverted. If this is so in other matters, how much more in marriage, where there is one flesh and one spirit. How, moreover, can affection agree, if faith disagrees? And therefore beware, Christian, of giving your daughter to a Gentile or a Jew. Beware, I say, of fetching for yourself a Gentile or a Jewess or a foreigner—that is, a heretic—and every wife estranged from your faith. The first pledge of marriage is the grace of chastity.

If she worships idols whose adulteries are proclaimed, if she denies Christ who is the teacher and rewarder of purity, how can she love purity? If she is a Christian, it is not enough, unless both of you are initiated into the sacrament of baptism. You must rise together at night for prayer, and God must be besought with joined petitions. Another mark of chastity is added, if you believe that the marriage allotted to you is given by your God. Whence Solomon also says: "From the Lord is a wife prepared for a man". Those who differ in faith cannot believe this—that from him whom she does not worship, she thinks the grace of marriage has been imparted to her. Reason teaches this, but examples admonish still more. Often the allurement of a woman has deceived even the stronger husbands, and made them depart from religion. And therefore either take counsel for love, or beware of error. First, then, religion is sought in marriage. Therefore Abraham sought to give a kinswoman to his son.

And you too seek a kinswoman. Who is the kinsman? "He who showed mercy," it says. In the Gospel the Lord Jesus said this. And you seek a kinswoman of the seed of Abraham, and a relative of your neighbor. The seed of Abraham is Christ, he himself is the neighbor of all, who showed mercy upon all, taking away the sin of the world. Learn next what should be sought in a wife: Abraham sought not gold, not silver, not possessions, but the grace of good character.

Then, being asked whether, if the woman were unwilling to come, he should therefore lead his master's son there: "Take heed to yourself," he said, "lest you bring back my son there. The Lord God of heaven and the God of earth took me from my father's house, and from the land in which I was born, who spoke to me and swore, saying: To you will I give this land, and to your seed; he himself will send his Angel before you, and you shall take a wife from there for my son. But if the woman will not come with you into this land, you shall be clear from this oath" Consider more carefully to what end this tends. It is not permitted to you to take a foreign woman. Yet if she makes herself a Christian, you will have praise from her. Lest even you, if she refuses to become a Christian, should be diverted from the faith by eagerness for marriage, the reading instructs you.

Abraham advised that the willing woman be brought, that the one who stayed be not sought, nor that his son go there. Indeed, he taught that mercy would not be lacking from his master, who had led him away from dwelling in the land in which he lived, so that it might go before the eagerness of the suitor, and incline the girl's mind. As a prophet he said this concerning the matter of his son, and as a moral teacher he taught us to hope from the Lord, that he may deign to help one seeking the increase of faith.

And the servant rose and set out for Mesopotamia: and according to the order of the vow which the servant had made as he set out, Rebecca met him, carrying a pitcher upon her shoulder, a virgin exceedingly beautiful, whom no man had known. She went down to the fountain and filled the pitcher, gave the servant to drink, and watered all his camels. Whence the servant of Abraham took golden earrings of a single drachma's weight each, and gave two bracelets into her hands, of ten gold pieces' weight, and asked her whether there were room for lodging, and whose daughter she was. Indeed moral simplicity is here expressed, in that there was no room for ambition even in the seeking of a marriage, but the Lord, as president over the marriage, fulfilled the request. Yet one may look also to the mysteries of the Church. Where is the Church found, if not in Mesopotamia?

There she is sought, thence she is fetched, there she is enclosed by two rivers, the washing of grace and the weeping of penitence. For unless you have wept for your own sins, unless you have received the grace of baptism, the faith of the Church is not acquired for you, nor a certain marital union. The Tigris guards her, that is, prudence, and the Euphrates, that is, justice, and a fruitful illumination, separating her from the barbarian nations.

Now she was a virgin exceedingly beautiful, whose beauty no age has marred. Exceedingly beautiful, because he too is beautiful above the sons of men, who acquired her for himself. Whom no man had known; for she belonged to no man's union, but was owed to Christ alone. She had a pitcher upon her shoulder, with which she washes the deeds of men. And because she consists of a gathering of the nations, whom she has washed, therefore you read that she went down to the fountain, and filled the pitcher, and went up. That Samaritan woman came to the fountain, as is written in the Gospel, but she did not go down; it seemed to her a well, nor did she fill the pitcher. Indeed she says: "I have no pitcher." She had nothing with which to wash her deeds.

This one alone went down, this one alone recognized the true fountain, that is, not a fountain of water, but of eternal life, as David said: "For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we shall see light". And therefore she had what to give to the thirsty, because she believed. For the one who did not believe said to this fountain, willing to give her drink: "Whence have you to give me living water?" But this one had enough not only to give the servant drink, but even to water the camels—she who is accustomed not only to water the just, but even to fill the unjust. Therefore she received the golden earrings and the bracelets which Abraham sent, as rewards of her merits, as it were.

Perhaps, hearing these things, daughters who strive toward the grace of the Lord, you too may be provoked to have earrings and bracelets, and may say: How do you forbid this, Bishop, that we should have what Rebecca received as a gift, and yet you exhort us to be like Rebecca? But Rebecca did not have these earrings and bracelets which are wont to sow quarrels in the Church, which often fall away: she had other earrings, which I wish you had, other bracelets. Rebecca's earrings were the marks of a devout hearing, and Rebecca's bracelets were the ornaments of her deeds. She had earrings which did not weigh down the ear, but soothed it: bracelets which did not burden the hand with material gold, but lightened it with spiritual action. Therefore she was pleasing in this adornment both to her brother and to her parents. And you, take up the earrings which Abraham left you; take up the bracelets which he sent.

Hear the words of the Lord your God, as he heard them; carry out his commands, as he prospered in fulfilling them.

A most beautiful passage, too, for instructing those to whom something is enjoined, is that the servant of Abraham did not first eat the bread set before him, before he had carried out the Lord's command. Once this was obtained, he gave to Rebecca vessels of gold and silver, and clothing. Where the Church was betrothed, she received vessels of gold and silver, in which might be the treasure of faith; for there are vessels unto honor, and vessels unto reproach. Hear what these vessels are: "We have this treasure in earthen vessels". Earthen vessels are our bodies: our faith is the treasure. And perhaps even our very bodies, which hold this treasure, are golden, because they are full of prudence: and there are silver vessels, which seem to shine with the utterances of the heavenly command. And the parents also are honored with gifts.

The girl is not consulted about the betrothal itself, for that awaits the judgment of the parents—it is not the part of virginal modesty to choose a husband: but being already betrothed to the man, she is consulted about the day of departure. Nor without reason did she bring no delay; for rightly she ought to hasten to her husband. Whence that saying of Euripides, which many marvel at, it is clear whence it was borrowed. For he says, in the person of a woman who nevertheless wished to leave her husband, and was being sought for other nuptials:

Νυμφευμάτων μὲν τῶν ἐμῶν πατὴρ ἐμὸς
Μέριμναν ἕξει, κ᾽ οὐκ ἐμὸν κρίνειν τάδε.
(Euripides, in Andromache.)

That is: "Of my espousals my father shall have the care; for this is not mine to judge." Therefore keep, virgins, what even the philosophers themselves marveled at. But also, women—if any young widow, having quickly lost her husband, fears to fall into the snare of her weakness—should, if she wishes to marry, marry only in the Lord, so that she defers the choice of husband to her parents; lest she be thought of unseemly boldness, if she claims for herself the choice of her own marriage. She ought rather to seem sought by the man, than to have herself sought the man. Let her put modesty first, before she marries, so that modesty itself may the more commend the marriage. But those men imitate the words, they cannot imitate the deeds.

It is also clear that a splendid mystery of the Church lies in this, that no one dared to call her before Christ; for to Christ alone was reserved this prerogative of calling the nations. And being called, she made no delay, and was therefore more acceptable to the Lord; because the people of the Jews, who had been called to the feast, were not worthy to come: but the congregation of the nations, as soon as it saw itself summoned, ran to meet him.

Finally, that you may know this is not without mystery, when she was carried on a camel, she came to the bridegroom; because the people of the nations, rough with a certain bestial deformity of merits, having no comeliness of their own form, was about to receive the faith and consent of the Church. Nor is it without purpose that, when Rebecca came, she saw Isaac walking; and having asked who he was, and learning that he was the very one to whom she was being led as wife, she got down, and began to veil her head, teaching that modesty ought to precede marriage: for hence also marriages (nuptiae) are so called, because for modesty's sake girls used to veil (obnubere) themselves. Learn, then, virgins, how you should preserve modesty, and not go forth before strangers with head uncovered, since Rebecca, already betrothed, did not think her destined husband should be seen with head uncovered.

Who is that servant who arranged this marriage? Surely one of the Apostles, and above all he who says: "Men, brethren, you know that from the days of old God made choice among you, that by my mouth the nations should hear the word of the Gospel". Or he who is called the teacher of the Gentiles. For when these are read—or John the evangelist—they win the soul for Christ; so that she may believe who did not believe before: and to those desiring to see Christ, they show him by their words. And so Abraham, having celebrated his son's marriage, at a great age, and in a good old age, completed his days.

We have indeed pursued the moral topic, with such simplicity of understanding as we were able; so that those who read might draw from it teachings for their conduct: but since the edge of a sword is sharp on both sides, and it fights on both sides; likewise the word of God, which is sharper than every sharpest sword, penetrating even to the division of the soul, wherever you turn it you will find it ready and fitting, so that it may pass through the soul of the reader to reveal the enigmas of the prophetic Scriptures. Whence I do not think it absurd to refer the meaning to higher things, and through the history of different persons, to unfold a certain progression in the form of virtue; especially since already in Adam we have tasted the beginnings of a deeper understanding.

For we said that Adam signifies the mind, we signified that Eve is the sense, we expressed delight under the figure of the serpent; but there, concerning the highest blessedness, and a certain natural pleasantness of virtues, there was a slipping back into fault through the circumscription of sense, and the enticement of delight: here, however, it is given to observe the progress of the mind. For the Lawgiver acted providently in this: just as he showed the fall of the mind, so that we might beware those paths of error, so also he signified the progress of the mind, and a certain higher return, so that we might know how a broken mind can reform itself. For the Lord had purged the earth by the pouring out of the flood, he had washed away the defilement of human frailty: but this was not enough for the progress of virtue, unless man were also instructed how he should rule and govern himself—Abraham is introduced in the place of the mind.

Indeed, Abraham is said to mean "a crossing over." Therefore, so that the mind which in Adam had given itself wholly to delight and bodily enticements might pass over into the form and likeness of virtue, a wise man has been set before us to imitate. Furthermore, Abraham, according to the Hebrews, is called, according to the Latins, "father," because the paternal mind governs the whole man with a certain authority, judgment, and solicitude.

This mind, then, was in Haran, that is, in caverns, subject to various passions. And so it is said to it: Go out from your land, that is, from your body. He went out from this land, whose conversation is in heaven. And from your kindred, it says. Kindred to our soul are the senses of the body. For our soul is divided into two: into that which is rational, and into that which is irrational. In that which is irrational are the senses: therefore they are kin to the rational part, that is, to the mind. And from your house, it says, go out. The house of the mind is the spoken word. For just as the head of a household dwells in his house, and has it in his power how he governs his house, so also the mind dwells in our speech, and governs our words, and its power and discipline shine forth in speech.

As a good head of household is judged from the very entrance of his house, so also our mind is weighed from our speech. Indeed, it strikes and recalls itself even by the modulations of the voice.

Therefore he who wishes to attain perfect purification must separate himself from these three: from the body, from the bodily senses, from the voice, in which are all the passions of the body, and the circumscriptions of the senses, by which we are deceived and mocked. For the good is in none of these three. Not in the flesh, though the school of Epicurus, and many also given to pleasure, burst forth praising bodily delight; nor in the senses, which are often deluded; nor in the sound of the voice, which often soothes the soul with false songs—perfect good is not there; for these things are corruptible: but that which is truly good is incorruptible. Manifest, moreover, is faith. For when a man dies, the flesh is corrupted, the senses perish, the voice is lost, the mind remains immortal, receiving an incorporeal life.

Whence it is called into another land full of blessedness, where there are no false things instead of true, as in this life: but it beholds the living substance of things; because, having shaken off the cloudy image of the body, and of the senses, and of the voice, it lays down its corruptible darkness, and with unveiled face gazes upon the grace of the blessed life.

I will bless you, it says, and I will make you into a great nation. He promises immortality, when he promises a race. For a race seems to be immortal, while persons of individuals are mortal, as of men, as of horses, as of bees. Of which a certain one said:

But the race remains immortal.
(Virg. Georgics IV.)

Yet much better is it that he called "a great nation" the perpetual posterity of the Church, and that supernal generation, which is truly great, so that dying to sin we are reborn to God.

