Tractates on the Books of Holy Scripture (Tractatus Origenis) 3.1–4.4

"But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, who had been born to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac, and she said to Abraham: 'Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.'" If we are willing to look at and consider with diligent care and anxious attention the deeds of all the fathers and the oracles of the prophets, which the blessed apostle Paul teaches are a type of things to come, we shall say without any doubt that a great mystery of our hope and salvation was arranged from ancient ages. For nothing sudden or unexpected was done in the Gospel that had not first been either prefigured and shown in the preaching of the fathers, or displayed beforehand in deed, or proclaimed by the prophetic voice. So in this place: when Abraham, on the advice of his wife Sarah, had known his Egyptian slave Hagar and received from her a son named Ishmael, and afterwards, when Sarah in her old age had borne a son and saw the children playing together, what does it mean that she said to Abraham, "Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac"? Certainly a great mystery of the divine ordering was shown in this sequence. Therefore, dearest brothers, we must look closely and inquire, to find what cause or reason there was that she first wanted her husband to sleep with the slave woman and raised the son he had received from the slave woman as her own, and afterwards ordered this same son, once raised, [to be driven out] with his mother ... "[whoever] commits [sin] is a slave, and the slave does not remain in the house forever, but the son remains." And because the sinful people of the Jews, coming out of Egypt, was to receive the law in slavery, as the apostle says, "The law was given not for the righteous but for sinners," therefore this people, because it is sinful, ... rightly Hagar, Sarah's slave, bearing the type of the Synagogue, is joined to Abraham her master, so that from her a firstborn son, that is, the people of the Jews, should be born, who was to be under the yoke of slavery, although for a time it too was to become a great nation. Nevertheless the son of the slave woman, that is, the people of the Synagogue, is said to be unable to be heir with the son of the free woman, that is, with the people of faith. For no one will possess the father's inheritance, that is, the glory of the heavenly kingdom, except one who has shown himself a son of Sarah, that is, of the noble and venerable Church, by holiness of faith and all good deeds. For the blessed apostle testifies that our mother is the free, heavenly Jerusalem, that is, the holy Church; and he adds that Hagar prefigured the earthly Jerusalem, that is, the Synagogue, joined to Mount Sinai, on which the law was received in slavery. For the fact that

Sarah was still barren at the time when Abraham was coming together with the Egyptian indicated that the Church from the Gentiles would be barren and receive no son from spiritual seed as long as the people of the Synagogue, that is, Hagar's son, was being born or growing. Indeed, as Sarah conceived in old age, so did the Church at the end of the world, near the setting of the age: when the Lord deigned to come to Abraham's tent and promised Sarah a son, that is, when he came according to the flesh to the earthly Jerusalem, where the tent of the law was, then Sarah, formerly barren, that is, the long-unfruitful Church, was found worthy to receive the son of promise, as the Lord himself addresses the Church from the Gentiles through the prophet, saying: "Rejoice, barren one, who do not bear; break forth and cry out, you who are not in labor, for more are the children of the desolate than of her who has a husband." "But when Sarah heard the Lord," it says, "promising her a son, she laughed." This laughter has a double meaning: either that the Christian people, in whose figure Isaac was to be born, would suffer laughter from unbelievers in this world, or that in the future it would obtain laughter and joy, as the Lord himself said to the disciples: "Blessed are those who weep, for they shall laugh," and "You will see me again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you." Hence the one born of Sarah received the name Laughter; for Isaac, from the Hebrew language, is interpreted in Latin as "laughter." But now the discussion must run through each detail, so that its proper part in the events may be assigned to each person. We said, then, that Hagar, Sarah's slave, bore the type of the Synagogue, which bore a son, that is, a people, in slavery to sin. The blessed apostle too mentions in his epistle that these things are said by way of allegory, that is, that Hagar was the figure of the Synagogue, or of Mount Sinai, from which the people received the law of slavery, a people that could not be heir of the father's promise, that is, of the heavenly kingdom and the glory to come. Now, since we have explained above whose figure Hagar bore, we must not pass over in silence what it means that Scripture says Ishmael played with Isaac. What harm or what injury had he done, if he was playing? At that age, should it not have been pleasing that the son of the slave woman played with the son of the free woman? But Sarah thought that play destructive. And the apostle