st. augustine - on the jews

7/31/2019 St. Augustine - On the Jews

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St. Augustine

City of God

Book XVI, Chapter 31 - Of Isaac, Who Was Born According to the Promise, Whose

Name Was Given on Account of the Laughter of Both Parents.After these things a son was born to Abraham, according to Gods promise, of Sarah, and

was called Isaac, which means laughter. For his father had laughed when he was promised

to him, in wondering delight, and his mother, when he was again promised by those threemen, had laughed, doubting for joy; yet she was blamed by the angel because that laughter,

although it was for joy, yet was not full of faith. Afterwards she was confirmed in faith by

the same angel. From this, then, the boy got his name. For when Isaac was born and calledby that name, Sarah showed that her laughter was not that of scornful reproach, but that of

joyful praise; for she said, God hath made me to laugh, so that every one who hears will

laugh with me. Then in a little while the bond maid was cast out of the house with her

son; and, according to the apostle, these two women signify the old and new covenants

Sarah representing that of the Jerusalem which is above, that is, the city of God.

Book XVI, Chapter 35 - What Was Indicated by the Divine Answer About the Twins

Still Shut Up in the Womb of Rebecca Their Mother.

Let us now see how the times of the city of God run on from this point among Abrahams

descendants. In the time from the first year of Isaacs life to the seventieth, when his sonswere born, the only memorable thing is, that when he prayed God that his wife, who was

barren, might bear, and the Lord granted what he sought, and she conceived, the twins leapt

while still enclosed in her womb. And when she was troubled by this struggle, and

inquired of the Lord, she received this answer: Two nations are in your womb, and twotypes of people shall be separated from you; and the one people shall overcome the other

people, and the elder shall serve the younger. The Apostle Paul would have us understandthis as a great instance of grace; for the children being not yet born, neither having doneany good or evil, the younger is chosen without doing anything good to deserve it, and the

elder is rejected, when beyond doubt, as regards original sin, both were alike, and as

regards actual sin, neither had any. Only that saying, The elder shall serve theyounger, is understood by our writers, almost without exception, to mean that the elder

people, the Jews, shall serve the younger people, the Christians. And truly, although this

might seem to be fulfilled in the Idumean nation, which was born of the elder (who had twonames, being called both Esau and Edom, whence the name Idumeans), because it was

afterwards to be overcome by the people which sprang from the younger, that is, by the

Israelites, and was to become subject to them; yet it is more suitable to believe that, when it

was said, The one people shall overcome the other people, and the elder shall serve theyounger, that prophecy meant some greater thing; and what is that except what is

evidently fulfilled in the Jews and Christians.


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Book XVII, Chapter 7Of the Disruption of the Kingdom of Israel, by Which the

Perpetual Division of the Spiritual from the Carnal Israel Was Prefigured.

Again Saul sinned through disobedience, and again Samuel says to him in the word of the

Lord, Because you have despised the word of the Lord, the Lord has despised you, that

you may not be king over Israel. And again for the same sin, when Saul confessed it, andprayed for pardon, and besought Samuel to return with him to appease the Lord, he said, I

will not return with you: for you have despised the word of the Lord, and the Lord will

despise you that you may not be king over Israel. And Samuel turned his face to go away,and Saul laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and tore it. And Samuel said to him, The

Lord has ripped the kingdom from Israel out of your hand this day, and will give it to your

fellow, who is better than you, and will divide Israel in two. And He will not be changed,

neither will He repent: for He is not as a man, that He should repent; who threatens anddoes not persist. He to whom it is said, The Lord will despise you that thou may not be

king over Israel, and The Lord has ripped the kingdom from Israel out of your hand this

day, reigned forty years over Israel, - that is, just as long a time as David himself, - yet

heard this in the first period of his reign, that we may understand it was said because noneof his race was to reign, and that we may look to the race of David, whence also is sprung,

according to the flesh, the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus......We see that this sentence concerning this division of the people of Israel, divinely uttered

in these words, has been altogether irremediable and quite perpetual. For whoever have

turned, or are turning, or shall turn from there to Christ, it has been according to theforeknowledge of God, not according to the one and the same nature of the human race.

Certainly none of the Israelites, who, cleaving to Christ, have continued in him, shall ever

be among those Israelites who persist in being his enemies even to the end of this life, but

shall for ever remain in the separation which is here foretold. For the Old Testament, fromthe Mount Sinai, which originates in bondage, profits nothing, unless because it bears

witness to the New Testament. Otherwise, however long the Book of Moses is read, the

veil is put over their heart; but when any one shall turn from there to Christ, the veil shallbe taken away. For the very desire of those who turn is changed from the old to the new,

so that each no longer desires to obtain carnal but spiritual happy. Wherefore that great

prophet Samuel himself, before he had anointed Saul, when he had cried to the Lord forIsrael, and He had heard him, and when he had offered a whole burnt-offering, as the aliens

were coming to battle against the people of God, and the Lord thundered above them and

they were confused, and fell before Israel and were overcome; [then] he took one stone and

set it up between the old and new Miztpeh, and called its name Even-ezer, which meansthe stone of the helper, and said, Up to this time has the Lord helped us. Mitzpeh is

interpreted desire. That stone of the helper is the mediation of the Savior, by which we

go from the old Mitzpeh to the new, - that is, from the desire with which carnal happinesswas expected in the carnal kingdom to the desire with which the truest spiritual happiness

is expected in the kingdom of heaven; and since nothing is better than that, the Lord helps

us up to this time.

Book XVIII, Chapter 46Of the Birth of Our Savior, Whereby the Word Was Made

Flesh; And of the Dispersion of the Jews Among All Nations, as Had Been Prophesied.