Abraham went out as the Lord had spoken to him. From this the Gentiles derive the saying of the seven Sages: "Follow God," as if it were their own discovery; whereas far earlier—not to say Abraham, but Moses—by whom the law was given, said: "You shall walk after the Lord your God". Abraham, therefore, went out, in whom it was not so much his perfection, as the devotion of his soul, and the freedom of his mind, that went out from the bonds of the body, from the enticements of delight. Note then how it is said: Abraham went out as God had spoken to him. Above you have that God said, "Go out," in which the open command of one giving orders is expressed: here you have "as God had spoken to him." As it were a certain affection of familiar conversation is comprehended; for he did all things that were established. Before the deed, then, God speaks as to one under obligation; after the deed he speaks as to a friend.

For he is a friend to God who does what is commanded. Whence also in his Gospel the Lord Jesus says: "You are my friends, if you do what I command you. Now I do not call you servants". But, as I said, the progress of the wise man has been set before us to imitate, written for our training, not as a perfection. For still the mind reforms itself in Abraham, which had fallen in the first man. And therefore it gathers itself by degrees and increments.

Whence he added: And Lot went out with him, that is, "declension." For this is what the interpretation of the name signifies; because, just as travelers taking an unfamiliar road are often deceived by certain paths, so as to turn from the straight track; and yet, if they are prudent, they do not go astray, but though hesitating, gather the way again by observing the region itself: so also Abraham, though wavering, nevertheless followed the path of truth. He was often led by the false appearance of good things, but was not utterly bent aside. For it belongs to the perfect man not to turn aside, to the prudent man not to be utterly bent.

But that one alone never turns aside, of whom it is written: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel: he shall eat butter and honey, before he knows or brings forth evil, he shall choose the good; because before the child knows good or evil, he will not believe in malice, so as to choose what is good". This Abraham could not do, that he should choose good things before he knew evil ones. But he clung to the heavenly precepts, lest he turn aside from the truth. Therefore also he is described as having gone out from Haran at seventy-five years, because at the perfect number seventy of remission, the sense is that which can be bent.

For the delights of these senses cause our mind not always to be upright, but sometimes to bend itself; so that it hides itself not within the caverns of the body, but within the hiding-places of pleasure.

Yet even set in these tunnels, he so escaped that he took his wife, and his nephew, and every soul that he had possessed in Haran. For the prudent and the continent are the possessors of virtue and of the soul, choosing the beauty of gentle conduct. But those who are lovers of the body are ensnared by its delights; because all the excellence of the irrational is in the condition of the body, but that of the rational is in the virtues and disciplines of the soul. For this reason it is written, that he possessed his soul, ruling it as free, and subject to no servitude. This, then, is the intention of the teacher; because even when placed in those byways and windings, whether of a still fresher age, or of a not yet perfected discipline, or of a place open to vices, he dwelt there without being so bent toward fault that he could not migrate away. In the end, he defended his mind from that slippery possession and transferred it.

And Abraham, it says, passed through as far as the place of Shechem, to the tall oak. Do these not seem superfluous, unless you seek the reason, since it did not even omit the height of the oak? But where there is reason, nothing is superfluous. For Shechem signifies either "shoulder" or "neck," which is an indication of labor and exercise. Whence also Jacob, a man of exercise, gave this portion as a special one to his son Joseph. Therefore, since exercise by itself cannot confer perfection without the endowment of nature, and the grace of nature is deprived of its full effect if exercise be lacking (for diligence is the aid of natural talent), that man is introduced to whose imitation you are being shaped, so that, with exercise joined to the grace of nature, he became so much more grounded and lofty, that he passed through as far as the tall oak.

Which tree, being tall, is likewise an indication of robustness, showing that the soul of holy Abraham was not easily bent by the storms of this age, but remained lofty; so that he might raise himself from earthly inquiries to the height of divine knowledge.

Then, immediately after, God appeared to him. Nowhere above have you had that God was seen by him. Whence it is clear that this must be referred to the fact that, as long as he was a Chaldean, that is, not only in region, but also in the opinion of the Chaldeans, he could not see God, whom he sought within the world. For the Chaldeans call the upper world God, and assert also that earthly things are borne along by the house of the "sticæ" and the course of the stars, and are constrained by a certain bond. Whence also they called the stars gods, because they believed these to have a certain supernal dominion, since there is a certain sympathy of the stars with earthly things. But they ought to have judged that what suffers together with another cannot have imperial right or dominion, as a god would, over those things by whose suffering it itself sickens; since it too is mortal and corruptible.

The world also, since it was made, is certainly not itself God, but its maker and founder is. Therefore, as long as the mind is bent by Chaldean errors, it does not see God, whom it seeks in the things that are seen, not in the things that are not seen: but the things that are seen are temporal; for the things that are not seen are eternal. But God is not temporal: therefore he is not seen in this way. The mind, then, that follows the discipline of the Chaldeans does not see God in these things. Whence Abraham also did not see him at first. For how could he see him, above whom he thought another to be? But when he migrated, not to another region, but to the true religion made ready for humility—for this is what Canaan signifies—then he began to see God, and to recognize him to be God by whose invisible power he perceived that all things are ruled and governed.

This, then, the Scripture teaches, that Abraham, migrating away from the observation of the stars, saw God.

A confirmation of the testimony is added; that in that place he built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. For this powerful type was impressed upon his soul, and manifest is the faith of truth: for memory is at hand for the grateful man, but forgetfulness creeps upon the ungrateful. To the former the things by which they are helped cling fast; from the latter all that is bestowed slips away. He set up an altar, but did not sacrifice. This might trouble one, unless you remember that the progression of this mind is kept by the order of Scripture. And so he waited to learn from God the manner of sacrificing. For he perceived that the sacrifice of an irrational animal and a mute beast did not seem a fitting victim for divine worship. He had not yet recognized in Isaac the type of the future passion, Melchizedek had not yet given him the grace of blessing, so that he might know these things.

He departed, it says, from there into the mountain, opposite the East of Bethel. The elevation of the mountain signifies the increase of devotion, whose ascent is a sign of richer progress. It faces the East for this reason, because it was prophesied that the sun of justice would come; because there Wisdom would prepare for itself a house, and from there through the Virgin would predestine its own rising. He wished, therefore, now to receive the light of the mysteries to be known. For just as the world is illuminated by the sun, so the whole mind is illuminated by the splendor of wisdom. And rightly did he set Bethlehem opposite the East. For Bethlehem is called the house of God, in which Christ was born. Whence God says through the prophet: And you, Bethlehem, are not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of you shall come forth a prince who shall rule my people (Micah, 2). He did not say opposite Bethlehem, but called the very tabernacle Bethlehem.

For the Church of the just is a tabernacle. Now who would not marvel at those mysteries, that Bethlehem is by the sea of Galilee, from the East. For indeed either the soul, which deserves to be called the temple of God, or the Church, is beaten by the waves of worldly cares, but is not undermined; it is struck, but not shaken; it easily suppresses and mitigates the commotions of the waves and the uprisings of bodily passions. It watches the shipwrecks of others, itself immune and free from danger, always prepared that Christ may shine upon it, and that by his illumination it may acquire for itself joy. For just as the eyes are nourished by the first light of day, so also our mind is nourished by the discoveries of wisdom, and seems to grow bright by certain of its rays. For visible rays of the sun cause the earth to steam; but the invisible rays penetrate the inner recesses of our heart.

Again he built an altar, and called upon the name of the Lord. This signified the progress of faith in the invocation of the Lord. This he added to the foregoing.

And Abraham departed, and dwelt in the desert. Then the mind is proved, when it is in a certain desert, where there is no wantonness of desires, no abundance of money, no expense of luxury. Would that I might be able to be in this desert, stripped of every incentive to desires, abandoned by every zeal for wrongdoing, despoiled of boasting and swelling pride. But because either God allows us to be tempted, or the tempter attacks, when the mind seems to itself to be quiet in the desert, free from every appetite for earthly pleasures, it is driven into Egypt, where it can be pierced. For the goad of the mind is our flesh, and its passions are our piercings. It is our Egypt, that is, our flesh, it is the affliction. Into this our mind descends, when it thinks on what is carnal. But it ascends, when it desires invisible things. Therefore Abraham too is said to have gone down into Egypt, that he might be afflicted.

Our mind suffers this; sometimes it separates itself from the body, sets itself apart to act singularly, desiring to attend and cling to incorporeal things. Sometimes, because of the binding together of soul and body, it inclines to carnal pleasures, to which the weak is subjected, but the stronger is not held. Afflictions, therefore, are crowns to the strong man, but weaknesses to the feeble. Whence he too did not fear the afflictions by which he was rightly proved, who says: For even when we had come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest at all; but we were afflicted in every way: fightings without, fears within.

But famine compelled him to go down into Egypt. For a fierce famine of the mind arises, when the appetite of this flesh overflows, and the waters expected are adverse to salvation. They drive us into the straits of the body, when the desire of possessing creeps in, when luxury is sweetness, when boasting is dear to the heart. We are all tempted. Even a sober mind is bent, it goes down into Egypt, that is, into the affliction of the body. Yet it descends in such a way that it seems to dwell there for a time as a stranger, not to possess it as a citizen. For the just man said: I am a stranger in this land. And elsewhere: Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged.

Now as Abraham was going down into Egypt, that is, into fierce and barbarous ways, which knew not how to defer to virtue, lest they harm her through envy, he said to Sarah that she should not call herself his wife, but should call herself his sister. And herein is a great mystery of virtue, which is quickly envied. And therefore, in order to suppress envy, virtue ought to render itself more humble. Let it not claim for itself dominion over all; let it not arrogate to itself alone wisdom as though it were exceptional. This is she whom Solomon acquired for himself as wife. For a wife is owed chiefly to one man. And so all desire to seem worthy of such a union, so that they grieve that anyone should be preferred to them. Who alone could possess such great beauty? But a sister, by some right of kinship or by name, is joined to many. And therefore she keeps her true lover safe from injury.

Whence when the Egyptians saw her, who could not discern nor recognize the form of virtue, judging by vulgar estimation, they brought her in to the tyrant, that is, to the proud mind which could not bear the weight of wisdom, and was therefore afflicted. For indeed when the discourse of virtue has entered a wicked soul, it convicts it of guilt, and afflicts it with the shame of its error, and torments it with the pain of its fall. For while we are in a certain lust of wrongdoing, the mind is covered over with certain clouds of folly, and its eyes are darkened by a certain smoke of iniquity, lest it see the deformity of the things it desires. But when every cloud has passed, and it has shone with the brightness of wisdom, heavy torments are exercised in a certain secret chamber of the ill-conscienced soul. And so our mind is a more severe judge, through the guilt of conscience and the judgment of repentance.

But if, whether sick through fault or weak through infirmity, it cannot bear and endure the presence of virtue, it dismisses her, and banishes her from itself, and does not suffer her to be turned over in itself, and to cling to its thoughts. And as weaker eyes flee the light, so a weak mind cannot bear the brightness of wisdom. Such were the Gerasenes, who begged that the Lord Jesus would depart from their borders.

Finally that king of Egypt too said to Abraham: What is this that you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? But you said that she was your sister, and I took her to myself as wife. And now behold your wife before you; take her, and hasten away from here. Let us consider in our mind some intemperate person, who, having beheld the grace of chastity, captivated by a certain beauty of hers, thinks he ought to follow her. Then, not knowing the handmaids by whom she comes accompanied and attended—namely sobriety, modesty, and reverence, sparingness of food, flight from wantonness, from impudence, from petulance, serious caution, careful watchfulness—suddenly, either kindled by the heat of drunkenness, or by the ardor of the flesh itself, or by an encounter with a more comely form, he by no means restrains himself, nor resists the law of the flesh; does he not say: I thought pursuing chastity an easier matter: it is above my shoulders, above my strength.

Rare is he to whom these things are joined. Farewell, chastity, withdraw, withdraw from the borders of my senses. Hasten back quickly whence you came here: I cannot bear your presence, I am afflicted with grave questionings, while I think I must hold you whom I cannot hold.

Then, turning to some counselor of his who had striven to introduce into his mind the habit of chastity, alleging that it would be no arduous or impossible thing, but a companion to many, akin to the studious, agreeable to the willing, he says: What is this that you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? That is, one who is held not casually but by lawful marriage, who bears with her the greatest dowry, who brings in the heavy burdens of matrimony and the harsh interest of union: but you said she was a sister, bound by no laws, and a companion of nature, not proud and powerful by any right of dotal wealth. And so, imprudently, I had thought her to be joined to me and to be kept, bearing her burdens, but I have understood what weight and burden there is in her. Behold your wife, that is, behold your persuasion before you; take her, and hasten away.

