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The City of God

Chapter 12.--Of the Era in Abraham's Life from Which a New Period in the Holy Succession Begins.

Let us now survey the progress of the city of God from the era of the patriarch Abraham, from whose time it begins to be more conspicuous, and the divine promises which are now fulfilled in Christ are more fully revealed. We learn, then, from the intimations of holy Scripture, that Abraham was born in the country of the Chaldeans, a land belonging to the Assyrian empire. Now, even at that time impious superstitions were rife with the Chaldeans, as with other nations. The family of Terah, to which Abraham belonged, was the only one in which the worship of the true God survived, and the only one, we may suppose, in which the Hebrew language was preserved; although Joshua the son of Nun tells us that even this family served other gods in Mesopotamia. ¹ The other descendants of Heber gradually became absorbed in other races and other languages. And thus, as the single family of Noah was preserved through the deluge of water to renew the human race, so, in the deluge of superstition that flooded the whole world, there remained but the one family of Terah in which the seed of God's city was preserved. And as, when Scripture has enumerated the generations prior to Noah, with their ages, and explained the cause of the flood before God began to speak to Noah about the building of the ark, it is said, "These are the generations of Noah;" so also now, after enumerating the generations from Shem, Noah's son, down to Abraham, it then signalizes an era by saying, "These are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot. And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah." ² This Iscah is supposed to be the same as Sarah, Abraham's wife.

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XII: De articulo temporis in Abraham, a quo sanctae successionis nouus ordo contexitur.

Nunc iam uideamus procursum ciuitatis dei etiam ab illo articulo temporis, qui factus est in patre Abraham, unde incipit esse notitia eius euidentior, et ubi clariora leguntur promissa diuina, quae nunc in Christo uidemus inpleri. sicut ergo scriptura sancta indicante didicimus, in regione Chaldaeorum natus est Abraham, quae terra ad regnum Assyrium pertinebat. apud Chaldaeos autem iam etiam tunc superstitiones inpiae praeualebant, quemadmodum per ceteras gentes. una igitur Tharae domus erat, de quo natus est Abraham, in qua unius ueri dei cultus et, quantum credibile est, in qua iam sola etiam Hebraea lingua remanserat - quamuis et ipse, sicut iam manifestior dei populus in Aegypto, ita in Mesopotamia seruisse dis alienis Iesu Naue narrante referatur - ceteris ex progenie illius Heber in linguas paulatim alias et in nationes alias defluentibus. proinde sicut per aquarum diluuium una domus Noe remanserat ad reparandum genus humanum, sic in diluuio multarum superstitionum per uniuersum mundum una remanserat domus Tharae, in qua custodita est plantatio ciuitatis dei. denique sicut illic enumeratis supra generationibus usque ad Noe simul cum annorum numeris et exposita diluuii causa, priusquam deus inciperet de arca fabricanda loqui ad Noe, dicitur: hae autem generationes Noe: ita et hic enumeratis generationibus ab illo, qui est appellatus Sem, filio Noe, usque ad Abraham, deinde insignis articulus similiter ponitur ut dicatur: hae sunt generationes Tharae. Thara genuit Abram et Nachor et Arran, et Arran genuit Loth. et mortuus est Arran coram Thara patre suo in terra in qua natus est, in regione Chaldaeorum. et sumpsit Abram et Nachor sibi uxores; nomen mulieris Abram Sara et nomen mulieris Nachor Melcha, filia Arran. iste Arran pater Melchae fuit et pater Iescae, quae Iesca creditur ipsa esse etiam Sarra uxor Abrahae.