Paul indicated that this play was persecution, saying: "As then," he says, "he who was according to the flesh persecuted him who was according to the spirit, so it is now." See how the apostle teaches us that this carnal people of the Jews opposes this spiritual people; or else, among ourselves, if anyone is still carnal, he opposes the spiritual. Now, brothers, attend to what I say: this play can also signify something else, because in all things the flesh opposes the spirit. For Ishmael bears the figure of the flesh, because he is born according to the flesh; Isaac that of the spirit, because he is begotten through the promise. And so the flesh flatters the spirit, to deal with it by alluring deceptions, to entice it with delights, to soften it with pleasures, and to play upon it with the allurement of lust. Hence, dearest brothers, see that injustice too flatters a man, so that he shows partiality to the person of the powerful and, swayed by his favor, does not give a right judgment. Therefore one ought to understand that under the appearance of play he is suffering a flattering persecution from injustice. But since Sarah bears the figure of virtue, such play of Ishmael with Isaac, that is, of the flesh with the spirit, greatly offends Sarah, who is virtue.

"But when Abraham cast Hagar out of the house," it says, "he took loaves and a skin of water and gave it to her, and put the child on her shoulders, and sent her away. And Hagar went out and wandered in the desert, and the water in the skin ran out, and she put the child under a tree and sat down opposite him." What it signifies that he put the child on her shoulders, with the loaves and the skin of water, must not be passed over idly. That child, as we have often said, the son of the slave woman, bears the role of the Jewish people: it was necessary that the sinful and foolish people should weigh down the neck of its mother, that is, the Synagogue. And so Ishmael is placed on his mother's neck. So too at the Lord's passion that same people, as if to weigh down its mother's neck, cried out: "His blood be on us and on our children." And hence it is that she herself bore the sins of her people, that is, of the sons of Abraham. The loaves indicated that the old priesthood carried with it the bread of the presence, as it is written, and was to eat it. The skin with the water that ran out signified that the Jewish purification would fail, held as it was in dead skins, that is, in flesh condemned by the sentence of transgression; and it signified that the water of purification could not only give them no refreshment or satisfy a man, but would make him vomit, because it seems neither cold nor hot: that is, it is not for the Gentiles, because it was under the law, nor for the faithful, because it did not have the grace of freedom. It can also be understood in another way: the water that Ishmael drank from the skin is the letter of the law, and so its water ran out, because the letter, that is, the historical understanding, often fails; of it the Lord says: "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again." Further, as Hagar wandered in the desert with her son, so too, when the Synagogue with its son, that is, with its people, had been driven out of the Church and rejected by the Lord, it began to wander in the world through houses and forests of crimes and through the rough places of sins, and to linger in the desert, in the trackless and dry land, that is, without prophet, without temple, without priest, without law, without sacrifice, roaming openly in the world. Scattered all over the world, they could not find the way of salvation, because they were wholly ignorant of Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. "But when the water in the skin had run out," it says, "she put her son under a tree." Already defeated, already wearied and worn out by the dryness of thirst, since she no longer had the water of purification which she had carried in a dead skin, that is, in the flesh of the old man, and could not find the fountain of living water, she then puts her son, that is, the people, under the tree. This signified that some of that same people would seek refreshment at the cross of Christ and in the shade of his power, and, with the eyes of their heart opened, would see the fountain of living water, that is, Christ, so that the dryness of their mind, watered and satisfied, might flourish in the Holy Spirit; or else that in the last times, when Elijah the Tishbite comes and preaches the gospel of Christ to the peoples of the Jews, twelve thousand and twelve thousand from the twelve tribes will believe in Christ and become noble Christians. And so, in figure of them, Hagar, that is, the Synagogue, brought her child, that is, the people, to the shade of the tree, that is, to the overshadowing of the cross. For that tree, in whose shade Hagar put Ishmael, outlined the image of the Lord's cross. Hence David too says: "In the shadow of your wings I will hope until iniquity passes." And elsewhere: "In his shadow," it says, "we live." And in the Gospel: "The Spirit of the Lord," it says, "will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." You see, then, dearest brothers, under what mystery the shade of the tree was sought, where that child, that is, the people that would believe, was to take refuge.