I do not wish her before me, I do not wish her in my thoughts. Take yourself away from here with your counsels, with your admonition; take yourself away quickly, hasten away quickly, I do not bear your delays, they are afflictions to me: it is enough that I was once deceived before. And he sent his own foster-children, by whom the more intemperate mind generally wanders, turning over in its thoughts the thoughts of luxury, ambition, avarice, and encountering diverse enticements; that they might banish and drive far away chastity, lest she should make a return into those borders from which she had been expelled; so that now, secure and free of more serious judgment, it might not fear to be convicted in its sins.

And so Abraham departed from there having with him his wife Sarah, that is, one who is principal, not serving. Therefore it is also said to him: Hear Sarah your wife. For she who has stripped herself of the servitude of sins has dominion, not servitude. Therefore the stronger mind has with it the principal virtue, that is, one that commands the senses of the body, not one that obeys them. She who brought back everything with her from Egypt lost nothing there of her disciplines. She was not colored by intemperance, insolence, the immodesty of misdeeds, she was not despoiled of the mantle of diligent sobriety, she was not stripped of the garment of modesty.

He was very rich, inasmuch as nothing good was lacking to him, who was not covetous of another's goods, who needed nothing which he would wish to call his own. For this is to be rich, to have what is sufficient for the will. For frugality has a measure, but wealth has none, whose limit lies in the judgment of the one seeking it. Now he was rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. What does this mean to us? Worldly riches do not seem to me to be praised in the just man. Whence in the cattle I understand the bodily senses, because they too are irrational; in the silver, speech; in the gold, the mind. Rightly was Abraham rich, because he governed his irrational senses. Indeed he even tamed them, and made them gentle, so that they became rational. He had speech resplendent with the color of faith, purified by the grace of spiritual discipline; he had a mind full of prudence.

And therefore a good mind is compared to gold; because just as gold surpasses the other metals, so a good mind in man is more excellent than the other portions of human substance. In three things, then, is the wealth of the wise man: in sense, in speech, in mind—a certain gradation made in order, just as also we read in the Apostle: But hope, faith, glory remain, these three, but the greatest of these is charity. And so the mind is the greater; because it is that which grinds the spiritual grain, that it may bring forth the purification of the senses and of speech. Everywhere the character of the wise man is preserved.

Finally, it is related that Abraham returned there, that is, to Bethel, whence he had gone down into Egypt, so that we may recognize that even the just, when placed in the house of God and intent upon the word of God, are tempted somewhat by worldly afflictions; but they are not alienated from the house of God, and from the keeping of the heavenly precepts. To be content with one's own bounds, not to be lifted up by abundance of riches, and by things flowing according to the grace of pleasures—this is to be of the best mind: always to meditate upon the beginning and the end, to proceed there, and thence to enter in—this is to be good. Now the good is wisdom. For no one is good but God alone. From him we proceed, created through him: to him we return, because to be with Christ is much better.

And that you may know that it is good that the beginning and the end should agree, good Jesus himself says: I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

Let our mind therefore always be with him: let it never withdraw from his temple, from his word. Let it always be in the reading of the Scriptures, in meditations, in prayers; so that his word, who is, may always work in us, and so that, going forward daily into the Church, or bending over our household prayers, we may begin from him, and end in him. Thus let the whole day of this life of ours, and the course of the day, take its beginning from him, and end in him. For just as to believe from the beginning of life, and to be initiated to God, is salvation: so perseverance even to the end is necessary. It is, moreover, the diligence of the best mind, that, intent on the word of God, it do nothing irrational, whence sadness might creep in: so that, ever well conscious of its own deeds, it may keep the joy of a good conscience. For whatever good this is without fear and without sadness, this is full of security and of grace.

For the possession of the just man is to be pleasing to God: but of the foolish there is no standing. Therefore Isaiah, as the good draws near, says: Sorrow and sadness and groaning shall flee away (Isaiah 35:10). John also in the Apocalypse says: And God himself will be with them, and will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow any more. For in the resurrection of the just there will be continual joy and grace, when that good shall have begun to be with his saints, when they shall rest in the bosom of Abraham, placed in his tabernacle, which is fixed between the house or word of God and grace: signifying that the innocence of the faithful renders thanks to its author, who have no cause to repent of having been in this world.

By the simple deeds of Abraham, then, the lessons of great teachings are unfolded. Rightly is he rich, who also makes rich the disputations of philosophers, who formed their precepts from his conduct.

Scripture had, then, set forth his riches: it remained to learn whether Lot too, his nephew, and he himself, as being of the same lineage, was rich: but Scripture asserts that he abounded only in flocks. Accordingly it has it thus: And Lot, who walked together with Abram, had sheep and oxen, tents. He did not have silver, because he was not yet just. For the tongue of the just is silver tried by fire. He did not have gold, which that man had who saw the hindmost parts of Christ, of whom it is written: And his hindmost parts in the appearance of gold. Abraham saw him, as the Lord testified, saying: Abraham saw my day, and rejoiced. And therefore he deserved to have and to possess the appearance of gold.

Now I think that point should by no means be passed over, which seems to have troubled even the more learned; for what reason it is written thus: And Lot, who walked with Abram; as though there were another Lot who did not walk with him, according to what we have received. And many think the question is not resolved. Therefore, that we may satisfy them, and not depart from the rule of Scripture, we say it is one person, two dealings, because in one and the same man two things are signified: in number he is one, in office twofold. For Lot is said to mean "declining," as the Latin interpretation has it. Now everyone declines either toward good or toward evil. When, therefore, Lot declined toward evil, that is, toward error, disgrace, crime, he was joined to his uncle; when he declined toward good, that is, toward the just, the innocent, the holy, the religious, he was associated with disgrace.

Rightly, then, it says: And Lot who walked with Abram; because he had not yet chosen Sodom, he was not dwelling with the authors of disgraceful deeds. For afterward he began to dwell in Sodom. And so, as though changed from himself, he is taken as another; falling away not only from the just man, but from himself.

Then, because he had already begun to be deflected by inclination from his uncle, The land could not hold them. For no spaces can be sufficient for the discordant: for the quiet and peaceable even narrow spaces abound; for discordant characters even spacious ones are cramped. And because I said from the beginning that the mind of man is here being formed, which had at first been imperfect, but advances through increments and certain stages, therefore it says: The land could not hold them: that is, one soul could not naturally receive diverse motions mutually repugnant to itself. Yet it can happen that sometimes not all things are perfect in one and the same person; but he may still be able to cover over some of his faults, or temper his motions: either if there are more goods by which he may cover fewer faults; or if by more mature counsel he bends back a sudden commotion.

But if from both sides more discordant and repugnant things concur, the dwelling together of discrepant virtues and passions in one soul must necessarily be dissolved. Figuratively, then, according to the physiologists, he called the soul "earth." For Solomon also says: Like a field is an imprudent man; which, if it is fertile with rich fruits of crops, can hide the thorns; but if the thorns concur with the ears of grain, there is no opportunity of reaping.

Let us consider, then, who the shepherds are, and of what animals, and what quarrel there was between the shepherds of Abraham and the shepherds of Lot. Shepherds are masters of flocks, either diligent and sober, not allowing the cultivated fields to be trampled underfoot, and burned up by briars: or negligent and remiss, who do not call back their flock, so that it may graze on grassy and unfruitful land, but allow it to wander freely through the various fruits of the field. The careful custody of these shepherds, then, is necessary; lest perchance what the negligence of the careless has overturned be ascribed to the diligent. But since the discourse is not about visible things, let us first consider of what flock these are shepherds. We can define these shepherds. Shepherds, it says, of cattle. Now by cattle we understand the irrational senses of the body to be signified.

Who then are the shepherds of the senses, but the teachers, and as it were certain governors of the flocks, their leaders, or the monitors of some discourse, or the thoughts of our mind? These, if skilled and tenacious in the pastoral discipline, do not permit the flock of senses to wander too far, and to cling to useless or harmful pastures: but with provident guidance recall them, and apply the reins of reason, and resist those that resist. But bad guides, or of unprofitable disputation, allow them to be carried by their own impulse, and to rush into the precipice and into danger, and to trample the cultivated fields, to devour the fruitful ones; so that, if there are in the same soul any fruits of virtues of this kind, they scatter these too. Hence, then, is the discord of our thoughts.

When the flesh fights against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, it is no small battle, since the very Apostle, that vessel of the Lord's election, says: I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. He himself had been unable to settle this battle, and therefore he fled to Christ, saying: Wretched man that I am: who shall deliver me from the body of this death? That is, lest I cling to the delights of the flesh. Who, then, is he who may free me from these bonds, and unite me free to God, and turn the senses more toward the sobriety of the soul than toward the drunkenness of the body? But since among men he could find no ruler at all, turning to God he says: The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

If he, being stronger, did not entrust to his own powers his escape from the body of death, but sought help from Christ; what ought we, who are weaker, to do? Abraham knew this battle to be grave, and therefore thought it should be guarded against from the beginning. For it is the pursuit of peace that belongs to the wise man, but friendly quarrels to the imprudent.

Let there be, he says, no quarrel between me and you, and between my shepherds and your shepherds; for we are men and brothers. We read that Abraham was the uncle, and Lot his nephew; how then does he call him brother? But observe that the wise man applies causes of concord. Whence he prefaced: We are men. Now all men are the offspring of one nature, conceived within its womb, and nurtured and brought forth from one womb. Whence we are joined to one another, as it were, by a certain right of kinship as brothers, fashioned by one father, and, as it were, brought forth as brothers of the same womb from one mother. And therefore, since we are the offspring of a rational nature, we ought to love one another with mutual affection, as those born of the same womb, not to attack and persecute one another. But it is more truly referred to one soul; whose rational part has as kindred, as we said above (Ch.

1 of this book), the irrational senses: but what is rational has the bond of the virtues. Whence the vices and virtues of man are joined together by a certain fraternal necessity; because those are of the flesh, these of the rational soul. But flesh and soul are joined together as though by a certain law of marriage, out of which man consists. Man, therefore, ought to bind together his own portions, as it were, and compel them to peace. But since there was no one so great as to conquer the flesh; therefore, He came, our peace, who made both one, and breaking down the middle wall of partition, the enmities in his flesh, abolishing the law of commandments by decrees, that he might create the two in himself into one new man, making peace, that he might reconcile both in one body to God, through the cross, slaying the enmities in himself Rightly, then, did the Apostle call himself an unhappy man, who endured so great a war within himself that he could not quench it.

Then, concerning one small portion of the passions, that is, anger, Solomon said: Better is the wise man than the strong; and he who restrains his anger is better than he who takes a city. Blessed, then, is he who has escaped this war, being now not a stranger and a sojourner, but a citizen of the saints and of the household of God, whom, though placed on earth, earthly things do not shake.

This disposition Abraham desired to preserve. And so, as a peaceable man, he says first: Let there be no quarrel between me and you. Then he says: And between my shepherds and your shepherds. He set down a third point: Behold, he says, all the land is before you, that is, if agreement cannot be reached, I yield everything, take it all, if the disagreement is about place or possession. But if it is not agreement in character, depart from me. Why did he put first that he might not be compelled to depart? But this too belongs to virtue and discipline. For a man formed in the discipline of philosophy said before us that these four things belong to a good man: first, that he strive to make all men his friends; second, that if he cannot make friends, at least not make enemies; third, that if not even this is possible, he withdraw by his own choice; fourth, if anyone pursues him as he withdraws, that he defend himself as he can.

But those first three qualities we recognize in Abraham not in bare words, but in the strength of his deeds.

But the fourth case is not so, since he preserved also toward the one departing the affection of a parent; so that he not only did not persecute him, but even snatched him back captive and freed him. Finally, though the Apostle teaches those three, he dissolves by his own precepts the fourth, which Philosophy had added. For he says, when he wished to form the peaceable people of God: If it be possible, as much as is in you, having peace with all men: then, if this cannot be, at least neither discords nor enmities. And so he added: Not avenging yourselves, dearly beloved, in which that third point too is excluded, that we should in no way wish to avenge ourselves: But give place unto wrath. You have also the fourth, that you should rather withdraw, and commit vengeance to God rather than exact it for yourself; although he wished this too to seem said rather according to the Law. For according to the Gospel you have above: Bless them that persecute you.

We have these precepts to Timothy in the second epistle: For which cause, he says, I admonish you to stir up the grace of God which is in you by the imposition of my hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of sobriety. And again: But you, dearest son, take strength in grace. You have therefore the precept of the first sentence, that he should place grace toward all: then, if he cannot win over all by his precepts, let him beware lest he exasperate some by words, that is, lest he make enemies. Whence he says below: These things I put in mind, testifying before God, do not strive about words, to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. But the servant of the Lord must not litigate, but be gentle toward all.

