God said to him, Don’t be afraid, Abram. Notice the extraordinary degree of his care. Why did he say, Don’t be afraid? Since Abraham had scorned so much wealth by giving little importance to the offerings of the king, God said to him, Have no fear for despising gifts of such value. Do not be distressed on the score of your diminished prosperity. Don’t be afraid. Then to cheer his spirit further, he adds his name to the encouragement by saying, Don’t be afraid, Abram. It proves to be no little help in encouraging a person to invoke the name of the person we are addressing. Then he said, I am your shield. This phrase is also rich in meaning: I summoned you from the Chaldeans. I led you to this point. I rescued you from the perils of Egypt. I promised once and again to give this land to your descendants. It is I who will be your shield. After daily making you acclaimed by all, I will be your shield—that is, I will struggle in your place. I will be your shield. Your reward will be exceedingly great. You refused to accept reward for the troubles you suffered in exposing yourself to such risks. You scorned the king and what he offered you. I will provide you with a reward, not to the degree that you would have received but wonderfully, exceedingly great. Your reward, the text says, remember, will be exceedingly great.

Because Abraham did not seek recompense from man, he received it from God, as we read in Scripture: After these words the Lord spoke to Abraham in a vision saying, Fear not, Abraham, I will protect you. Your reward will be exceedingly great. The Lord is not slow to reward. He is eager to promise, and he gives in abundance, lest any delay cause weak souls to repent of having despised visible things. He pays back, so to speak, at high interest, rewarding with great abundance the one who has not been seduced by the things of this world that were offered to him.

Since God had promised him a reward, a wonderfully, exceedingly great reward, Abraham revealed his grief of spirit and the disappointment affecting him constantly on account of his childless condition. He says, Lord, what sort of thing will you give me? After all, you can see, I have reached the height of old age and am to pass on without children. See how from the outset the just man showed his sound thinking in calling his departure from here a passing on. I mean, people who live an assiduous life of virtue really pass on from struggle, as it were, and are freed from their bonds when they transfer from this life. You see, for people living virtuously it is a kind of transfer from a worse situation to a better, from a temporary existence to an everlasting one that is protected from death and has no end.

These words reveal the extreme degree of the pain in his soul. [It is if he were saying] to God, Far from being granted what my slave was, I am to pass away without child or heir, whereas my slave will inherit the gifts granted me by you, despite the promise received from you more than once in the words to your descendants I will give this land. Consider, I ask you, the just man’s virtue in this case also in the fact that while entertaining these thoughts in his mind he did not protest nor say any harsh words. Instead, driven on in this case by the words spoken to him, he spoke boldly to the Lord, revealed the tumult of his interior thoughts and made no secret of the wound to his spirit. Hence in turn he received instant healing.

Let us also consider what recompense he requests from the Lord. He does not ask for riches, as would a greedy person, nor for a long life in this world, as would one who fears death, nor for power. Rather he asks for an heir worthy of his work. What will you give me?—he says—I am about to depart without children. And then he says, Because you have not given me posterity, a slave born in my house will be my heir. Let everyone learn therefore not to despise marriage. Let them not unite with disreputable persons, so as not to have children of such a standing that they are unable to be their heirs. In view of the inheritance to be transmitted, if they are not moved by any consideration of decency, they at least should desire a worthy marriage.

But the holy and prophetic mind is more concerned with an eternal posterity. What Abraham desires is in fact the offspring of wisdom and the inheritance of faith. This is why he says, What will you give me, since I am about to depart without children? What he desired was the progeny of the church. What he was requesting was a descendancy that would be not servile but free, not according to the flesh but according to grace.

But if the words of Abraham are not enough to correct, consider the word of God, who condemns such a mode of transmitting inheritance. This man shall not be your heir, he says, but the other who will come out from you, he will be your heir. Who is this other of whom he speaks? In fact Hagar too bore a son, Ishmael, but he is not speaking of him. Instead, he is speaking of holy Isaac. For this reason he added who will come out from you. In fact, the one who truly came out of Abraham is the one who was born of a legitimate marriage. But in Isaac, the legitimate son, we can see the One who is the true legitimate son, the Lord Jesus, of whom at the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew we read that he is the son of Abraham.^[1] He was the true heir of Abraham, bringing renown to the descendants of the progenitor. Through him Abraham looked up to heaven and understood that the splendor of his posterity would be no less luminous than the radiance of the stars of heaven. As one star differs from another in brightness, so it is also for the resurrection of the dead, said the apostle.^[2] The Lord, in joining to his resurrection people whom death was accustomed to hide in the ground, made them sharers in the heavenly kingdom.