"And the boy cried out," it says, "and wept, and the Lord heard the voice of the boy." This speaks in the person of those from the Jews who were to believe in Christ; and it signified that, weeping for their sins and turned to Christ through repentance for the past deeds in which they recognized they had formerly gone astray, making a lamentable prayer, they would be heard ...; and that he opens the eyes of their heart so that they may see the fountain of living water, that is, the Son of God, who said, "I am the fountain of living water," and that, drawing from him the teaching of heavenly grace, which is living water, and obtaining the gift of baptism, they may rejoice. Indeed, "Immediately," it says, "the angel of the Lord called Hagar, saying: 'Do not fear, Hagar; the Lord has heard the voice of the boy.' And the Lord opened her eyes, and she saw a fountain of living water," and she gave the child to drink, that is, the people that formerly had dry hearts, a child lacking in understanding, that is, foolish and wrapped in the swaddling clothes of crimes. But perhaps someone may say here: "So the whole people of the Jews, whose image this son of the slave woman bore, will believe in Christ, and all will drink from the fountain of living water in the sacrament of baptism?" Let whoever does not know this hear the most blessed Isaiah speaking of that same people: "Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah." And: "If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant will be saved." These, then, are the remnant who will be saved, believing in Christ. But the rest, who remain in unbelief, will receive Antichrist instead of Christ, as Isaiah says: "While they waited for light, darkness arose." Indeed, when the Lord says to Abraham, "So shall your seed be, like the stars of heaven and like the sand of the sea," he does not say this on account of their number, but to show significantly a twofold people from the seed of Abraham, so that those who believed in Christ would shine like the stars of heaven, while those who did not believe would be cast down like sand and trodden into the earth. And when he said, "I will make him too into a great nation," this signified that this people, very numerous beyond the other nations, was to reign in the world, but that of them those who believed in Christ would obtain the glory of the heavenly kingdom. Indeed, when he says, "I will make him too into a great nation," he shows that there are already others, people of a great nation, to whom those of Ishmael's seed who believed were to be joined. For by adding the syllable with which he says, "I will make him too into a great nation," he makes plain that our people, we who were born long ago of Sarah the free woman, that is, the noble Church, reign in Christ, at the time when all who came from the Synagogue and believed in Christ were to be gathered, as the apostle too wrote of them, saying: "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, lest you be wise in your own eyes: the rejection of Israel came about so that the fullness of the Gentiles might come in, and when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then the rest of Israel will be saved." This, then, is the rest of Israel which, as I have often said, will believe in Christ under Elijah, and thereby will itself become a great nation with us and obtain an equal glory of the heavenly kingdom.

But we must not pass over in silence that Scripture first calls the one who promises her this, that he will make him a great nation, an angel, and afterwards God. But if he was an angel, how was he called God? For it is not lawful to call an angel God. Or if he was God, how was he called an angel? But this is so in order that the divine Scripture might show that it was the Son of God, not the Father, who spoke to Hagar, and that it was he who promised her that he would make him a great nation; for he himself always spoke through the law and the prophets, as it is written of him: "I who was speaking have come." And Scripture called him an angel to indicate that he is the messenger of great counsel. For he disclosed all the secrets of the Father's will to believers. So that no one should think that the Father himself is the Son himself, as Praxeas and Sabellius assert (whence these heretics are called Patripassians), it named him an angel, to show in this promise the person not of the Father but of the Son. But it called the same angel God, to show that the Son of God is God. And so he is called an angel because of his obedience to the Father's will, and is named God according to the nature of the Father, because he is truly God. For the Son of God, true God from true God, only-begotten from the unbegotten, cannot be other than God. But it is enough to have treated these things thus far.

