Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput III: De sterilitate Sarrae, quam dei gratia fecundauit.

Sarra quippe sterilis erat et desperatione prolis saltem de ancilla sua concupiscens habere, quod de se ipsa non se posse cernebat, dedit eam fetandam uiro, de quo parere uoluerat nec potuerat. exegit itaque etiam sic debitum de marito utens iure suo in utero alieno. natus est ergo Ismael, sicut nascuntur homines, permixtione sexus utriusque, usitata lege naturae. ideo dictum est: secundum carnem; non quod ista beneficia dei non sint aut non illa operetur deus, cuius opifex sapientia adtingit, sicut scriptum est, a fine usque in finem fortiter et disponit omnia suauiter; sed ubi significandum fuerat dei donum, quod indebitum hominibus gratia largiretur, sicut oportuit dari filium, quemadmodum naturae non debebatur excursibus. negat enim natura iam filios tali commixtioni maris et feminae, qualis esse poterat Abrahae et Sarrae in illa iam aetate, etiam mulieris accedente sterilitate, quae nec tunc parere potuit, quando non aetas fecunditati, sed aetati fecunditas defuit. quod ergo naturae sic adfectae fructus posteritatis non debebatur, significat quod natura generis humani peccato uitiata ac per hoc iure damnata nihil uerae felicitatis in posterum merebatur. recte igitur significat Isaac, per repromissionem natus, filios gratiae, ciues ciuitatis liberae, socios pacis aeternae, ubi sit non amor propriae ac priuatae quodammodo uoluntatis, sed communi eodemque inmutabili bono gaudens atque ex multis unum cor faciens, id est perfecte concors oboedientia caritatis.

Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 3.--That Sarah's Barrenness was Made Productive by God's Grace.

Sarah, in fact, was barren; and, despairing of offspring, and being resolved that she would have at least through her handmaid that blessing she saw she could not in her own person procure, she gave her handmaid to her husband, to whom she herself had been unable to bear children. From him she required this conjugal duty, exercising her own right in another's womb. And thus Ishmael was born according to the common law of human generation, by sexual intercourse. Therefore it is said that he was born "according to the flesh,"--not because such births are not the gifts of God, nor His handiwork, whose creative wisdom "reaches," as it is written, "from one end to another mightily, and sweetly doth she order all things," ¹ but because, in a case in which the gift of God, which was not due to men and was the gratuitous largess of grace, was to be conspicuous, it was requisite that a son be given in a way which no effort of nature could compass. Nature denies children to persons of the age which Abraham and Sarah had now reached; besides that, in Sarah's case, she was barren even in her prime. This nature, so constituted that offspring could not be looked for, symbolized the nature of the human race vitiated by sin and by just consequence condemned, which deserves no future felicity. Fitly, therefore, does Isaac, the child of promise, typify the children of grace, the citizens of the free city, who dwell together in everlasting peace, in which self-love and self-will have no place, but a ministering love that rejoices in the common joy of all, of many hearts makes one, that is to say, secures a perfect concord.