Gênesis 21
Origen of Alexandria · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Gênesis 21:4
Let us ask the Lord lest, in accordance with the apostle's word, even with us, "when Moses is read the veil be upon" our "heart." For it has been read that Abraham begot a son, Isaac, when he was a hundred years old. "And Sarah said, 'Who will announce to Abraham that Sarah nurses a child?' " "And then," the text says, "Abraham circumcised the child on the eighth day." Abraham does not celebrate his son's birthday, but he celebrates the day of this weaning "and makes a great feast."6Why? Do we think that it is the Holy Spirit's intention to write stories and to narrate how a child was weaned and a feast was made, how he played and did other childish things? Or should we understand by these things that he wishes to teach us something divine and worthy that the human race might learn from the words of God? — HOMILIES ON GENESIS 7.1
Gênesis 21:6
Isaac means "laughter" or "joy." Who is it, then, who begets such a son? It is doubtless he who said of these whom he begot through the gospel: "For you are my joy and crown of glory." For sons of this kind, there is a feast and great joy when they are weaned, for these who "no longer need milk, but strong meat, who by taking up their power have their senses exercised to the discerning of good or evil." There is a great feast for such as these, when they are weaned. But a feast cannot be offered nor joy possessed for those of whom the apostle says, "I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you were not able as yet, but neither indeed are you able still. And I could not speak to you as to spiritual, but as to carnal, as to little ones in Christ." Let those who wish the divine Scripture to be understood straightforwardly tell us what it means: "I could not speak to you as to spiritual, but as to carnal, as to little ones in Christ; I gave you milk to drink, not meat." Can these words be taken straightforwardly? — HOMILIES ON GENESIS 7.1
Gênesis 21:8
Isaac, Scripture says, "grew" and became strong; that is, Abraham's joy grew as he looked not at those things "which are seen but at the things which are not seen." For Abraham did not rejoice about present things or about the riches of the world and the activities of the age. But do you wish to hear why Abraham rejoiced? Hear the Lord saying to the Jews: "Abraham your father desired to see my day, and he saw it and was glad." In this way, therefore, "Isaac grew." That vision of Abraham, in which he saw the day of Christ and the hope which is in Christ, were increasing his joys. And would that you too might be made Isaac and be a joy to your mother the church! — HOMILIES ON GENESIS 10.1
Gênesis 21:9
Spiritually, therefore, all indeed who come to the recognition of God through faith can be called sons of Abraham; but among these some cling to God on the basis of love, others on the basis of dread and fear of future judgment. Whence also the apostle John says, "He who fears is not perfected in love, but perfect love casts out fear." He therefore who "is perfected in love" is born of Abraham and is "a son of the free woman." But he who keeps the commandments, not in perfect love but in dread of future torment and in fear of punishments is, indeed, also himself a son of Abraham. He too receives gifts, that is, the reward of his work (because even "he who shall give a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, shall not lose his reward"). Nevertheless he is inferior to that person who is perfected, not in slavish fear but in the freedom of love.The apostle also shows something similar when he says, "As long indeed as the heir is a child, he differs nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but he is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father." He is "a child," therefore, who is nourished "with milk" and "is unskillful in the word of justice"; nor is he able to receive the "solid food" of the divine wisdom and knowledge of the law. He cannot "compare spiritual things with spiritual." He cannot yet say, "But when I became a man, I put away the things of a child." He "differs," therefore, "nothing from a servant." But if "leaving the word of the first principles of Christ," he be borne to perfection and "seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, not the things that are on the earth" and "look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen," nor in the divine Scriptures follow "the letter which kills" but "the spirit which quickens," from those things he will doubtless be one who does not receive "the spirit of bondage again in fear, but the spirit of adoption, whereby they cry, Abba, Father." — HOMILIES ON GENESIS 7.4
Gênesis 21:9
Sarah is angry because the son of the bondwoman plays with the son of the free woman, and she considers that play to be a disaster. She counsels Abraham and says, "Cast out the bondwoman and her son. For the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, Isaac."I shall not now consider how these words ought to be understood. The apostle discussed them in this way, saying, "Tell me, you who have read the law, have you not heard the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondwoman and the other by a free woman. But he indeed who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are allegorical." What then? Is Isaac not "born according to the flesh"? Did Sarah not bear him? Is he not circumcised? In regard to this very incident, that he played with Ishmael, did he not play in the flesh? This indeed is what is astonishing in the apostle's understanding, that he called things "allegorical" that are quite obviously done in the flesh. His purpose is that we might learn how to treat other passages, and especially these in which the historical narrative appears to reveal