"And the Lord said to Abraham: 'But you shall keep my covenant, and your seed after you: every male of you shall be circumcised.'" Since you often have a contest with the Jews, and the present reading has prompted us to speak on this, we must ask why circumcision was given with such emphasis to the people of Israel. We can show this very easily if we first say what circumcision itself is. As to the meaning of the word, anyone can understand that circumcision is a wound drawn around with iron, by which something is cut off. If the Jew too holds this definition, what glory is it for him to have suffered the loss of flesh in a perfect body and to have mutilated, with wounding iron, the whole form he was born with? That this is done against the natural order is shown by the very fact that a child is born whole from a Jew, so that, though like his father in everything, he is unlike him in his wholeness alone, showing that the wound was imprinted on the father against nature, since he himself is born without the sacrament of his father's body. So in the Jew nature and religion struggle: the natural order secures wholeness, and nature, passing it on, removes the perfection of the ordinance. If the Jews value this circumcision so highly, what will become of Adam, the father of the human race? Was he formed by God imperfect, since he was made uncircumcised, or ought he at least to have been circumcised after the transgression, if circumcision is the sign of salvation? What will become of Abel, who was not circumcised? Or of Seth, begotten in his place, who was found a stranger to this wound? Of Enoch, translated whole, that is, uncircumcised? Of Noah, who at the destruction of the world, when all perished, was saved without any such condition? Of the other memorable and illustrious men, whose hope and life are praised in the sacred writings? If they have salvation outside this circumcision, or if eternal glory is assured them so, the circumcision of the Jews will be superfluous. Or if without circumcision there is no hope, then, according to these people, their hope has been frustrated, against the Scripture. Or if they are saved because they are not circumcised, what reason was there for Abraham or the people of the Jews to receive this seal, without which men are held righteous and holy before God? For so the Lord says to Abraham in this place: "This," he says, "is my covenant between me and you, and your seed after you: every male of you shall be circumcised, and the flesh of your foreskin shall be circumcised. And it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and them. And a boy of eight days among you shall be circumcised; and every male who has not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin on the eighth day, that soul shall be destroyed from his people, because he has broken the covenant." What do we say in this place, dearest brothers: why does the same penalty await the one uncircumcised on the eighth day as awaits the one who has violated the sabbath? For he says that the soul of one who has not been circumcised on the eighth day is to be destroyed, just as that of one who has violated the sabbath. What of the fact that a child is often born on a sabbath, who must then be circumcised on a sabbath again, that is, on the eighth day? So it will happen that either the sabbath violates circumcision or circumcision violates the sabbath day: for either iron is held on the sabbath against what is lawful, and work is done, and a wound is inflicted; or, if the sabbath ... is avoided, the law of circumcision is profaned, since it is not carried out on the eighth day; and the soul of the uncircumcised is destroyed, unless he is circumcised on the eighth day according to the law.