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While Herod, therefore, reigned in Judea, and Caesar Augustus was emperor at Rome, the

state of the republic being already changed, and the world being set at peace by him, Christ

was born in Bethlehem of Judah, man manifest out of a human virgin, God hidden out ofGod the Father. For so had the prophet foretold: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the

womb, and bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which, being

interpreted, is, God with us. [ Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23] He did many miracles thatHe might commend God in himself, some of which, even as many as seemed sufficient to

proclaim him, are contained in the evangelic Scripture. The first of these is, that he was so

wonderfully born, and the last, that with his body raised up again from the dead heascended into heaven. But the Jews who slew him, and would not believe in him, because it

was to his benefit to die and rise again, were yet more miserably wasted by the Romans,

and utterly rooted out from their kingdom, where aliens had already ruled over them, and

were dispersed through the lands (so that indeed there is no place where they are not), andare thus by their own Scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies

about Christ. And very many of them, considering this, even before his passion, but chiefly

after his resurrection, believed on him, of whom it was predicted, Though the number of

the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved. [Isaiah 10:22and Romans 9:27-28] But the rest are blinded, of whom it was predicted, Let their table be

made before them a trap, and a retribution, and a stumbling-block. Let their eyes bedarkened lest they see, and bow down their back always. [Psalm 69:22-23 and Romans

9:9-10] Therefore, when they do not believe our Scriptures, their own, which they blindly

read, are fulfilled in them, lest perchance any one should say that the Christians haveforged these prophecies about Christ which are quoted under the name of the sibyl, or of

others, if such there be, who do not belong to the Jewish people. For us, indeed, those

suffice which are quoted from the books of our enemies, to whom we make our

acknowledgment, on account of this testimony, which, in spite of themselves, theycontribute by their possession of these books, while they themselves are dispersed among

all nations, wherever the Church of Christ is spread abroad. For a prophecy about this thing

was sent before in the Psalms, which they also read, where it is written, My God, Hismercy shall prevent me. My God has shown me concerning mine enemies, that You shall

not slay them, lest they should at last forget Your law: disperse them in Your

might.[Psalm 69:10-11] Therefore God has shown the Church in her enemies the Jews thegrace of His compassion, since, as said the apostle, their offense is the salvation of the

Gentiles. [Romans 11:11] And therefore He has not slain them, that is, He has not let the

knowledge that they are Jews be lost in them, although they have been conquered by the

Romans, lest they should forget the law of God, and their testimony should be of no availin this matter of which we treat. But it was not enough that he should say, Slay them not,

lest they should at last forget Your law, unless he had also added, Disperse them;

because if they had only been in their own land with that testimony of the Scriptures, andnot every where, certainly the Church which is everywhere could not have had them as

witnesses among all nations to the prophecies which were sent before concerning Christ.

On Christian Doctrine


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Book III, Chapter 5 It Is A Wretched Slavery Which Takes The Figurative

Expressions of Scripture in A Literal Sense.

But the ambiguities of metaphorical words, about which I am next to speak, demand noordinary care and diligence. In the first place, we must beware of taking a figurative

expression literally. For the saying of the apostle applies in this case too: The letter kills,

but the spirit gives life.(2) For when what is said figuratively is taken as if it were saidliterally, it is understood in a carnal manner. And nothing is more fittingly called the death

of the soul than when that in it which raises it above the brutes, the intelligence namely, is

put in subjection to the flesh by a blind adherence to the letter. For he who follows theletter takes figurative words as if they were proper, and does not carry out what is indicated

by a proper word into its secondary signification; but, if he hears of the Sabbath, for

example, thinks of nothing but the one day out of seven which recurs in constant

succession; and when he hears of a sacrifice, does not carry his thoughts beyond thecustomary offerings of victims from the flock, and of the fruits of the earth. Now it is

surely a miserable slavery of the soul to take signs for things, and to be unable to lift the

eye of the mind above what is corporeal and created, that it may drink in eternal light.

Book III, Chapter 6 Utility of The Bondage of The Jews.

This bondage, however, in the case of the Jewish people, differed widely from what it was

in the case of the other nations; because, though the former were in bondage to temporal

things, it was in such a way that in all these the One God was put before their minds. Andalthough they paid attention to the signs of spiritual realities in place of the realities

themselves, not knowing to what the signs referred, still they had this conviction rooted in

their minds, that in subjecting themselves to such a bondage they were doing the pleasure

of the one invisible God of all. And the apostle describes this bondage as being like to thatof boys under the guidance of a schoolmaster. And those who clung obstinately to such

signs could not endure our Lords neglect of them when the time for their revelation had

come; and hence their leaders brought it as a charge against him that he healed on theSabbath, and the people, clinging to these signs as if they were realities, could not believe

that one who refused to observe them in the way the Jews did was God, or came from God.

But those who did believe, from among whom the first Church at Jerusalem was formed,showed clearly how great an advantage it had been to be so guided by the schoolmaster that

signs, which had been for a season imposed on the obedient, fixed the thoughts of those

who observed them on the worship of the One God who made heaven and earth. These

men, because they had been very near to spiritual things (for even in the temporal andcarnal offerings and types, though they did not clearly apprehend their spiritual meaning,

they had learnt to adore the One Eternal God,) were filled with such a measure of the Holy

Spirit that they sold all their goods, and laid their price at the apostles feet to be distributedamong the needy, and consecrated themselves wholly to God as a new temple, of which the

old temple they were serving was but the earthly type.

st. augustine - on the jews

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