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The City of God

Chapter 39.--The Reason Why Jacob Was Also Called Israel.

As I said a little ago, Jacob was also called Israel, the name which was most prevalent among the people descended from him. Now this name was given him by the angel who wrestled with him on the way back from Mesopotamia, and who was most evidently a type of Christ. For when Jacob overcame him, doubtless with his own consent, that the mystery might be represented, it signified Christ's passion, in which the Jews are seen overcoming Him. And yet he besought a blessing from the very angel he had overcome; and so the imposition of this name was the blessing. For Israel means seeing God, ¹ which will at last be the reward of all the saints. The angel also touched him on the breadth of the thigh when he was overcoming him, and in that way made him lame. So that Jacob was at one and the same time blessed and lame: blessed in those among that people who believed in Christ, and lame in the unbelieving. For the breadth of the thigh is the multitude of the family. For there are many of that race of whom it was prophetically said beforehand, "And they have halted in their paths." ²

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XXXIX: Quae ratio fecerit, ut Iacob etiam Israel cognominaretur.

Iacob autem etiam Israel, sicut paulo ante dixi, uocabatur, quod nomen magis populus ex illo procreatus obtinuit. hoc autem nomen illi ab angelo inpositum est, qui cum illo fuerat in itinere de Mesopotamia redeunte luctatus, typum Christi euidentissime gerens. nam quod ei praeualuit Iacob, utique uolenti, ut mysterium figuraret, significat passionem Christi, ubi uisi sunt ei praeualere Iudaei. et tamen benedictionem ab eodem angelo, quem superauerat, inpetrauit; ac sic huius nominis inpositio benedictio fuit. interpretatur autem Israel uidens deum, quod erit in fine praemium sanctorum omnium. tetigit porro illi idem angelus ueluti praeualenti latitudinem femoris eumque isto modo claudum reddidit. erat itaque unus atque idem Iacob et benedictus et claudus: benedictus in eis, qui in Christum ex eodem populo crediderunt, atque in infidelibus claudus. nam femoris latitudo generis multitudo est. plures quippe sunt in ea stirpe, de quibus prophetice praedictum est: et claudicauerunt a semitis suis.