Beautifully, after a few words, he added, and gave the reason, which Philosophy did not see: With modesty, he says, correcting those who resist, lest at any time God give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. To that third point too, that we should depart from those with whom we cannot agree, you have it added, when he commands that he speak the things that become sound doctrine, then that he decline strivings of the law, that is, first let him sow grace, then let him not turn anyone away by contending: the third is that he avoid a heretical man after one admonition; because such a man is subverted, and sins, being condemned by himself. How cleverly by his own judgment he withdraws the condemned man from our vengeance, as unworthy of being avenged! But David plainly removes the zeal for vengeance, saying: If I have rendered evil to them that rewarded me evil.

Therefore the mind of the wise man strives to correct and to join to itself either the lapses or the irrational movements of that same soul. For it can happen that things which sometimes displease may be amended with grace. If the pouring out of a patrimony is cut back, it has liberality without loss. Bashfulness is sometimes too slack; if it is confirmed, it has both the grace of modesty and the constancy of purpose. If agitation is tempered, it lays aside the horror of indignation, and takes on the praise of vigor. But if it cannot be amended, let it not be exasperated by intemperance. He detects the ardor of lust which he restrains by marriage, lest, while continence is sought, unchastity creep in. And so the master of good things says: I say, not to the married and to widows, it is good for them if they so remain, even as I. But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn.

There are some women deprived of husbands by an untimely death, who cannot contain themselves. I will, he says, that the younger marry, bear children, be mothers of families, give no occasion to the adversary. But if certain delights please them, and they wish to live luxuriously in Christ, affecting the glory of widowhood but not keeping its sisterly modesty, he judges these are to be avoided, as you have it written: The younger widows avoid.

Rightly, therefore, Abraham, with good grace, wished to send away the nephew whom, as he turned away from him, he could not hold. So too should a good mind separate and set itself apart from the headlong and submerged fall of irrational things. If you, he says, go to the left, I will go to the right: or if you go to the right, I will go to the left, that is, the things which are on your right are on my left; and the things on your left are on my right. For to the imprudent man, the things of the body are on the right: these he prefers, these he places in the better part, and he sets riches and honors before all else; but the grace of attaining immortality he keeps on the left, which for the wise man is on the right. For length of days is in her right hand.

And all the virtues of the soul the foolish man casts to the left; but the prudent man places these for himself on the right, and the things of the body on the left.

And Lot, he says, lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the region of the Jordan. Boasting is friendly to those who turn aside from the truth. Finally, just as Abraham acted more humbly, in offering the choice, so Lot acted more insolently, in seizing the choice for himself. Virtue humbles itself, but iniquity exalts itself; he who ought to have entrusted himself to the more mature, that he might be safer. In the end, he did not know how to choose. For first he lifted up his eyes, and beheld the region, that is, that thing which was not first in order, but third, that is, last. For the first things are those that are of the soul's goods: the second, those of the body, that is, health, strength, beauty, gracefulness of form: the third are those which are accidental, that is, riches, powers, homeland, friends, glory. The region, therefore, is placed in the third rank; for it is a matter of dwelling.

He saw, therefore, the region which was watered, before God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, as the paradise of God, and the land of Egypt, until you come to Zoar. Unless you attend diligently in this, can you say that he erred in this, that he chose the vicinity of the Jordan, and those places which were watered as the paradise of God? Not, indeed, according to the letter. But since the descent of the Jordan is spoken of, he descends who has forsaken the fellowship of virtue, and has chosen appearance, not truth. Paradise is the pleasantness of perfect blessedness, or the fruitful foundations of the soul, in which are the nurseries of wisdom, justice, and the other virtues. But the land of Egypt signifies the bodily substance, whose nurseries are the senses and the passions of the body. For just as the green places of the virtues have Christ as their fountain, and the abundance of spiritual grace, by which they overflow: so intemperance is a certain fountain of the bodily passions, by which superfluous things are nourished.

Beautifully does Scripture say: Lot chose for himself, that is, a declination; because God has set before us good and evil, that each may choose what he will. Let us not, therefore, choose what appears more pleasant in appearance, but what excels in truth; lest, when the choice has been given to us to follow the better things, we lift up our eyes, bent away by a false beauty of pleasantness: and overshadow the truth of nature, as it were with averted gaze.

But that the men in Sodom were wicked, and sinners exceedingly in the sight of the Lord, this is no small dispensation, that you may perceive that the mild God is moved to vengeance by the grave bitterness of sins, and that it was not undeservedly that Abraham could not obtain pardon for the Sodomites, because they were beyond measure flagitious. There are many who are the more wicked the more concealed they are, who escape the scrutiny of men, when things are done without a witness, or a just man is entrapped by false testimony. Yet the just man remains just before God, even if he is condemned by men; because God regards not the outcomes of judgments, nor deals with matters interwoven with the contrivances of wickedness, but looks upon the naked nature of the affair. But in the examination of men, the error of false opinion often obscures the force of truth.

Susanna remained exceedingly chaste before God, even when she was condemned of adultery; because God did not examine the credibility of the deed by the assertions of false witnesses, but questioned the conscience of the inmost mind.

There follows a passage by which we are clearly taught how much the mind profits when the superfluities of the irrational part are drained away, and how much evil vices joined to vices bring. For not without purpose did Scripture set down: And God said to Abraham, after Lot had departed from him: Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you now are, to the south, and to the north, and to the east, and to the sea; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you, and to your seed forever. From here, as from a fountain, the Stoic philosophers drew the sentiment of their own dogma: that all things belong to the wise man. For East and West, North and South are the portions of the universe. By these the whole world is enclosed. When God promised these things that he would give to Abraham, what else does it declare, but that to the wise and faithful man all things are ready at hand, nothing is lacking?

Whence also Solomon says in Proverbs: To him who is faithful, the whole world of riches belongs. How much earlier is Solomon than Zeno, the master of the Stoics, and founder of that very sect! How much earlier than Plato himself, the father of philosophy, or Pythagoras, the inventor of that very name! But who is faithful, unless he is wise? For the fool is changeable like the moon: but the wise man remains unmoved in faith.

But perhaps you may say: How is the whole world the wise man's? Because nature herself gives him the lot of all things, even if he himself possesses nothing. For wisdom is mistress and possessor of all things, since she considers the gifts of nature her own; because they were given for the use of men, and she needs none of them, even if the necessities of life are lacking to her. For as the musician has his instruments, or the physician his medicines, or the pilot the things necessary for the equipping of a ship, even if sometimes he does not have them; yet he has them insofar as he is able to use them, even if for a time the use of them is not at hand: how much more does the wise man judge as his own whatever belongs to nature, he who lives according to nature!

For he does not lose his right, who remembers that he was made in the image of God, and that it was said by the Lord God to men: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and have dominion over it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all cattle, and all creeping things that move upon the earth. And he knows that wisdom is the mother of all things, and she herself possesses the circle of the earth.

Finally, Solomon, who asked for wisdom and received it from the Lord our God: He himself, he says, gave me the true knowledge of the things that are; that I might know the disposition of the world, and the power of the elements, the beginning and end and midst of times, and the alterations of their courses, and the changes of seasons, and the dispositions of the stars, the natures of living creatures, and the rage of wild beasts, the force of winds, and the reasonings of men, the diversities of plants, and the virtues of roots, and all such things as are hidden and unforeseen (Wisdom VII, 17 and following). But these things belong to none but the perfect.

Finally, as long as Lot, that is, the deflection of morals, clung to Abraham, he had not received the lot of these things. But when he was freed from the ambiguous turning and twisting of that deflection, and began to tread the straight paths of virtue with continuous steps of the soul, he is sent as possessor into the whole earth, and it is said to him: Arise, and walk through the land in the length and in the breadth of it; for I will give it to you, and to your seed forever. Therefore he who has merited wisdom, and has not been the son of the handmaid, not a slave to sin, not subject to the succession of the flesh; but of the free woman, that is, of that Sarah who does not serve but rules, of good stock, good nature, of the title of perfect virtue, shall acquire the inheritance of the universe. It is said, therefore, to Abraham: Arise.

This does not signify bodily resurrection, but spiritual, that is, Arise, you who sleep, arise from earthly things, arise from bodily things, leave earthly things, look upon heaven; and rise from the dead, that is, from vain opinions, and from the disputations of the Chaldeans. Behold the world, behold also him who can give the whole world. In possession, he says, I will give you the world, which before you believed to be God.

Walk through the land in the length and breadth of it. Certainly within a single lifetime he could not have walked through this earth, shut in as it is within the empires of the Persians, from the shores of India even to the Pillars of Hercules, as they say, or to the extreme borders of Britain.

And he might have seemed, as it were, undevout, one who had not obeyed the heavenly oracle, if he had received a command to traverse this whole earth: but since his devotion is proved—because he had transferred his tent only as far as the oak of Mambre—we may certainly understand by the land, that is, virtue made perfect, which would give good fruits, and fruitful discoveries, and the firstfruits of thoughts, and the vintage of merits, filling the inner house with grain, wine, and oil, the land of the resurrection which he promised to our fathers, flowing with milk and honey, the sweetness of life, the grace of gladness, the splendor of glory, of which the firstborn from the dead, the Son of God Jesus Christ, was made the first heir. And therefore he said not to seeds, but to seed; that he might declare him who would be the first to acquire this inheritance for the human race.

We have recognized the advancement of a good mind, which, rising up from the fault of a slippery declension, immediately sought the reward of wisdom, the inheritance of justice. But how much vices joined to it harm levity, the sequence of the following readings teaches. For those four kings who triumphed over five kings, and led away all the cavalry of the Sodomites, seized also Lot, the son of Abraham's brother, and departed. The five kings are the five senses of our body—sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing: the four kings are the bodily and worldly allurements; since the flesh of man, and the world, consist of four elements. They are rightly called kings, because fault has its own dominion, has a great kingdom. Whence the Apostle says: Let not sin reign in your mortal body. Our senses, therefore, easily yield to bodily delights and worldly things, and are captured by a certain power of theirs.

For bodily delights and the allurements of this age are not conquered except by a mind that is spiritual, cleaving to God, and separating itself wholly from earthly things. Every declension is captured by these. Whence John says: Woe to those dwelling on the earth. He certainly did not mean all men who at that time were completing the course of this life (for there are some placed on earth whose citizenship is in heaven), but those whom the affection of earthly conversation and the favor of this age have conquered. Therefore we are not inhabitants but sojourners of this earth. For a sojourner in a temporal lodging bears only hope of it: but an inhabitant seems to place all the hope and use of his substance there, where he has thought fit to dwell. And so he who is a sojourner of the earth is an inhabitant of heaven: but he who is an inhabitant of the earth is a possessor of death.

Abram numbered his three hundred and eighteen home-born servants, and struck them, and pursued as far as Choba, which is on the right hand of Damascus. And the number is vital. For in it is life, if we believe in the passion in the name of the Lord Jesus. For this is the interpretation of this name; for what we have called Choba means life. It is fittingly said to be on the right hand of Damascus. For lambs are on the right, kids on the left. The trained mind knows whom to employ to accomplish the battle, with what arms to equip itself, under what standards to lead. It does not put forward images of eagles, nor of dragons: but it advances to battle in the cross of Christ, and in the name of Jesus, strong by this sign, faithful by this standard. Rightly, therefore, the mind is trained which has received the true wisdom of the just man. Now justice is skillful at correction, and by rebuking recalls sinners, and restrains the assaults of the passions.

Therefore Scripture says that he recalled all the cavalry of the Sodomites, that is, he held the reins, he placed the bridle of reason upon it, he called back the fault, he laid low error. For the horse does not know how to stand still, swift to charge, lifting up its neck, neighing after lust. What is so like sin? For fault burns at first with impetus and outruns all thought of what is right, and leaps forth with an untimely movement, so that reason can scarcely recall it. It is borne headlong, and casts its rider into that sea of this age, refusing with swollen neck the yoke of correction. There is a certain special form of lust, which changes the voice of a man, corrupts the words of one who loves, and betrays itself by its own speech. Finally the Lord God says to Judah through Jeremiah: Now shall your shame be seen, and your adultery, and your neighing, and the alienation of your fornication upon the hills.

This cavalry the just man called back: he also turned the manners of the one declining, and called them to himself, that those who had gone astray might become his imitators; because our senses run back to the discipline of the mind.

He also recovered substance. This surely does not signify a patrimony, but the vital substance of the soul, in which there is a precious estate, not stubble, not hay; in which there is the splendor of faithful speech, in which the estate of our hope subsists. For this is our true substance, which is rich in the resources of wisdom, this immortal substance: but the use of the body, or of accidental things, is a matter of a day rather than of duration. Whence some rightly do not think substance is said of patrimony. For we do not subsist in that, since even those to whom money is lacking do not lack the substance of life.