What is the meaning then of the expression he brought him outside? The prophet is as it were led out, so that he goes outside of the body and sees the limitations imposed by the flesh that is his garment and the infusion of the Holy Spirit who makes a kind of visible descent. We too must exit from the confinement of this our temporary dwelling. We must purify the place where our soul dwells from all uncleanness, throw out every stain of wickedness, if we wish to receive the spirit of wisdom, because wisdom will not enter a wicked soul.^[1] Abraham believed, not because he was drawn by a promise of gold or silver but because he believed from the heart. It was reckoned to him as righteousness. A reward was bestowed that corresponded to the test of his merit.^[2]

Accordingly let us learn, I beseech you, a lesson for ourselves as well from the patriarch: Let us believe in the words of God and trust in his promise. Let us not apply the yardstick of our own reasoning but give evidence of deep gratitude. This, you see, will succeed in making us also be seen to be righteous and will quickly cause us to attain to the promise made by him. In Abraham’s case, however, the promise was made that a complete multitude would develop from his descendants. The effect of the promise was beyond the limits of nature and human logic. Hence faith in God won righteousness for him. In our case, . . . if we are alert enough to see it, he promised much more. We are able in great measure to transcend human reasoning, provided we believe in the power of the One who promises, in order that we may gain also righteousness from faith and attain to the good things promised.

And how did Abraham’s progeny spread? Only through the inheritance he transmitted in virtue of faith. On this basis the faithful are assimilated to heaven, made comparable to the angels, equal to the stars. This is why he said, So will your descendants be. And Abraham, the text says, believed in God. What exactly did he believe? Prefiguratively he believed that Christ through the incarnation would become his heir. In order that you may know that this was what he believed, the Lord says, Abraham saw my day and rejoiced.^[1] For this reason he reckoned it to him as righteousness, because he did not seek the rational explanation but believed with great promptness of spirit.

Here also, in fine, a symbol was given, consisting of these animals: a heifer, a she-goat, a ram and two birds, a turtledove and pigeon, that he might know that the things which he had not doubted should come to pass were to happen in accordance with this symbol. The heifer may be a sign that the people should be put under the law, the she-goat that the same people were to become sinful, the ram that they should reign. Perhaps these animals are said to be of three years old for this reason: that there are three remarkable divisions of time, from Adam to Noah, and from him to Abraham, and from him to David. David, on the rejection of Saul, was first established by the will of the Lord in the kingdom of the Israelite nation. In this third division, which extends from Abraham to David, people grew up as if passing through the third age of life. Or perhaps it may be that they had some other more suitable meaning. Still I have no doubt whatever that spiritual things were prefigured by them as well as by the turtledove and pigeon.

Therefore the heifer, the she-goat and the ram of three years, as also the turtledove and the pigeon, presented a type of all nations. They were described as of three years, because all the nations were to believe in the mystery of the Trinity. Now the entire Catholic church has not only spiritual members but carnal ones also, for although some say they believe in the Trinity, they are nevertheless carnal because they neglect to avoid sins and vices. Since there are spiritual souls with the carnal ones, for this reason the turtledove and pigeon were added. In the latter, spiritual people can be meant, but in those other three animals carnal people are understood.

And it is said, But the birds divided he not, because carnal people are divided among themselves. But those who are spiritual are not divided at all, whether they seclude themselves from the busy conversation of humankind, like the turtledove, or dwell among them, like the pigeon. For both birds are simple and harmless, signifying that even in the Israelite people, to which that land was to be given, there would be individuals who were children of the promise and heirs of the kingdom that is to remain in eternal felicity.

Now notice carefully Abraham is said to have divided the three animals into two parts and to have placed them one against the other. The birds, says Scripture, he did not cut in two. Why is this, brothers? Because in the church catholic, carnal people are divided but spiritual people are not. And, as Scripture says, they are separated one against the other. Why are carnal people divided and set against each other? Because all wicked lovers of the world do not cease to have divisions and scandals among each other. For this reason they are divided, since they are opposed to one another. However, the birds, that is, spiritual souls, are not divided. Why not? Because they have one heart and one soul in the Lord.^[1] To will and not to will is all one thing to them. Surely the turtledoves and pigeons that we mentioned above are like these souls. In the turtledove chastity is represented, and in the pigeon, simplicity. All Godfearing people in the church catholic clearly are chaste and simple, and with the psalmist they can say, Had I but wings like a dove, I would fly away and be at rest.^[2] And again: The swallow finds a nest in which she puts her young.^[3] Carnal people, who can be divided, are pressed down by the heavy fetters of vice. Spiritual people are raised on high by the wings of various virtues. As if by two wings, that is, the two precepts of love of God and charity toward the neighbor, they are lifted up to heaven. With the apostle they can say, But our citizenship is in heaven.^[4] As often as the priest says, Lift up your hearts, they can say with assurance and devotion that they have lifted them up to the Lord. However, very few and rare are the people in the church who can say this with confidence and truth. Therefore Abraham did not divide the birds, because spiritual souls who have one heart and soul, as I said, cannot be divided or separated from love of God and of neighbor. They exclaim with the apostle, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress or persecution?^[5] Other words follow until it is said, Nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.^[6] Therefore spiritual souls are not separated from Christ by torments. Carnal souls are sometimes separated by idle gossip. The cruel sword cannot separate the former, but carnal affections can remove the latter. Nothing hard breaks down spiritual people, but even flattering words can corrupt the carnal. For this reason Abraham divided those animals into two parts, but the birds he did not divide.

