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The City of God

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 Abraham's descendants. In the time from the first year of Isaac's life to the seventieth, when his sons were 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 thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall overcome the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger." ¹ The Apostle Paul would have us understand this as a great instance of grace; ² for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, the younger is chosen without any good desert and the elder is rejected, when beyond doubt, as regards original sin, both were alike, and as regards actual sin, neither had any. But the plan of the work on hand does not permit me to speak more fully of this matter now, and I have said much about it in other works. Only that saying, "The elder shall serve the younger," 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 two names, 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 the younger," that prophecy meant some greater thing; and what is that except what is evidently fulfilled in the Jews and Christians?

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XXXV: De geminis adhuc in utero Rebeccae matris inclusis quid indicauerit diuina responsio.

Iam ex hoc, quemadmodum per posteros Abrahae ciuitatis dei procurrant tempora, uideamus. a primo igitur anno uitae Isaac usque ad sexagensimum, quo ei nati sunt filii, illud memorabile est, quod, cum illi deum roganti ut pareret uxor eius, quae sterilis erat, concessisset dominus quod petebat, atque haberet illa conceptum, gestiebant gemini adhuc in utero eius inclusi. qua molestia cum angeretur, dominum interrogauit accepitque responsum: duae gentes in utero tuo sunt et duo populi de uentre tuo separabuntur et populus populum superabit et maior seruiet minori. quod Paulus apostolus magnum uult intellegi gratiae documentum, quia nondum illis natis nec aliquid agentibus boni seu mali sine ullis bonis meritis eligitur minor maiore reprobato; quando procul dubio, quantum adtinet ad originale peccatum, ambo pares erant; quantum autem ad proprium, ullius eorum nullum erat. sed nunc de hac re dicere aliquid latius instituti operis ratio non sinit, unde in aliis iam multa diximus. quod autem dictum est: maior seruiet minori, nemo fere nostrorum aliter intellexit, quam maiorem populum Iudaeorum minori Christiano populo seruiturum. et reuera quamuis in gente Idumaeorum, quae nata est de maiore, cui duo nomina erant - nam et Esau uocabatur et Edom, unde Idumaei - , hoc uideri possit inpletum, quia postea superanda fuerat a populo, qui ortus est ex minore, id est Israelitico, eique fuerat futura subiecta: tamen in aliquid maius intentam fuisse istam prophetiam, qua dictum est: populus populum superabit et maior seruiet minori, conuenientius creditur. et quid est hoc, nisi quod in Iudaeis et Christianis euidenter inpletur?