Concerning Melchisedech we have spoken fully in the moral treatise, in which the mystery too has by no means been passed over or omitted. Here it is enough to note this alone, that a mind full of prudence and justice is more devoted toward the worship of God, and pays tithes of the earth's produce in its fruits, according to a higher prudence in this; so that it may render to God the perfection of all its senses and works, and claim nothing for itself, since it cannot govern itself unless it be supported by divine favor. Indeed, where it thinks it has conquered, it is tempted and assailed. This is what the reading expresses and teaches, that our mind must always stand as it were on watch against the passions of the body.

For what does this mean, where it says: The king of Sodom, it says, went out to meet Abraham, and said: Give me the men, but take the horses for yourself; except that after these victories over luxury, a certain force of lust can creep upon the rational mind, so as to infuse into it irrational passions?

But it belongs to a perfect mind to take nothing of earthly things, nothing of bodily allurements, to abstain from earthly things. Therefore Abraham says: I will take nothing of all yours. As if declining the contagion of intemperance, as if fleeing the stain of bodily senses, he rejects the delights of the world, seeking the things that are above the world, that is, to stretch out his hands to the Lord. The hand is the working power of the soul. This he stretches out not to the fruit of an earthly tree, but to the Lord: Who made, he says, heaven and earth, that is, the intelligible and the visible substance. For the intelligible οὐσία is heaven: the visible or sensible substance is earth.

Therefore he signifies that he extends the power of his soul to higher things; that from that intelligible substance he may put on the height of the contemplative life, looking not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen, that is, not at earthly, not at bodily, not at present things, but at incorporeal, eternal, heavenly things: but from this visible substance let him seize the grace of the active and civil discipline.

He subjoined twice the oracle of the Lord saying: Fear not, Abram, I will protect you, your reward shall be very great. I ask why after the outcome of the war? This was now the place for promising the reward. For it would have made a smaller marvel if he had attacked the enemy only after following the promise of God. Secure of victory, he had gone forth to triumph, invited more to glory than eager for it, or prepared rather to avenge the grief of piety. The purpose of a pious mind does not seek reward, but has for reward the conscience of a good deed, and the affection of just work. Narrow minds are enticed by promises, are raised up by hoped-for rewards: but the good mind, which has taken up the contest without the bond of a heavenly response, acquires for itself the fruit of a double praise; so that it may claim the grace both of most confident fortitude and of most full devotion.

This is fitting to be judged of holy Abraham; because he thought that the divine favor was not to be despised on account of just griefs, and he struck down the enemy with contempt of danger, which he thought must be undergone for the glorious vindication of piety toward himself. In him also the justice of God is proclaimed, who bestows recompense on pious minds not out of the necessity of a promise, but out of the contemplation of his own equity, judging it fitting that those who fight without any recompense of human reward should have their prize laid up in his goodness, to whom they have judged their souls ought to be devoted. At the same time, because the reward of military glories is prepared from the very use of victory itself, or from the favor of men; but the reward of piety, and of temperance, of purity, and of the other, as it were, private virtues, is paid by God. Things that are manifest to men are rewarded by them.

But not all things are manifest; some are manifest, others uncertain, and especially the hidden things of the heart. Whence that one also says: The uncertain and hidden things of my heart you have made manifest to me, of which God is the beholder and searcher. Therefore he would not have promised Abraham so great a reward, unless he had judged his soul pure from every contagion of sins.

Yet the concern of a holy and prophetic mind is greater for perpetual posterity. For it desires the offspring of wisdom and faith as an inheritance. Therefore he says: What will you give me? But I am let go without children. He desired the offspring of the Church, he sought that succession which would not be servile, but free: not according to the flesh, but according to grace. And therefore this kind of divine response resounded, whereby, being instructed, he heard: Look up to heaven, and count the stars, if you can count them. And he said, So shall your seed be. And Abram believed God, and it was reckoned to him for justice. What did he believe? This: not only the multitude of peoples believing in Christ, but also the splendor of heavenly grace, and the resurrection of immortal life to be bestowed on the offspring of the Church. But what does it mean that it says: He led him forth outside?

The prophet is led forth as it were outside, that he may go out from the doors of the body, and the confines of the enveloping flesh, and behold the infusion of the Holy Spirit, and as it were a certain descent. We too must go out from these narrow lodgings of ours, cleanse the place of our soul from every defilement, cast off the filth of malevolence, if we wish to receive the spirit of wisdom; because wisdom will not enter into a malevolent soul. But Abraham believed, not enticed by the testimony of gold or silver: but because he believed in his heart unto justice. In that his merit was proved, in that the reward was paid.

Finally, the Lord immediately gave testimony to his faith, saying: I am the Lord your God who led you out of the land of the Chaldeans, that I might give you this land, that you might be its heir. And because Abraham had laid aside the zeal of the Chaldeans, he now asks: How, he says, shall I know that I am its heir? That is: I have already repudiated the divinations of the magi, teach me how I may know that I shall be the heir of this land. He who asks how he may know does not doubt, since God has made it manifest, that he can know it: but he wishes to note the manner of acquiring the knowledge. For in the Gospel also, when Mary had heard from the angel that as a virgin she was to bear a son, she answered: How shall this be, since I do not know a man?

And rightly she answered, that is: Since what belongs to nature does not suffice—for she who has not been joined to a man does not usually bear—I ask how, contrary to the arrangements of nature, I, a virgin, can bring forth?

And the Lord God said to him: Take for me a heifer of three years, and a she-goat of three years, and a ram of three years, and a turtledove, and a dove. I would pass over an interpretation of this sort of sacrifice, if I did not notice that scruple arises in some from this, because a certain solemnity of divination seems to be described; in that after the immolation the animals were divided, and set facing one another, and Abraham sat down among them. But if we consider the force of the preceding question and of the future answer, we shall be able to observe that the discipline of this sacrifice is fitting to our hope and faith. For the heifer is a plowing animal, given over to earthly labor. The she-goat is figured through enigmas as the likeness of waters, because αἶξ in Greek receives its name παρὰ τὸ ἀΐσσειν, from that which is carried by impetus. For it runs just as water does.

We may estimate this either from the sound of rivers, their course, or from the violent surges of the sea. But the ram is compared to the air, because among all animals this one is found to be more useful to the human race; since it also furnishes us the use of clothing, just as the air ministers to us the vital substance of this breath. Whence I think this order was made, that he should first say: Take for me a heifer and a she-goat, and in the third place say a ram; because the first two, that is, the heifer and the she-goat, are compared to the material elements of earth and sea, and are said to be female: but the ram is a certain male animal, violent by nature, and fierce with its horns. Likewise the vital spirit of this air is, as it were, a male author and cause of begetting, moving the generative powers of the earth, and mingling itself as it were in a certain union.

Therefore one thing is mystically figured toward the earth, another toward the sea, another toward the vital air, by the kind of these three animals.

This tradition is natural: but the moral sense also concurs and supplies its part. For in all men there is flesh, sense, and word. Our flesh is the heifer: it labors, that it may sow; it labors, that it may gather; it labors, that it may bring forth; it is wearied with countless toils. Whence also the Greeks called the heifer δάμαν, ἀπὸ τοῦ δαμάσθαι μὲν αὐτήν, that is, because it is tamed by injuries. It performs the labor of male oxen, the plough, and the yoke, and represents the bearing of females with abundant milk. Our flesh too is subjected to the necessities of this life, is shaken by frequent pains, and bent by many hardships, grows old as it were in a kind of travail. Now who does not know that the power of the soul is the stronger, to which, as to a spouse, the bodily substance clings in the course of this life?

But our senses, in the manner of goats, leap forth as it were by a certain bound, and feed on steeper places, and in their own movement stir up commotions of the soul, and shake it. They are ready for every occasion, whether at the encounter of feminine beauty, or at the scent of some sweetness. By hearing likewise and by touch they are swiftly moved, by which they even bend the constancy of souls, and estrange it, as it were, from its own nature. Whence also many think that ἀφορμή is so called, because ὁρμή means impulse; for that it is born from a certain impulse of the senses, the cause of our bending and estrangement. It also has the appearance of the feminine sex, so that our senses too are called in Greek αἰσθήσεις, a feminine word. In the manner of animals that have brought forth, they are quickly emptied, when they have poured out the offspring of their generation and delight, and again, with desires roused, they bring back new impulses.

But in the ram is held the likeness of our word and speech, in that it is vehement, just as our speech is effective in operation, and is in some measure the cause of our adornment and covering. The ram, by the use of wool, leads the flock in a certain order, just as a certain order of life and of our use is explained by the word. But I think that we ought rather to understand by that "word" the Word of God, with whom this ram seems to have no small kinship. That Word has truly clothed us with the covering of his fleece, and has brought us into the house of eternal salvation. He who offered himself to be immolated for us, who was led as a sheep to the sacrifice, and as a ram before him that shears him is without voice, so he opened not his mouth (Isaiah 53:7). From which we have a certain order both of our substance and of sacred redemption, in that through him we were both created and redeemed.

Therefore there is a twofold cause through the Word, natural and moral: natural, by which he created; moral, by which he redeemed. Philosophy too establishes for itself a twofold aspect in the word, the natural and the moral. For the rational part is of both. The natural, according to the creation of the world, which it assigns to the word: the moral, according to justice and the equity of living, whose life and reason are from the word.

For which reason, when forty days were completed from the birth of Mary the virgin, they brought our Lord Jesus into Jerusalem, that they might offer him to the Lord according to the law, and give as a victim a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons; because in the dove is spiritual grace, in the turtledove the nature of uncorrupted generation, or the chastity of an immaculate body. Rightly, therefore, after the ram, the turtledove and the dove are bidden to be taken for sacrifice, so that you may understand that uncorrupted chastity and spiritual grace cleave to the Word. And by this very fact, that he set down birds, we can understand the flights of heavenly merits. For there are birds of heaven which come and dwell in the branches of that tree which has grown up from a grain of mustard seed, to which the kingdom of heaven is compared (Matthew 13:32).

And Ezekiel says that the heavens were opened to him, and that he saw, among other things, one wheel upon the earth joined to four living creatures (Ezekiel 1:15). And below: I heard, he says, the sound of their wings, like the sound of many waters, and the sound of the Most High God; and when they went, it was like the sound of a word, like the sound of a camp.

Whence certain men have drawn upon the books of philosophy, because heaven itself is like a bird in flight. Indeed Plato said that heaven is a winged chariot, from the fact that the prophet had said: When the living creatures went, the wheels also went, joined to them; and when the living creatures lifted themselves from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. But the prophet did not say that heaven itself is a bird, but that there are birds in heaven. Indeed David also says: The heavens declare the glory of God, that is, the heavenly powers; as when a beautiful element is beheld, its maker is proclaimed. But the prophet describes the soul, whose motions are four, like horses: the rational, the irascible, the concupiscible, the discerning. These four living creatures, that is, man is the rational, the lion the irascible, the calf the concupiscible, the eagle the discerning. Reason is set in front for this reason, that the rest may follow reason.

Therefore the lion is at the right hand together with man, that is, because commotion is at the right hand together with reason. When these living creatures are lifted up, the wheels also are lifted up. But the wheel is the life upon the earth, by which we live. If the four motions of our soul are lifted up, our life also is lifted up. And therefore he added: For the spirit of life, he says, was in the wheels (Ezekiel 1:20). The soul, then, is rather a chariot, of which it is said in the Song of Songs: You have made me the chariots of Aminadab (Song of Songs 6:11), that is, of our Lord. Therefore the prophetic description does not agree with the tradition of philosophy. Furthermore, the prophet says that he heard the sound of the wings. These wings are the virtues, which with a very great and twofold clapping give forth the sweet beauty of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice, the song of life.

But Plato borrowed certain sweet sounds of the stars, generated by the revolution of the celestial sphere, following rather fame and show than truth. For although our own Origen too, that is, a man devoted to ecclesiastical office, asserts that there is a certain ineffable harmony in the motion of the planetary stars, of that most sweet celestial sound, nevertheless many of his writings testify that he too greatly indulges the tradition of the philosophers; which I have written for this reason, that I might separate the interpretation of this sacrifice both from the tradition of soothsaying and from that of philosophy. Let others wish to prove their own teaching; I, following the Apostle, prefer, timid as I am, to seem rather learned in fear than in doctrine, who says: See that no one deceive you through philosophy and vain seduction according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of this world, and not according to Christ (Colossians 2:8).

But as to what is said: Abraham divided the bodies, and sat by them (Genesis 15:11), lest anyone should think this a matter of divination by entrails, I do not deny that the words are those of the soothsayer's art; for so I understand it: but the division was of the bodies of the four-footed animals, since the reading establishes that this was done, but not of the birds; for surely, if there had been an inspection of these, the division of the birds too would have been made, so that the inspection might take place. What if this agrees with our faith? And therefore let us seek from the tradition of the word what is above the soothsayer's art.

