Chapter X.
When it is said, 'To your seed I will give this land,' the true beatitude is promised to Abraham, but it is more prefigured in the Church, whose type is expressed in the barren Sarah, as the Synagogue and heresies are in Hagar the handmaid. What the vigilance of the wise should be, and what God promises to Abraham in those words, 'I will greatly multiply you,' etc.
68. After this, there followed the oracle of God saying: 'To your offspring I will give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates' (Gen. XV, 18). He who had shown future glory should also promise the merits of virtue to be conferred. For He is both the helper of those who labor and the rewarder of the innocent. Egypt here is not the name of a region, but of a river. For so the ancients called the Nile, either because it had given the name to the region or because it had received the name from the region. Finally, even a Greek poet testifies to its existence, saying:
And I built new ships by the river in Egypt. (Homer, Odyssey, Ξ) But it is narrow and insignificant, as if it has compared earthly things to celestial signs. Therefore, let us consider lest he may have promised the perfect happiness and completion of good deeds. For perfect happiness seems to consist of three things, the body, the soul, and the good qualities, which the Greeks called 'ενόντα'; let there be chastity, patience, or temperance of the body, let there be prudence and justice of the soul. Therefore, Egypt seems to represent the physical body. Hence, the river itself is called Geon (Gen. II, 13), because man is formed from the earth. But the Euphrates represents the soul, for it is the source of justice and the other virtues that enlighten other virtues. Indeed, prudence without justice is harmful, and strength without temperance by justice is insufferable insolence, closer to madness than reason, and closer to domination than freedom. Sobriety and moderation are private goods, and of no use unless you observe them with proper reverence towards God and faithfully practice piety. Justice alone is the virtue that encompasses and commends all virtues. Business, trade, and agriculture are also incidental matters, pertaining to the earning of income from rural work. There are also incidental attributes of the body, such as health and the convenience of well-being, honor, and strength, which occur unexpectedly and change with age.
69. Do not think of this triple grace as insignificant. For you have perfect perfection in the Gospel. For when the Lord Jesus says to the expert in the law: 'You shall love the Lord your God' (Matthew 22:37), He commands the righteousness of the soul to be held. Even though it is right to honor parents, how much more honor should be given to the parent of all? Likewise, when He says: 'You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness' (Matthew 19:18), He admonishes to keep the virtues of the body. But in the following, saying: There is no one who leaves home, or parents, or wife, or children for the sake of the Kingdom of God, and does not receive sevenfold now in this time, and in the age to come eternal life (Luke XVIII, 29 and 30); does he not promise the increase of good things along with the reward for the soul and body?
70. These things which the sacred Scripture expresses in simple words, Aristotle (in Book I of his Ethics, chapter 8) and the Peripatetics proclaim and extol with a certain grandeur. They also testify that it is a Pythagorean doctrine. But who among them can compare to Abraham in time? Who with authority and wisdom can equal the Lord, whose oracle Abraham recognizes as the source of this triple grace?
However, foreign nations are given to him as if in discipline, so that the most observant mind may reject vices and correct errors. However, the mystery of the Church is more clearly revealed, because it is believed that the Church is to be gathered by the peoples of the nations through his apostles, who are Israelites, whose fathers, and from whom the fathers, Christ according to the flesh was made under the law. He did not signify them with the number ten in vain, but to show that those who were previously faithless, when they fulfilled the measure of piety, would certainly obtain the crown of faith.
72. Finally, it follows that Sarah, the wife of Abraham, was barren (Gen. XXVI, 1): she had a Egyptian servant named Hagar, which we have taught pertains to the Church in that exposition which we have written concerning moral matters, by apostolic examples (Book I on Abraham, ch. 4). For the Church appears barren in this age; because she does not give birth to worldly things, nor present things, but to future things, that is, things that are not seen. This servant is the Synagogue, or all heresies, which create slaves, not free people. Therefore, Agar is called a dwelling place. For she cherishes the hope of a temporal, not everlasting, possession. Therefore, in order that she may not become insolent with bodily childbirth and claim the rights of the Church for herself, it is said there: Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with my son Isaac (Gen. XXI, 10).
73. But even in each of them Sara is, and in each of them Agar. Sara is true virtue, true wisdom: but Agar is cunning, like a handmaid of higher virtue. For there is one spiritual wisdom, and there is another wisdom of this world. Therefore even Egypt is mentioned; because philosophical learning abounded in Egypt. Moreover Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but he rejected it, preferring the reproach of Christ's name to the treasures of Egypt. For if he had judged wisdom to be of any importance, he would not have said: I pray, Lord, I am not worthy before yesterday and the day before yesterday, nor since you began to speak to your servant; for with a weak tongue and a slow speech I am.