But I say what I think. If circumcision is the sign of salvation, why did John preach repentance rather than circumcision? If he had known that circumcision was the sign of salvation, he would have preached circumcision to them rather than repentance. What of the fact that we know many uncircumcised men after the giving of the law obtained the Lord's mercy, and many circumcised men perished by various kinds of punishment? See: Joshua son of Nun received the Gibeonites into a place of safety, yet did not circumcise them. On the other hand, circumcised men are devoured by the bites of serpents. Then in the desert a huge multitude of circumcised men was struck down, and all the uncircumcised were preserved. So too in Ezekiel all the circumcised were slaughtered by the axes of the angels, and only those were found worthy to live who bore the sign of the Lord marked on their foreheads. Dathan and Abiram and the whole congregation of Korah, though circumcised, were swallowed by the opening of the earth and plunged into the underworld. On the other hand, Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, uncircumcised, offers a sacrifice pleasing to God and gives Moses himself counsel in judging. And why say more? Abraham himself, circumcised, offers tithes to the uncircumcised Melchizedek and honors the uncircumcised priest of the most high God with the offering of gifts. But you say to me: "If, then, this fleshly circumcision was of no use, why does God say to Abraham, 'This is the covenant between me and you and your seed after you,' and so on?" But why do we delay longer, entangling this solution in difficulties, when the shortness of the hours compels us to untie the question set more quickly? The reason for this matter, dearest brothers, is threefold: of fault, of race, and of figure; of fault in the pain, of race in the sign, of figure in the mystery. Lest I seem to have confused these as if in a jumble of words, I will, God willing, explain each briefly. As to the figure, then: this circumcision is not the truth but a foretelling of the truth, a sign of future salvation, not the fulfillment of the reality. Every seal is pressed out like the impression of a ring in wax; or as painters are wont to catch the faces of others and paint lifelike images in various colors, so that either, while an empty shadow mocks the gaze, what is not is believed to be, or, while the sight of the eyes is held fast by a sufficiently deceiving imitation, the truth is shown by them: so too in the old covenant an image of the truth was seen, yet not the truth itself. Indeed the blessed apostle Paul says: "All these things happened to them in figure; but they were written for our correction, on whom the ends of the ages have come." Since, then, every figure and every seal looks to that thing, and is inferior to that thing, of which it is the figure or seal, who does not understand that this circumcision was imposed as an imitation of likeness, not as a presentation of the truth? For Abraham believed God before this circumcision, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Faith, then, is the true and lawful circumcision, so that he is rightly circumcised who believed God, while he is circumcised in figure who suffered the loss of a part of his body. Circumcision was given to Abraham and his descendants only so that, while the figure was received with honor, faith, which is the truth, might be held the more illustrious. And so this fleshly circumcision was set first, as the Lord said to Abraham: "The flesh of your foreskin shall be circumcised, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and them."

But since it has already been defined that circumcision is that by which, with iron drawn around, something is cut off from the body that harms either health or modesty, and that what harms health is whatever is found against it to have come from vice of conduct, not from nature: if this is so, the depravity and viciousness of man is nowhere but in the mind, and must be cut away from the heart, from which the Lord says all defilements proceed. That true and lawful circumcision is to be had nowhere but in the heart, so that the remedy of circumcision may be applied where all vices proceed and go out. This circumcision takes nothing from the man but from his error; it inflicts no damage on the body but brings an increase of salvation; it will not shed gore but will despise the shame of blood. Moses too urged this on the circumcised when he said, "Circumcise the hardness of your heart"; and Jeremiah when he says, "Break up new ground for yourselves and circumcise the hardness of your heart, men of Judah and you who live in Jerusalem." This true and lawful circumcision of the heart, I say, which cuts away all crimes and all vices and calls man back to the image of God by the integrity of good conduct, no iron blade ground to an edge will provide, no worked skin, nor will the loss of the foreskin, imprinted with the shedding of blood, bestow it; but sacred faith, which is stronger than any iron, keener than any edge, finer than the thinnest blade, which does not touch the extremities of the body but enters the inmost and secret places of the heart, cutting out, killing, and circumcising all vices and errors and crimes from the very hiding places and recesses of the conscience, so to speak, from their very fibers and roots; circumcising not a part but the whole man; making not a wound but gaining the wholeness of salvation; so that one so circumcised rejoices that he has lost