We said above that in the heifer we understand the earth, in the goat the water, in the ram the air, which is gathered from the very name, because three animals are bidden to be taken for the sacrifice; because the earth itself is divided among three species of itself; for it is either mainland, or island, or peninsula: water itself into three, because it is either sea, or rivers, or lakes; for springs or wells are private matters, by no means worthy of general and public division; wells lie hidden, springs furnish an origin for others. The air too has divisions of the seasons—spring, summer, autumn, winter; and this is a worldly division. To what end does this serve? That we may know that God is the author and moderator of all these things, who has given order to all things, and has distinguished them by this division, so that from this you may gather that God is able to bestow upon you what you piously ask, and to fulfill what he promises.

Therefore Abraham, since he had answered the Lord promising the inheritance of the land: Whereby shall I know that I shall be heir of this land? (Genesis 15:8), is informed through those species of sacrifices, that he may believe God to be above the world, who has divided by provident distinction all things that are of the world: but that the things which are divided are afterward dissolved, while those which are not divided (for he did not divide the birds, that is, the turtledove and the dove) are never dissolved; for faith remains whole, which, in the manner of the dove, raises itself on high, surveying the things above, and flies about the heaven with the spiritual oarage of its wings. To the turtledove also that mind is compared, which is nourished, after the manner of that bird, on secret things, seeking the intelligible and unseen substance of the Trinity, fleeing the common crowd of creatures and not mingling itself with the bodily assembly, and separating itself from every stain of the passions.

This sacrifice is required of you. Whoever offers such victims—faith and chastity of mind, the grace of simplicity, the affection of charity and peace—he acknowledges himself to be heir of that blessed land: just as the Lord also declared more openly in the Gospel, saying: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall possess the land (Matthew 5:4).

Take another division. Our flesh too, by God's own ordinance, has all its members divided. There are two eyes, two ears, two cheeks, nostrils divided, a doubled row of teeth, breasts, shoulders, hands, sides, thighs, knees, legs, feet; are not all these paired, so that, supported by twofold aids, all seem to carry out our functions? The soul too undergoes a division of its parts. For the discerning part, that is, the higher things, is, as it were, a pair of opposite eyes, rational and irrational. The rational itself is divided as regards mind and speech. Its sensitive part is divided into hearing and sight, by which the grace of this life is increased. For smell and taste seem to furnish a necessary ministry to vital use. The nostrils, by receiving in continual breathing the vital inhalation, feed the substance of man with a kind of continuous nourishment. Taste, moreover, is exercised by drink and food. But the fifth sense, that is, touch, is as it were mixed in with those four.

Smell and taste are rather a kind of nourishment of the body, by which the warfare of this flesh subsists. But sight and hearing assist the mind. These are the divisions which have been divided by the supreme Craftsman according to our flesh and soul.

Whence we ought to gather that this world too is distributed, as it were, through certain twin members, and as though ἀντιπρόσωπα (facing counterparts): the earth into mountains and plains; just as some parts of our body are more elevated, others more level. The shoulders stand out, and the upper parts of the feet or hands: but the sides, and the lower part of the neck, are, as it were, worn valleys and hollows. This one may also understand of the palm of the hand. For who doubts that in the very heel of the foot some parts stand out, while the middle parts are hollowed? Water is salt in the sea, sweet in the river, or in springs. The air is cold in winter, temperate in the months of spring, hot in summer. These things, then, the Craftsman divided. But our mind, which, borne like birds on the oarage of its various virtues and vigor, flies above the heaven, he did not divide; because it cleaves to the Trinity which divides all things, itself alone undivided.

Whence the philosophers hold that the higher substance of this world, which they call the ether, does not consist of a mixture of the other elements: but is bright, and shining with much light, receiving nothing of the earth's sordidness, nor of the moisture of waters, nor of the mistiness of air, nor of the ruddiness of fire itself; they assert that it consists of a certain fifth essence, and is, as it were, the winged mind of this world, swifter and purer than the other parts. For the other parts are mixed and compounded together. But we think that nothing is free and alien from material composition, except that alone, the substance of the venerable Trinity, which is truly pure and simple, of a sincere and unmixed nature: although some think that of that fifth essence is the brighter light, of which David said that God is surrounded with light as with a garment. And the Apostle wrote of the almighty God himself, that he alone has immortality, and dwells in light inaccessible (1 Timothy 6:16).

But for what reason he said that the birds descended upon the divided bodies of the heifer, the goat, and the ram, I do not readily discover, unless it is because all earthly things, maritime things, and even the very air are full of ambushes and disturbances. For these birds seem to have come down for the sake of food upon the bodies. Now by nature the more violent and the stronger in strength rush upon the weaker, and lie upon bodies as if dead, more often attacking unforeseen: or, what I think truer, because the prince of this world, and the birds of heaven, that is, the spiritual wickedness which is in the heavenly places, assail with heavy onset those who are divided by worldly care and anxiety, and tear them, as it were the carcasses of the dead, with fierce tooth. For of these it was said: Leave the dead to bury their dead; because they belong to the kingdom of the devil, who is divided against himself.

But those who belong to the kingdom of God, to whom Jesus says: The kingdom of God is within you, these are not divided, because they cleave to God; for he who cleaves to a harlot is one body: For they shall be, he says, two in one flesh. But he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit. These therefore are not dead bodies, for the birds of heaven to eat, but are spirits; for God makes his angels spirits. Finally, upon the dove and the turtledove they did not descend, because these birds were not divided. For the just are not divided, to whom it is said, that they be simple as doves. Therefore David says, that even the sparrow has found herself a house, and the turtledove a nest for herself where she may lay her young. These things Abraham beheld, these he pondered with a deep and spiritual gaze.

And therefore it is written: Abram sat down by them, not as one practicing divination, but as an interpreter of heavenly revelation, searching out the signs of divine working. For his mind, directed toward the grace of Christ, saw that this world is full of iniquity, which as it were flies from the height of heaven and oppresses the weak of the earth: but chastity, faith, and sincerity are subject to no such assaults: whereas avarice, and the anxieties of the world by which those who have the pleasures of riches are choked, are torn and divided. Whence also riches are called the cares and thoughts of this world; because they divide the mind, and rend it asunder into different directions, and drag it into parts, and do not allow it to be incorrupt and whole.

The man, therefore, of peaceable mind was pondering, and pondering to what extent he might be able to hinder, close at hand, those evils which are brought upon men; for the mind of the wise and just man strives to heal the mishaps of men, and to hinder and cut short the labors of our souls.

What does it signify? To what, finally, does the vision of the flame and the furnace pertain?

Finally, what follows teaches with what spiritual and prophetic disposition Abraham did this. For at the setting of the sun a trance fell upon him: and behold, a great and dark fear fell upon him. A trance is wont to come upon prophets, as you have the Prophet saying: I said in my trance, Every man is a liar. For the mind of the prophet goes beyond, as it were, certain bounds of human prudence, when it is filled with God. And beforehand it empties itself of the thoughts and disputations of this world; so that, at the coming of spiritual grace, it may present itself pure and emptied, that the Holy Spirit may come upon it, pouring itself in with great force, so that the mind of man is suddenly troubled. Finally, the Angel came to Mary, and came with courtesy and grace; and yet Mary was troubled at his entrance.

Whence the Angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God: and behold, thou shalt conceive in the womb, and bring forth a son. We know therefore that when the grace of God comes upon a prophetic mind, it rushes in suddenly, and hence we read that the Holy Spirit lay upon and fell upon the prophets; because the mind suffers a trance, and is troubled, and fears, and is overspread with a certain darkness of ignorance and imprudence: just as also in the Acts of the Apostles we read that a light shone round about Saul from heaven, and he fell, and was troubled with horror of mind, and heard a voice from heaven saying: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? For he ceases to see worldly things, who begins to hear divine things.

Whence you ought not to marvel at the fear and darkness of Abraham, as though they happened apart from his virtue or merit, since you observe it to agree with the custom of prophets, when such things are joined to them, that they may know future things.

And immediately after you have it said to him: Knowing thou shalt know that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land not their own, and they shall be oppressed with servitude, and they shall do them harm, and shall humble them four hundred years. Rightly did a dark and great horror arise; because great oracles were being delivered, when a precept was given concerning the people of the ages. How could the human mind so easily grasp this, especially since it was being admonished that it would sojourn in this land? For it was not so much that future things were being declared, as that the things which must be done by us were being prescribed: Thy seed, he says, shall be a stranger; either because all men ought to be strangers in this land, for Abraham is the father of all; or because the true seed of Abraham sojourns in this world. For that is the true seed, of which it was said: In Isaac shall thy seed be called.

Finally, he who acknowledged himself heir of Abraham said: I am a sojourner in this land and a stranger, as all my fathers were. For whoever has been a stranger here is a citizen in heaven; but whoever has thought that the whole substance of his soul is to be established in this land, and has rejoiced to acquire the inheritance of this earth, shall be excluded from the kingdom of God. Whence the Apostle says to the faithful, and to the citizens of that Jerusalem which is in heaven, and to the children of the Church: Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners: but ye are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.

This earth then is not ours, of which the prince of this world can say, showing all the kingdoms of the world: To thee will I give this power, if falling down thou wilt worship me: all things will be thine which those who are aliens claim for themselves, and by servitude oppress the people of God; that they may try to harm his servants, and to humble the saints of God. Finally, the Son of God himself thought that nothing of this world was to be claimed for himself, whence he says: The prince of this world comes, and in me he shall find nothing. Different lords, therefore, wish to hold us in servitude: the devil assails, his angels harass, the passions and motions of the body, like domestic and internal enemies, disturb us. Without are battles, within are fears: without are battles, within are desires. For the substance of the inner body is alien to purity of heart; and therefore it fights against, or at least resists.

There is therefore daily warfare, and within the very camp a heavy battle, until the merciful God shall judge the devil and his ministers, extinguish the passions, and subject them to the watchful mind, and shall require our souls of all the authors of our offense and danger, who says: I will require the blood of your souls at the hand of every beast. And John saw and said: That death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.

And so the just shall go forth, so as to leave nothing of their own in this land; lest their spoils remain with the inhabitants and possessors of that land. And they shall also so depart from this land of Egypt, that the vessels which they took on loan from the Egyptians, whether golden, he says, or of silver, which they used for a time, they carry away with them, and despoil the Egyptians. These vessels they received by the will of the Lord, and they carry them away with them, because they are the sons of the resurrection, to whom it is said: Not a hair of your head shall perish. These vessels the Egyptians gave, which are taken up from the land of affliction. And some are golden, some silver, because every creature of God is good, and especially man, most excellent upon the earth, whom God honored, in that he breathed into his face the breath of life, and set him over all living things.

These are those vessels of which the Apostle says: We have this treasure in earthen vessels. This is the garment of the Egyptians with which our soul is clothed; that it may depart hence the richer, and be freed from that in which it labored greatly here. For not only does every creature groan and travail, but we ourselves also; until the redemption of our body comes. The Lord has care of his own work, has a nature ready in most things toward reason and benevolence. For neither do we allow trees to be cut down and to perish, whose bearing bursts forth for us around their first fruits, if in a later age the wind should shake them down, or the sun scorch them, or the substance fail from lack of strength sufficient and supplied against droughts: but we put off their examination to more favorable seasons.

And therefore our Lord God, the rewarder of good will, having regard even to the consideration of the first fruit and disposition, allows the whole patrimony of our soul to be gathered and reserved, intending to test it by the temper of the future coming.

Mindful therefore of his gift, which he willed to be immortal for the righteous, but since a heavy fault had crept in which made it inexpedient for men to live long, he says to Abraham: But thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, nourished in a good old age. He allows us to depart from this world, so that, by the withdrawal of the soul, this body may be dissolved into its own earth, and an end made of sin: then, through the resurrection, it may be reformed by the grace of divine liberality. And therefore he says to Abraham: Thou shalt go to thy fathers. Some have thought the fathers to be the elements, of which our flesh consists while we live, and into which we are dissolved. But we, who remember that our mother is Jerusalem, which is above, which is free, which is the mother of us all, as the Apostle says, assert that those are fathers who by merit and order of life went before.

There was Abel, a pious victim, there was pious and holy Enoch, there was Noah; to them Abraham's passage is promised. For he passes over who, departing from this life, migrates to another life, in which the mind of the wise and just man lives, who is nourished in peace. For the fool is nourished in war and in discords: the just man lives in a good old age. He did not say long, but good, because the just man grows old well: but of the unjust none does, however much he may have lived a longer life like the long-lived stags. For to live long is common to the wise and to the foolish alike: but to live well is the special mark of the wise man, whose old age is venerable, and whose age of old age is a life unspotted: not lengthy, he says, nor reckoned by number of years, nor by white hairs on the head, but by understanding. He then grows old well, who has understood well.

