CHAPTER 4
Lecture 7
21 Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, have you not read the law?
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman and the other by a free woman.
23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh; but be of the free woman was by promise.
24a Which things are said by an allegory.
Above, the Apostle showed the pre-eminence of grace by a human example; here he proves it on the authority of the Scripture.
First, he proposes a fact;
Secondly, he expounds its mystery (v. 24);
Thirdly, he concludes his proposition (v. 31).
As to the first, he does two things:
First, he elicits their attention;
Secondly, he sets forth his intention (v. 22).
He says therefore: Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, have you not read the law? As if to say: If you are wise, consider my objections; if you cannot answer them, yield: “Answer, I beseech you, without contention: and speaking that which is just, answer me” (Job 6:29). Now I raise this objection to you. You have either read the Law or not. If you have read it, you ought to know the things written in it. But those things prove that it should be abandoned. If you have not read it, you ought not accept what you do not know: “Let thy eyelids go before thy steps” (Prov 4:25). He says under the law, i.e., under the burden of the Law. For to shoulder something light is not a feat; but to assume a heavy burden, such as the burden of the Law, seems to be a mark of exceeding stupidity: “This is a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear” (Acts 15:10); which is to be understood of those who wish to live according to the flesh under the Law.
Then when he says, It is written that Abraham had two sons, he sets forth his intention, saying: The reason I ask whether you have read the Law is that it contains certain things which clearly indicate that the Law must not be retained. And the Apostle mentions specifically the two sons of Abraham. First, he states one point in which they are alike. Secondly, two points in which they differ.
They are alike in having the same father. Hence he says, It is written that Abraham had two sons. In fact he had more than two, because after Sara’s death, he fathered other sons of Cetura, as is stated in Genesis (Ch. 25). But the Apostle does not mention them because they have no role in this allegory. Now two peoples, the Jews and the Gentiles, can be signified by those two, i.e., the son of the bondwoman and the son of the free woman—and by the other sons of Cetura, schismatics and heretics. These two peoples are alike in having one father, for the Jews are the children of Abraham according to the flesh, but the Gentiles, by imitating him in faith. Or, they are the sons of Abraham, i.e., of God, Who is the Father of all: “Have we not all one father?” (Mal 2:10); “Is he the God of the Jews only?” (Rom 3:29).
But they differ in two respects: namely, in the condition of their mother, because one is of a bondwoman, as is said in Genesis (Ch. 21) (yet Abraham did not sin by lying with her, because he approached her in conjugal affection and under God’s ordinance); the other, namely, Isaac, whom Sara, his wife, begot unto him was born of a free woman: “I will return and come to thee at this time, life accompanying, and Sara thy wife shall have a son” (Gen 18:10). Also, they differ as to the manner of procreation, because the son of the bondwoman, i.e., Ishmael, was born according to the flesh, but the one of the free woman, i.e., Isaac, according to the promise.
Here a twofold misinterpretation must be avoided. The first is lest we understand born according to the flesh as though “flesh” refers here to an act of sin, as it does in Romans (8:13): “If you live according to the flesh, you shall die,” and 2 Corinthians (10:3): “For although we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh”—as though Abraham sinned in begetting Ishmael. The other is lest we suppose, when it is said, by promise , that Isaac was not born according to the flesh, i.e., through a carnal union, but by the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, it must be said that Ishmael was born according to the flesh, i.e., according to the nature of the flesh. For it is natural among men that from a fertile young woman, such as Hagar was, and a man advanced in years a son be born. But that Isaac be born according to promise is beyond the nature of the flesh: for the nature of the flesh cannot achieve that a son be born of an old man and a barren old woman, as Sara was. In Ishmael are signified the Jewish people, who were born according to the flesh; in Isaac are signified the Gentiles, who were born according to the promise, in which Abraham was promised that he would be the father of many nations: “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen 22:18).
Then he discloses the mystery when he says, Which things are said by an allegory.
First, he tells what sort of mystery it is;
Secondly, he explains it (v. 24).
He says therefore: These things which are written about the two sons are said by an allegory , i.e., the understanding of one thing under the image of another. For an allegory is a figure of speech or a manner of narrating, in which one thing is said and something else is understood. Hence “allegory” is derived from “ alos ” (alien) and “ goge ” (a leading), leading, as it were, to a different understanding.
Here it should be noted that “allegory” is sometimes taken for any mystical meaning: sometimes for only one of the four, which are the historical, allegorical, mystical and the anagogical, which are the four senses of Sacred Scripture, all of which differ in signification. For signification is twofold: one is through words; the other through the things signified by the words. And this is peculiar to the sacred writings and no others, since their author is God in Whose power it lies not only to employ words to signify (which man can also do), but things as well. Consequently, in the other sciences handed down by men, in which only words can be employed to signify, the words alone signify. But it is peculiar to Scripture that words and the very things signified by them signify something. Consequently this science can have many senses. For that signification by which the words signify something pertains to the literal or historical sense. But the signification whereby the things signified by the words further signify other things pertains to the mystical sense.
There are two ways in which something can be signified by the literal sense: either according to the usual construction, as when I say, “the man smiles”; or according to a likeness or metaphor, as when I say, “the meadow smiles.” Both of these are used in Sacred Scripture; as when we say, according to the first, that Jesus ascended, and when we say according to the second, that He sits at the right hand of God. Therefore, under the literal sense is included the parabolic or metaphorical.
However, the mystical or spiritual sense is divided into three types. First, as when the Apostle says that the Old Law is the figure of the New Law. Hence, insofar as the things of the Old Law signify things of the New Law, it is the allegorical sense. Then, according to Dionysius in the book On The Heavenly Hierarchy, the New Law is a figure of future glory; accordingly, insofar as things in the New Law and in Christ signify things which are in heaven, it is the anagogical sense. Furthermore, in the New Law the things performed by the Head are examples of things we ought to do—because “What things soever were written were written for our learning” (Rom 15:3) —accordingly insofar as the things which in the New Law were done in Christ and done in things that signify Christ are signs of things we ought to do, it is the moral sense. Examples will clarify each of these. For when I say, “Let there be light,” referring literally to corporeal light, it is the literal sense. But if it be taken to mean “Let Christ be born in the Church,” it pertains to the allegorical sense. But if one says, “Let there be light,” i.e., “Let us be conducted to glory through Christ,” it pertains to the anagogical sense. Finally, if it is said “Let there be light,” i.e., “Let us be illumined in mind and inflamed in heart through Christ,” it pertains to the moral sense.