not only nothing of his body but has prepared the wholeness of a blessed soul. This true and sure circumcision of faith, then, which amends all vices and calls the whole man back to better things, righteous Abel received inwardly in his heart and in the secret of his breast; had he not had it, neither would his gifts have been regarded by God, nor would his holy blood have spoken with God after death. This circumcision of the heart made Enoch please God and translated him. This kept and steered Noah in that shipwreck of the world. This is what performed signs, worked wonders, changed the nature of the law; considering its power the prophet cried out, "The righteous lives by faith," and another prophet, "Unless you believe," he says, "you will not understand." This circumcision, I say, set great Elijah in the fiery chariot. This granted to the bones of Elisha that by their touch they could give life back to the corpses of the dead thrown on them. This made the Hebrew youths command the fires. This, in Daniel, was able to impose peace on nature and on the starving, raging lions. This, I say, is the true and lawful circumcision of faith, by which the vices of the heart are cut away, not by which the wholeness of the flesh is muti[lated] ... [Abraham] yielded to [the voice] of his wife, which was not at all fitting, and unlawfully signed away a husband's authority to a woman's lightness, so that he was unworthily joined to her Egyptian slave Hagar, in order that, since Sarah was hindered by the fault of barrenness, she might obtain children for her husband through another woman, and for herself at least the semblance of the name of mother. From that point the fault comes first, while the divine gifts are anticipated otherwise. And so the wound of circumcision is imprinted, pain is inflicted, weakness is brought on, blood is shed, and shame is stirred. A fitting correspondence is made between the two: for the place of the fault is marked out as a rebuke of the unlawful liberty, so that, while what was committed was fined with such a penalty, a remedy for the deed might be supplied through the expiation of a pain not left unpunished. And so it is said to him: "The flesh of your foreskin shall be circumcised." Hence his sons now bear this sign, so that through the loss of part of the body self-control in lust might be learned.

There remains, as I proposed, the third reason for this circumcision. For the divine reason is always fruitful, providing for the human race in many ways. This, then, is the third reason for circumcision, which we said above was given as a sign of race: since it was going to happen that the seed of Abraham would serve foreign nations, and this not once but often, it was given so that no confusion of race should arise from the mixing of captivity; and therefore the sign of race was given in the place of generation. Moreover God, knowing that they would be warriors and would die in battle for their sins, wished them to be distinguished by this mark, so that they might thereby be recognized and gathered for burial. Indeed Tobit commanded his son Tobias to search out, among those who lay slain and unburied in the public square, those who were of his race, that is, Israelites, who in that multitude of the fallen could certainly be recognized by no other sign than circumcision. We say this so that you may know, dearest brothers, that circumcision is a sign of race, not of salvation. These are the three reasons for which it was necessary for the people of the Jews, for their time, to receive circumcision. But even if this manifold reason for bodily circumcision, of figure, of fault, or of race, had not been shown, it should nevertheless be plain to us that whatever the cause of circumcision, whatever its power, whatever its benefit, all of it ceased in the grace of the Gospel at the coming of Christ, who, having taken the intolerable yoke of the law from our necks and laid down the burden of the precepts, had foretold through the prophets that he would give another, new law, not such as he had given to our fathers, and would make the new things that now arise. And so he also gave a new circumcision when he established a new law. For since in baptism the whole man is circumcised when he is reborn, the part has certainly been removed by the whole, since even the fleshly seed of Abraham has received seed in Christ, so that from then on sons are born, through Christ, not to the seed but to the faith of Abraham: for "God is able," he says, "from these stones to raise up children to Abraham," joining the end to the head. And so it was necessary that this temporal circumcision should receive its end through Christ, through whom, as I have said, the new circumcision of the heart is also worked. Fleshly circumcision, then, had to be applied when it was necessary to restrain with iron the intemperance that could not be held in check by faith. That circumcision, I say, had force there, where virginity was assailed by marriage, not in the Church, where virginity excuses from marriage. That circumcision, I say, had force there, where one man had many wives and concubines, not in the Church, where it is said: "Those who have wives as though they had none." Therefore, dearest brothers, trampling on Jewish fables and the slanders of heretics, let us bury ourselves wholly in the love of Christ, wholly in the mystery of his Gospel, so that we who have been freed from the burdens of the law through faith may through that same faith be pleasing in the kingdom of God.