But in the fourth generation they shall return. The history indeed seems to fit the Jews, who crossed into Egypt and came out of Egypt. For four hundred and thirty years of theirs were spent there: but not all lived a hundred years, and however many years elapsed, as Moses or Joshua son of Nun did; so that the time of the fourth generation might correspond. Wherefore let us rather seek something mystical, since the number four is fitted to all numbers, and is a kind of root and foundation of the number ten, and also the middle of the week. Finally, the ninety-third psalm is entitled "for the fourth day of the Sabbath"; because this number is the middle of those before and those after. For three precede it, the first, the second, the third; and three follow it, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh. He who sings this psalm passes through the life of this world as it were in fitting numbers, as if foursquare, and stable, and perfect.

In four books the Gospel is full and perfect. There are four mystical living creatures. The parts of this world too are four, from which the gathered children of the Church have spread abroad the most sacred kingdom of Christ, coming from the East and the West, the North and the South. On a fourfold side, therefore, the holy Church has arisen. The number ten also arises from this number. For if you connect from one up to four, in this way you will make ten. Reckon one, add two to it, they become three: add three to three, they become six: and to six add four, they become ten. The number four, therefore, fills up ten; ten embraces every number. There are also four ages of man: childhood, adolescence, youth, maturity. It rises gradually and is established. Thus wisdom comes at the fourth order of ages, the summit of prudence.

And deservedly, as if one who was formerly under the king of Egypt goes forth from his power with the counsel of a more mature age, and recognizes that the law is to be followed by himself. Then the sea of this life becomes passable for him. A similar reasoning applies to the things that spring from the ground. When the seed has been scattered, it is dissolved in the soil; and first it bursts forth into a root, then it sprouts, the fruit is formed, and afterward it ripens. Trees also first bear fruit, then the fruit itself grows, with the passage of time changes its color, and in the fourth stage it is brought to completion, that is, the last stage.

So then let us also, in this land of affliction, flee from forming bricks: but let us call forth the Lord's mercy with tears and groaning; that he may send us Moses and Aaron, that is, the law and the priest: but that true Priest and prince of priests, who, although he dwelt among men, was called: Behold, the spirit before our face, Christ the Lord; and may he free us from the land of Egypt, that we may celebrate the Passover of the Lord. Let us also bear the fruit of faith from childhood itself, let us increase it in adolescence, let us give it color in youth, let us bring it to fullness in old age. For already the axe is laid to the root of the tree; that he who does so may bear fruit. May the reaper also find our crop grown up and ripe; that he may store the ripe fruits in the granaries, lest winter overtake the unripe ones, the wind shake them down, the rain destroy them.

I think, however, that what is signified is rather the middle time between the first coming of the Lord, and the second which will be the day of judgment. For this reason too, at the setting of the sun a great fear came upon such a man, because, the world now setting, the future sacrifice was being declared, by which the world would be redeemed, faith being the victim, which should not be divided among the sons of Abraham. For those who divide it are not sons of Abraham. Faith is compared to the kingdom of heaven: For the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed [lacuna] And: The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant who bought a field, and found in it a precious pearl. The kingdom of heaven is undivided; because the kingdom of the Trinity is one. Therefore it is perpetual and eternal, because undivided; for every kingdom divided will easily be destroyed.

The victim also would be chastity, dedicated to the Trinity, after that sacrifice; also of a heifer for labors, because it is a priestly victim: of a she-goat, because it is a victim for sins: of a ram, because it is for the whole world, and for the very rams or heavenly beings, not only for men, nor only for lambs, but even for kids, whom he stripped of the stench of a sinning generation. The oracle testifies that the sons of Abraham will still be in the land of affliction; that they may prove themselves in the contest of many and heavy struggles: and thus, with much furniture of gold and silver vessels, with rich spoils, souls may go out and return, and go out possessing precious bodies of diverse virtues, and especially filled with the treasury of chastity's possessions, and are also to take, by the judgment of Christ, vengeance upon the devil and his ministers, and the rest who wished to harm them. Then there will be a great fear even of the just.

For no one is without sin. All will have something to fear; because sins will be filled up. And where sin has abounded, grace also will abound.

Again, when now the sun was at its setting, a flame came to be: and behold a smoking furnace, and lamps of fire which passed through the midst of those divided pieces. Even if there were doubt about the foregoing, what follows would confirm it; when we read that a flame was made at sunset, which would illuminate the evening times of the world, and shine in the darkness, and reveal what lay hidden. Then straightway a smoking furnace was seen. By whose likeness human life seems to be expressed, entangled and involved in the iniquities of this age, not having the brightness of true splendor, nor the radiance of sincere light. Within, it seethes as it were like a furnace with diverse cupidities, and pants with certain fires of desires: without, it is as it were woven over with a kind of smoke, lest it see the face of truth.

Thus the eyes of the soul are overshadowed and covered with a certain darkness; so that the gaze is confounded by a kind of globe of the smoking inner chamber of the mind; lest it be able to behold pure matters, until the Lord Jesus directs the heavenly lamps, that is, the radiance of his glory. When, he says, they shall not need the light of a lamp, nor the light of the sun; because the Lord himself shall be light to all, and he himself shall illumine all things of this world, whose division was known above, now made manifest in light, not through a glass darkly, nor in part, but the solidity of truth face to face, and that which is perfect, may be able to be seen.

They stood their curved ships in the river of Egypt. (Homer, Odyssey, ξ) It is narrow and cheap, that we should think that he promised earthly things by heavenly signs. Let us therefore consider whether perhaps he promised perfect blessedness and the consummation of good merits.

For perfect blessedness seems to consist of these three: of the body, of the soul, and of external good things, which the Greeks called ἐνόντα; so that there is chastity, patience, or temperance of the body, and there is prudence and justice of the soul. Egypt, then, seems by the river to signify bodily things. Whence also that river is called Geon; because man was formed of earth. The Euphrates, however, signifies the things of the soul; because it is the fountain of justice for the other virtues, which it illumines. For prudence without justice does harm: fortitude too, unless justice tempers it, is intolerable insolence, nearer to fury than to reason, to domination than to freedom. Sobriety and temperance are private goods, and of no use, unless with just reverence toward God, and you cultivate piety with a faithful mind. Justice alone is that which embraces all the virtues, and commends them all. External goods also are business dealings, trade, and agriculture, gains fitting to labors and rural works.

There are also bodily externals: health, and the advantage of good condition, comeliness, strength, which come with time, and change with age.

Do not think this threefold grace a small matter. For you have perfect perfection in the Gospel. For when the Lord Jesus says to that lawyer: You shall love the Lord your God, he commands the justice of the soul to be kept. Even if it is just to honor parents, how much more ought reverence to be shown to the Parent of all? Again when he says: You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, he admonishes that the virtues of the body are to be kept. But in what follows, saying: There is no one who leaves house, or parents, or wife, or children for the kingdom of God, and does not receive seven times as much now in this time, and in the age to come shall possess eternal life; does he not promise the increase of external goods together with the reward of soul and body?

These things which sacred Scripture expresses in simple words, Aristotle and the Peripatetics proclaim and extol with a certain lofty buskin. Their own followers testify that it is also a Pythagorean doctrine. But which of them equaled Abraham in time? Which of them equaled in authority and wisdom the Lord, by whose oracle Abraham acknowledges the gift of this threefold grace?

Foreign nations, moreover, are given to him as if for discipline; that his mind, most observant of equity, may cut off vices, and correct errors. But more clearly is the mystery of the Church declared, because through his apostles, who are Israelites, whose fathers, and from which fathers Christ according to the flesh was made under the law, the Church was to be gathered from the peoples of the nations who would believe. And it was not idly that he signified them by the number ten, but to show that those who were formerly faithless, once they had fulfilled the measure of piety, would surely obtain the crown of faith.

Finally there follows: that Sara, Abraham's wife, had been barren: but she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar, which pertains to the Church, in that exposition which we wrote concerning morals, we have taught by apostolic examples. For the Church seems barren in this age; because she does not bring forth worldly and present things, but future ones, that is, not those things which are seen. Her maidservant is the Synagogue, or all heresies, which create servants, not free persons. And therefore Hagar is called "dwelling." For she cherishes temporal hope, she does not hold the grace of perpetual possession. Therefore, that her maidservant should not become insolent through bodily childbirth, and claim for herself the right of the Church, it is said there: Cast out the maidservant and her son; for the son of the maidservant shall not be heir with my son Isaac.

But also in each individual there is a Sara, and in each individual there is a Hagar. Sara is true virtue, true wisdom: Hagar, however, is cunning, as it were a handmaid of the perfection of virtue. For one wisdom is spiritual, another is the wisdom of this world. Therefore she is also written as Egyptian; because philosophical learning abounded in Egypt. Finally, Moses too was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but he cast it aside, preferring the reproach of Christ's name to the treasures of Egypt. For if he had judged that wisdom to be of any weight, he certainly would not have said: I beg, Lord, I am not fit from yesterday and the day before, nor since you began to speak to your servant; for I am of slow speech, and a slower tongue. Finally, as to one unlearned, it is answered him that he would be instructed by the Lord: I will open your mouth, and instruct you what you ought to say.

A splendid mystery it is, moreover, that the law was not fully sufficient; that it might persuade the peoples, and call the nations, or because it was closed until the coming of Christ, who, expounding the prophetic oracles to us, and bringing forth the testimonies of the old Reading, as it were opened a certain mouth of the law; so that the cry of faith might reach the whole world. Whence also Sara says mystically: The Lord has closed me up, that I should not bear; go in, then, to my maidservant, and you shall have children from her. Whereby you may recognize that the Church of God was always in predestination, and the fruitfulness of faith was prepared, whenever the Lord should command it to burst forth, but reserved by the will of the Lord for a fixed time. Finally, it is thus written: In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. We observe, then, that the faith of the Church was hastening, but its fruitfulness was closed.

By which word it is shown that it was awaiting the time of its childbearing; because what is closed is wont to be opened. By what reasoning it was closed, the Apostle teaches you, saying: For God has shut up all things in unbelief, that he might have mercy on all ... So that it might be not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, that the grace might be; lest you should justify yourself, but attribute all to God who called you. Let no one, then, grow sluggish, and put forward as an excuse for his own idleness that he should believe later, because it is written that it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs. For let him consider what is added: But of God, he says, who shows mercy.

Show yourself, then, such by good pursuits and ready faith; that God may have mercy on you, and call you as he called the Church, saying: I have been made manifest to those who did not seek me, I have appeared to those who did not inquire about me.

And rightly were the lower things set forth first, that the better things might follow. The handmaid bore servants, that the Church might make them free, and might call the peoples from servitude to liberty, from guilt to innocence, from offense to grace. If you consider the order of individual men, not all began from the perfect, nor is perfect virtue first in time in all cases, but it is by merit the older. It is therefore the part of a prudent mind to consider, as long as the soul is imperfect, what it has determined within itself, so that it may exercise itself even in the later disciplines of the virtues, until it grows strong through the practice of exercise. But when it has stripped off the wrappings of error, and has freed itself from every offense, exhibiting a complete purification of itself, then let it strive, in its proper order, to bring forth great offspring.

Moreover it is said to Abraham: Be without reproach; to whom was given the holy spirit of wisdom, whole, easily moved, unspotted. It behooves therefore the soul of the wise man to keep watch day and night in continual exercise, indulging never in sleep, intent in perpetual vigils upon God for the comprehension of the things that are, and the knowledge of each cause. But wisdom is also the interpreter of things to come; it knows things past, and forms judgment concerning things future. It knows the subtleties of speeches, and the solutions of arguments. It knows signs and wonders before they come to pass, and the outcomes of times and ages. He therefore who has acquired this cannot fail to be good and perfect; because he possesses every virtue, and is the image of goodness. Whence also the sophists of this world drew a definition of this kind, that a wise man is one skilled in good speaking.

Let us now return to the gift of God, than which nothing is fuller. For what is better than wisdom? What is worse than vanity? What is more base than superstition? And therefore, as to one to whom he had promised the fullness of perfection, he says: I will multiply thee exceedingly, and I will make thee into nations, and kings shall come of thee: because to him who is faithful the whole world is a world of riches, and he increases, and is not diminished, as the fool is. Abraham is made into nations, that is, his faith is transferred to the nations, and to the kings of the world who have believed, and who subject themselves to the Lord Jesus, to whom it is said: Kings shall offer thee gifts. Nor is it absurd that from the family of Abraham there shall be not only kings by dignity, but also those kings who do not serve sin, nor are overcome by malice, over whom death holds no dominion.

We know too that there are kings and princes of good invention of the mind, which, like Abraham, has no offspring of moderate generation, but abounds in royal ones. To him was given the land for a possession: that he might rule over the body, and not be captive to carnal pleasures, but that the flesh, bound by due service, as it were, might serve the mind. But according to the person of Abraham there is manifest the mystery of the Church, which has possessed the whole world by the inheritance of faith, and is rightly called the father of election, the father of faith, the father of pious confession.