74. But the most excellent mystery was that the law was not fully complete; to persuade the people, and to call the nations, or because it was closed until the coming of Christ, who, explaining to us the prophetic oracles, and bringing forth testimonies of the Old Testament, as it were, opened a certain mouth of the law; so that the cry of faith might reach to the whole world. Whence also Sara mystically says: The Lord has closed me that I may not bear; go in therefore to my handmaid, and she shall bear a son for me. So that you may recognize that the Church of God has always been predestined, and the fertility of faith has been prepared when the Lord commanded it to break forth, but it has been definitely reserved for a certain time by the will of the Lord. Finally, it is written: 'In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you' (Isaiah 49:8). Therefore, we observe that the faith of the Church was hastening, but its fertility was closed. By this word, it is shown that it was waiting for the time of its delivery; for what is closed usually opens. The Apostle teaches you by what reasoning it has been concluded, saying: 'For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all' (Rom. 11:32). So that grace may not be by the will of man nor of the runner, but of God who shows mercy (Rom. 9:16), in order that you may not justify yourself, but attribute all to God who has called you. Therefore, let no one be lazy and make excuses for their laziness, delaying to believe, for it is written that it is not of the one who wills or runs. Consider, therefore, what has been added, but the compassion of God, who says: 'Present yourself, therefore, with good zeal and ready faith, so that God may have mercy on you and call you as he called the Church, saying: 'I have appeared openly to those who do not seek me, I have shown myself to those who do not ask about me' (Isaiah 65:1).'
75. And rightly, the inferior things were mentioned first, so that better things would follow. The maid gave birth to servants so that the Church could make them free, and enable nations to be called from servitude to freedom, from guilt to innocence, from offense to grace. If you consider the order of each individual, not all began with the perfect, nor is the first [place] among all, but older virtue is deservedly the more perfect. Therefore, it is the mark of a prudent mind to consider how long the soul is imperfect, to ponder on what it deliberates with itself, so that it may exercise itself in the disciplines of virtues, even in later things, until it becomes strong through the use of exercise. But when it has emerged from the coils of error, and has unraveled itself from every offense, presenting the accomplishment of its own purification, then it strives to produce great results in its own order.
Moreover, it is said of Abraham: 'Be blameless' (Gen. XVII, 1); to whom the Holy Spirit of wisdom was given, whole, well-moving, immaculate. Therefore, it is necessary for the soul of a wise man to always extend itself in constant exercise, like a lookout, day and night, never indulging in sleep, intent on God for the apprehension of those things which are, and for the knowledge of individual causes. But wisdom is also an interpreter of the future, it knows the past, and estimates about the future. He knows the cleverness of words and the solutions to arguments. He knows signs and wonders before they happen, as well as the outcomes of times and ages. Therefore, one who has acquired this cannot be anything but good and perfect, because he possesses all virtue and is an image of goodness. Hence, the sophists of this age have derived the definition of such a person, that a wise man is one who is skilled in speaking.
77. Let us now return to the gift of God, than which there is nothing fuller. For what is better than wisdom? What is worse than vanity? What is more detestable than superstition? And therefore, as if to one to whom he had promised the fullness of perfection, he says: I will greatly increase you and make nations of you, and kings shall come from you (Gen. 17:6): for to him who is faithful, the whole world is a treasury of riches, and it is increased, not diminished, like a fool. Abraham is placed among the nations, that is, his faith is transferred to the nations, and the kings of the world who have believed subject themselves to the Lord Jesus to whom it is said: Kings shall offer gifts to you (Ps. 68:30). And it is not absurd that from the lineage of Abraham there will not only be kings in rank, but also those kings who do not serve sin, nor does wickedness overcome them, over whom death does not hold dominion. We also know that there are kings and princes of good mind, whom, like Abraham, do not have a mediocre offspring of their lineage, but abound in royal qualities. To whom the earth has been given as possession: to rule over the body, and not to be captive to carnal pleasures, but to serve the flesh as if in dutiful humility to the mind. According to the person of Abraham, the evident mystery of the Church, which has possessed the whole world as its inheritance of faith, he is rightly called the father of election, father of faith, father of pious confession.