St.

Augustine - City of God

From: http://people.bu.edu/dklepper/RN470/augustine_jews.html

Book XVI, 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.” The Apostle Paul would have us understand this as a great instance of
grace; 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.

Book XVIII, Chapter 46—Of the Birth of Our Saviour, Whereby the Word Was Made Flesh;
And of the Dispersion of the Jews Among All Nations, as Had Been Prophesied.

While Herod, therefore, reigned in Judea, and Caesar Augustus was emperor at Rome, the state
of the republic being already changed, and the world being set at peace by him, Christ was born
in Bethlehem of Judah, man manifest out of a human virgin, God hidden out of God the Father.
For so had the prophet foretold: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and bring forth a
Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is, God with us." [ Isaiah
7:14 and Matthew 1:23] He did many miracles that He might commend God in Himself, some
of which, even as many as seemed sufficient to proclaim Him, are contained in the evangelic
Scripture. The first of these is, that He was so wonderfully born, and the last, that with His body
raised up again from the dead He ascended into heaven. But the Jews who slew Him, and would
not believe in Him, because it behoved Him to die and rise again, were yet more miserably
wasted by the Romans, and utterly rooted out from their kingdom, where aliens had already
ruled over them, and were dispersed through the lands (so that indeed there is no place where
they are not), and are thus by their own Scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the
prophecies about Christ. And very many of them, considering this, even before His passion, but
chiefly after His resurrection, believed on Him, of whom it was predicted, "Though the number
of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved." [Isaiah 10:22 and
Romans 9:27-28] But the rest are blinded, of whom it was predicted, "Let their table be made
before them a trap, and a retribution, and a stumbling-block. Let their eyes be darkened lest they
see, and bow down their back alway." [Psalm 69:22-23 and Romans 9:9-10] Therefore, when
they do not believe our Scriptures, their own, which they blindly read, are fulfilled in them, lest

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perchance any one should say that the Christians have forged these prophecies about Christ
which are quoted under the name of the sibyl, or of others, if such there be, who do not belong
to the Jewish people. For us, indeed, those suffice which are quoted from the books of our
enemies, to whom we make our acknowledgment, on account of this testimony which, in spite
of themselves, they contribute by their possession of these books, while they themselves are
dispersed among all nations, wherever the Church of Christ is spread abroad. For a prophecy
about this thing was sent before in the Psalms, which they also read, where it is written, "My
God, His mercy shall prevent me. My God hath shown me concerning mine enemies, that Thou
shalt not slay them, lest they should at last forget Thy law: disperse them in Thy might."[Psalm
69:10-11] Therefore God has shown the Church in her enemies the Jews the grace of His
compassion, since, as saith the apostle, "their offence is the salvation of the Gentiles."[Romans
11:11] And therefore He has not slain them, that is, He has not let the knowledge that they are
Jews be lost in them, although they have been conquered by the Romans, lest they should forget
the law of God, and their testimony should be of no avail in this matter of which we treat. But it
was not enough that he should say, "Slay them not, lest they should at last forget Thy law,"
unless he had also added, "Disperse them;" because if they had only been in their own land with
that testimony of the Scriptures, and not every where, certainly the Church which is everywhere
could not have had them as witnesses among all nations to the prophecies which were sent
before concerning Christ.

Book III, Chapter 6— Utility of The Bondage of The Jews.

This bondage, however, in the case of the Jewish people, differed widely from what it was in the
case of the other nations; because, though the former were in bondage to temporal things, it was
in such a way that in all these the One God was put before their minds. And although they paid
attention to the signs of spiritual realities in place of the realities themselves, not knowing to
what the signs referred, still they had this conviction rooted in their minds, that in subjecting
themselves to such a bondage they were doing the pleasure of the one invisible God of all. And
the apostle describes this bondage as being like to that of boys under the guidance of a
schoolmaster. And those who clung obstinately to such signs could not endure our Lord's
neglect of them when the time for their revelation had come; and hence their leaders brought it
as a charge against Him that He healed on the Sabbath, and the people, clinging to these signs as
if they were realities, could not believe that one who refused to observe them in the way the
Jews did was God, or came from God. But those who did believe, from among whom the first
Church at Jerusalem was formed, showed clearly how great an advantage it had been to be so
guided by the schoolmaster that signs, which had been for a season imposed on the obedient,
fixed the thoughts of those who observed them on the worship of the One God who made
heaven and earth. These men, because they had been very near to spiritual things (for even in the
temporal and carnal offerings and types, though they did not clearly apprehend their spiritual
meaning, they had learnt to adore the One Eternal God,) were filled with such a measure of the
Holy Spirit that they sold all their goods, and laid their price at the apostles' feet to be distributed
among the needy, and consecrated themselves wholly to God as a new temple, of which the old
temple they were serving was but the earthly type.