And because he is called to perfection, he receives the oracle of perfection. Circumcise, it says, every male of yours, and you shall circumcise your flesh: but perfect circumcision is spiritual. Furthermore the reading also teaches this when it says: Circumcise the hardness of your hearts. And here many understand it thus, that it means: You shall circumcise every male of yours, that is, your mind; for nothing is stronger than the mind. Then, because the male is also called holy: Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. What is holier than the mind, which gives the seeds of good thoughts, by which it opens the womb of the soul that was closed by barrenness in bringing forth; so that it may be able to bring forth those invisible offspring, from that spiritual womb, of which Isaiah speaks: We have conceived in the womb, and have been in labor, and have brought forth the spirit of salvation? Circumcision therefore of the heart is understood, and circumcision of the flesh, perceptible, is also commanded.

The former is in truth, the latter in the sign. There is thus a twofold circumcision; because abstinence both of the soul and of the body is required. Furthermore, the Egyptians circumcise males in the fourteenth year, and their females also are said to be circumcised in the same year; because it is from that year that manly passion begins to burn, and the menstrual courses of women take their beginning.

But the giver of the eternal law requires the seal of carnal circumcision in males alone, because man is more vehement toward the use of intercourse than woman; and therefore he wished to break its impulse by the seal of circumcision. Or because men believe they err lawfully if they abstain only from adultery: but think that the use of harlots is, as it were, within the license of the law of nature; whereas outside of marriage it is not lawful for either man or woman to have intercourse with another. But by a higher interpretation this is disclosed, that if the mind is purified and circumcised, stripped of superfluous pleasures and thoughts, it restrains the soul to its own chastity, and, once infused with pure senses, makes it the mother of good offspring.

But the law commands that the child be circumcised on the eighth day, indeed by a mystical precept, because that is the day of the resurrection; for the Lord Jesus rose on the Lord's day. Therefore, if the day of the resurrection finds us circumcised and stripped of the superfluities of sins, washed from all filth, clean from bodily vices, if you go forth from here clean, you will rise clean. Circumcise yourself therefore not in flesh, but from carnal vice. And circumcise not only your home-born servant, but also the one bought with a price. If you refer this to particulars, the home-born are the natural movements: those bought with a price are acquired by reason and doctrine. Both the one and the other need, like young shoots, purging and pruning from luxuriance; lest they wander like barren branches, and overshadow the fruitful with the useless.

Like a certain vine spread out with every vice, it labors in vain over many things: so care must be taken lest our mind too, occupied with many things, not only engender good offspring, but also degenerate through many useless ones; just as a pruned vine does not easily grow wild, is quickly loosened, but is reserved for posterity. For the ingenious also produce many things which it is useful to circumcise, and those who have attained doctrine by diligence ought to see their own ignorance. But the reason of the mystery is clear. For the home-born servants of the Jews are the nations who have believed; because the Church has been redeemed by the price of the blood of Christ.

Therefore both Jew and Greek, and whoever shall believe, ought to know that he must circumcise himself from sins, that he may be able to be saved: and let the domestic, and the foreigner, and the just, and the sinner be circumcised by the remission of sins, that sin may work no more; because no one ascends into the kingdom of heaven except through the sacrament of baptism. Nor will the righteousness of an earlier time profit, if at the end of life he has abandoned righteousness. Therefore Paul says: You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. For these are contrary things; because servitude is contracted by sin, and sin is remitted by a price.

We think, then, that with this simple exposition we have abundance for understanding. And therefore we do not investigate with idle care the cubes of Geometry, nor the square number of Philosophy, the counter-confession, as they call it, of Pythagoras, nor the numbers of the weeks which they call ever-virgin, nor do we shape the world with a compass, nor seek heaven in the dust, nor enclose the world within narrow abaci: but we disclose true mysteries, that the resurrection of Christ is the one salvation. Let us therefore be planted together in the likeness of his death, that we may deserve the fellowship of his resurrection. And let our old man be crucified together with him, that the body of sin may be destroyed.

Excellently indeed does the law command that males be circumcised in infancy, in their first cries, even the home-born; because just as sin is from infancy, so is circumcision from infancy. No time ought to be free from guardianship, because none is free from guilt. And the infant is to be recalled from sin; lest he be polluted by the contagion of idolatry, and lest he grow accustomed to worship an idol, and to kiss an image, to violate the nest of his parent, to injure piety. At the same time, lest anyone should be puffed up because he seems to himself righteous, Abraham is commanded to be circumcised at a more mature age. Neither, therefore, is the aged proselyte excepted, nor the home-born infant; because every age is liable to sin, and therefore every age is fit for the sacrament.

And it shall be, he says, my covenant in your flesh. Perhaps it may be objected here, how do you speak of a spiritual circumcision, when the oracle says: The covenant of circumcision shall be in your flesh. As though indeed temperance were required of the soul alone, and not of the passions of the body. For a certain chastity is required both of sight, and of hearing, and of smell, and of taste, and of touch, and of the voice itself; for sight also, when too bold, incurs guilt, and therefore it is written in the Septuagint: Do not gaze upon a deceitful woman, neither be caught by her eyes, nor be carried away by her eyelids. And in hearing itself there is guilt if a harlot seduce you, and bind you with the great flattery of her speech and the snares of her lips. And in touch itself there is guilt, therefore it is said to you: Be not much with a strange woman, nor be held in the embraces of one not your own.

And in the voice there is fault. For a man's own lips are his strongest snare, and he is led away by the lips of his own mouth. And of honey itself do not eat too much, lest you vomit it up. It behooves, therefore, that there be a keen moderation of all the senses; lest either impulse draw one into vice, or excess do harm, or delay give occasion to offense.

Not idly, nor without reason, do many seem moved by the passage which follows. For why did the Lord say thus: Because whatever male is not circumcised, and whoever does not circumcise the flesh of his foreskin on the eighth day, that soul shall perish from his people; because he has broken my covenant. For it is thought a grave matter that the negligence of parents should be a fraud to the harm of an infant of eight days, so that his soul should perish; when the law itself, even for a homicide (who nonetheless has not fulfilled the voluntary crime of killing a man), has prescribed cities, to which by fleeing he might merit impunity for the blood shed. How then is account taken there of accidental slaying: yet here no account is taken of infancy, in which there could be no crime either of dissimulation or of will; unless perhaps some think that in the death of the son the parents are more gravely punished?

But it is thought unjust that the guilt of the guilty should bring punishment upon the innocent, or that the innocent should be punished on account of the punishment of the guilty, or become a partaker of the penalty, who is unequal in merit. Whence some think that by "shall be destroyed" is meant that it is the soul of the parent that perishes, not that of the little one. But this is very doubtful; although it is supported by this assertion, in that it says, because he has broken my covenant. And so this seems rather to be referred to one of understanding, than to an infant. Others think that the Lord God is threatening, even by his silence, graver things to the parents, that the elders might fear the more, when not even the infant is spared.

To me, however, it seems quite clearly evident that this is said of the mind of each person. For we have said that by the name of "male" the mind is signified, because it is the strong vigor of the mind, and draws the soul into union with itself, and is more vehement, as it were more potent in sex, and of manly strength. This, then, is the reason, that every mind which has not been circumcised from bodily superfluities, and purified by the solemn rite, so as to strip itself of passions and vices, shall perish. Not the flesh, it says, shall perish, not the man: but that soul shall perish, because it could have been saved, if it had obtained purification. But, bare of defense, and weaker through the defilement of an uncircumcised heart, it could not preserve the salvation of its kind. But every kind seems to be immortal, as man is a kind, as any species is a species. Man is always spoken of, "any one" is not always so, indeed "any one" does not fail.

He who has no faith fails; the person of one fails, but the condition or the name of men does not fail. From the long-lasting and harmless, therefore, the sinner is brought down into that which is temporal and harmful, and he ought to ascribe to the infancy of his own mind that he was incautious and intemperate, or did not obtain remission of sins: For unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Certainly it excepts no one, not the infant, not one overtaken by any necessity. Yet let them have that hidden immunity from punishments; I know not whether they have the honor of the kingdom.

To Sarah also a single letter is added, that is, R, so that she might be called Sarra. Which indeed is fitting, as in the preceding case, that it be reckoned not by the addition of a single letter. For it is not a single letter that is a gift of God, but the power of the letter which expresses the grace of the divine gift. For Sarra is said to mean ἀρχή ἐμή, that is, my power, or the beginning of my principality, or of the king. Sara in Greek is called ἄρχουσα, in Latin, she who rules. The former is mortal, the latter immortal; the former particular, the latter general. For there is in me prudence, in me chastity, in me virtue, in me justice; they rule me alone, and hold dominion over me, and they are mortal. For when I die, these too are dissolved and die.

But that which is called prudence generally, that chastity, that fortitude, and the other principal virtues, but principal in a general sense, and certain immortal queens, in these there is power, that immortal principal thing, just as the Church is a queen who rules not me alone, but all. Therefore we see the particular turned into the general, the part into the whole, corruptibility into incorruptibility: all of which it is certain apply to the Church. For this is not a particular reckoning, but a general one, nor is it the salvation of a part, but of the whole. And so, these things having preceded, when the prudence of each has led him to this principal salvation diffused through all, in which is the fount of wisdom and of justice, then is sought the generation, and that offspring of perfect delight, whose name is Isaac. For no pleasure is better than that of a conscience made right.

From this the Epicureans drew the notion that the highest good is pleasure, but they reckoned it more by the defilement of the body than by the sobriety of the mind.

But what is meant by the words: And Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed? Here too reverence is signified, in that he feared to offend God by a free laugh, although the laughter declared the joy of a just man who rejoiced at such great promises. For this laughter was not that of one doubting, but of one believing. At the same time, because all things fall before God, and are changed and pass away, only that immutable substance stands forever. Or perhaps in this mystery too Abraham prophesied the Lord Jesus; that through the assumption of the Lord's body and the resurrection the grace of so great an oracle would be fulfilled. He worships, therefore, not the element of earth, of which it is said: And worship at his footstool, for it is holy. For where the body is, there also are the eagles who worshipped him as he dwelt in the body.

And he said, it is written, in his heart: Shall a son be born to him who is a hundred years old, and shall Sarra, who is ninety years old, bring forth? The Greek has ἐν τῇ διανοίᾳ, so that we may judge that he said to his heart, as it were debating within himself: Shall a son be born to a man of a hundred years, and shall a woman of ninety bring forth? That is, the age for begetting has passed, but all things are possible to God; and therefore this too is easy, that He should restore to the aged the years of youth, pour back their strength, and give fruitfulness to the barren.

Nor should this be passed over, that when the legitimate generation had been promised to him, Abraham answered God: Let Ishmael live here in Thy sight. It belongs to the just man to intervene even for sinners; and so let the Jews believe at least this, that he interceded even for them, if indeed they will believe. For this is to live in the sight of God, to conduct affairs worthy of the Word of God; for the eyes of the Lord are upon the just.

Whence also the Lord says: Yea. Behold, Sarra thy wife shall bear thee a son [lacuna] But as for Ishmael, I have heard thee. When He says "Yea," He confirms the promises; for it is a confirming word. And therefore He first confirms the future generation of the Church; that the Prophet might know as true what God said He had heard concerning Ishmael, foreseeing that the blindness of Israel would happen in part, until the fullness of the Gentiles should enter in, and so all Israel should be saved. Thus, just as the testaments of men first bring forward an heir, and afterward express the legacy, giving the inheritance to the better, and legacies to the lesser: so in the testament of the Lord, whence also we have received this custom, the heir is inscribed as one good by nature, noble, born of lawful wedlock; while the inferior is given a legacy.

The generation, moreover, is promised for the following year, that you may observe what generation the Lord promises, that is, not that of the bodily womb of Sarah, but that offspring of the Church which was to come. Further, below it is said: I will return to thee in the future, and Sarah shall have a son. In which we can understand both meanings, both this assembly of the Church, and the resurrection of the son.

Also that Ishmael is circumcised in his thirteenth year has an evident reason; because he who is about to begin to have knowledge of a woman ought first to cut off in himself the heat of lust: that he may abstain from superfluous unions, and reserve himself only for lawful union.

It befits also the mind of the wise man to be hospitable; that he may share his grace with others also, and divide the fruit of his prudence with others too, and so that the good may feast on the food of doctrine, and he may set forth his banquet to those who desire it.

Then besides, let him know how to live only according to nature, in whose institution and order is the law of God. Let him know how to mingle with no crosswise desire, and prefer above all the companionship of wisdom alone. Let him not know how to prefer the glory of this age and a certain inheritance of present praise to the commandments of God; and just as he offers up his own advantages upon the altars of the Lord, so let him not shrink from the fire of judgment, nor fear it; but let him labor rather even to snatch others from it.