nothing worthy of the divine law. Ishmael, therefore, is born "according to the flesh," the son of the bondwoman. But Isaac, who was "the son of the free woman," is not born "according to the flesh" but "according to promise." And the apostle says of these words that "Hagar engendered" a carnal people "unto bondage." But Sarah, who was free, engendered a people which is not "according to the flesh" but has been called to freedom, by which "freedom Christ has made him free." For Christ himself said, "If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." But let us see what the apostle adds to these words as he expounds them: "But as then he," Scripture says, "who was according to the flesh, persecuted him who was according to the spirit, so also it is now." Notice how the apostle teaches us that in all things the flesh is opposed to the spirit, whether that carnal people is opposed to this spiritual people, or even among ourselves, if someone is still carnal, he is opposed to the spiritual. For even you, if you live "according to the flesh" and direct your life "according to the flesh," are a son of Hagar and for this reason are opposed to these who live "according to the spirit." Or even if we inquire in ourselves, we find that "the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary to one another," and we find "a law in our members flighting against the law of our mind and leading us captive in the law of sin." Do you see how great the battles of the flesh against the spirit are? There is yet also another battle more violent perhaps than all these. These who understand the law "according to the flesh" are opposed to and persecute these who perceive it "according to the spirit." Why? Because "the sensual man does not perceive the things that are of the spirit of God. For it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand because it is spiritually discerned." — HOMILIES ON GENESIS 7.2
Gênesis 21:14
Let us see what Abraham does meanwhile after Sarah is displeased. He casts out the bondwoman and her son, but nevertheless he gives him a bottle of water. For his mother does not have a well of living water, nor could the boy draw water from a well. Isaac has wells for which he also suffers strife against the Philistines, but Ishmael drinks water from a bottle. This bottle, as it is a bottle, fails, and therefore he is thirsty and does not find a well.But you, who are a son "of promise as Isaac," "drink water from your own fountains, and let not the waters flow forth from your wells, but let your waters run in your streets." But one "who is born according to the flesh" drinks water from a bottle, and the water itself fails him, and he lacks in many things. The bottle of the law is the letter, from which carnal people drink and thence receives understanding. This letter frequently fails them. It cannot extricate itself, for the historical understanding is defective in many things. But the church drinks from the evangelic and apostolic fountains that never fail but "run in its streets," because they always abound and flow in the breadth of spiritual interpretation. The church drinks also "from wells" when it draws and examines certain deeper things from the law. On account of this mystery also, I think, our Lord and Savior said to the Samaritan woman, when, as if he were speaking with Hagar herself he said, "Whoever shall drink of this water shall thirst again; but he who shall drink of the water which I give him shall not thirst forever." But she says to the Savior, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw." After this the Lord says to her, "There shall come to be in him who believes in me a fountain of water springing up into life everlasting." — HOMILIES ON GENESIS 7.5
Gênesis 21:19
After this, when already he had been abandoned as dead and had wept, the angel of the Lord is present with him "and opened Hagar's eyes, and she saw a well of living water."How can these words be related to history? For when do we find that Hagar has closed eyes and they are later opened? Is not the spiritual and mystical meaning in these words clearer than light, that that people which is "according to the flesh" is abandoned and lies in hunger and thirst, suffering "not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a thirst for the word of God," until the eyes of the synagogue are opened? This is what the apostle says is a "mystery": that "blindness in part has happened in Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, and then all Israel should be saved." That therefore is the blindness in Hagar, who gave birth "according to the flesh," who remains blind until "the veil of the letter be removed" by the angel of God and she sees the "living water." For now the Jews lie around the well, but their eyes are closed, and they cannot drink from the well of the law and the prophets. But let us also beware, for frequently we also lie around the well "of living water," that is, around the divine Scriptures, and err in them. We hold the books and we read them, but we do not touch upon the spiritual sense. And therefore there is need for tears and incessant prayer that the Lord may open our eyes, because even the eyes of those blind men who were sitting in Jericho would not have been opened unless they had cried out to the Lord. And what am I saying? That our eyes, which are already opened, might be opened? For Jesus came to open the eyes of the blind. Our eyes therefore are opened, and the veil of the letter of the law is removed. But I fear that we ourselves may close them again in a deeper sleep while we are not watchful in the spiritual meaning. Nor are we disturbed so that we dispel sleep from our eyes and contemplate things which are spiritual, that we might not err with the carnal people set around the water itself. — HOMILIES ON GENESIS 7.6