The fowls coming down on the divided carcasses represent nothing good but [rather] the spirits of this air, seeking some food for themselves in the division of carnal people. But that Abraham sat down with them signifies that even amid these divisions of the carnal, true believers shall persevere to the end. With the going down of the sun great fear fell upon Abraham and a horror of great darkness. This signifies that about the end of this world believers shall be in great perturbation and tribulation, of which the Lord said in the Gospel, For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning.^[1]

As he contemplated the wonderful things of God, Abraham was struck with fear, the fear that belongs to the perfect. It will be noted . . . that the ecstasy came upon him toward sunset. The text suggests by this a progression, because the day of the present state has gone by for Abraham so that further progress might follow. Thus the blessing was extended to Abraham which says, I will fill you with length of days,^[1]a blessing that by no means promised him longevity but, as is quite clear, further advances in illumination.

An ecstasy then fell upon him, not the ecstasy that resembles a loss of reason but that of wonder, the thrill of passing from visible to invisible things. The apostle even says, Indeed, if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.^[2] By this he means not we are out of our minds for God but even if we are transported through contemplation beyond the realm of human things, we do this for God. David likewise declares, I said in my ecstasy: every man is a liar.^[3] It was indeed because he was transported out of himself to participate in the divine that he said of people that they are liars, because he was no longer merely a man, by reason of his communion with the Holy Spirit. He was quite different from those of whom it is said, While there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving like ordinary men?^[4] When Abraham then had been transported out of himself, a dark fear fell upon him, dark not by participation in darkness but in the sense of obscurity, of something whose meaning is not immediately evident. Being a great fear, it is not the kind that happens to the mediocre. Remember darkness is often used for obscurity, as according to this saying: He made darkness around him his canopy.^[5] It is indeed true that the contemplation and grasp of supernatural truths produce, even among great people, a divine vertigo and fear, and it is with some trepidation that they apply themselves to such things.

This word anticipates the sojourn of the people in Egypt, for they were to sojourn as it were in a land not their own. They would be reduced to slavery by the Pharaoh and mistreated in many ways by him and by the Egyptians. There is no discrepancy between what is said here and what is written in Exodus. There it is said, After 430 years, the army of the Lord left the land of Egypt.^[1] Here: After four hundred years. It should be noted that it is not said that they left when four hundred years were completed but rather after four hundred years, which leaves room for the thirty years.

And the promise I will judge the nation to which you will be enslaved was realized in the very way described in Exodus: God afflicted the Egyptians with ten plagues, and in the end they sank as lead in the mighty waters.^[2] Finally, they were to leave with much baggage, as history would show. From this we learn that if God maltreats someone for a time, he does this not as a matter of indifference but only for some good purpose.

Consider too whether this passage might also allude to the sojourn of the saints.

But note what is said to Abraham, Know of a surety that your seed shall be a stranger in a land not theirs, and they shall reduce them to servitude, and shall afflict them four hundred years. This is most clearly a prophecy about the people of Israel, who were to be in servitude in Egypt. Not that this people was to be in that servitude under the oppressive Egyptians for four hundred years, but it is foretold that this should take place in the course of those four hundred years. It is written of Terah the father of Abraham, And the days of Terah in Haran were 205 years,^[1] not because they were all spent there but because they were completed there. So it is said here also, And they shall reduce them to servitude and shall afflict them four hundred years . . .because that number was completed, not because it was all spent in that affliction. The years are said to be four hundred in round numbers, although they were a little more—whether you reckon from this time when these things were promised to Abraham, or from the birth of Isaac, as the seed of Abraham, of which these things are predicted. For, as we have already said above, from the seventy-fifth year of Abraham, when the first promise was made to him, down to the exodus of Israel from Egypt, there are reckoned 430 years, which the apostle thus mentions: And this I say, that the covenant confirmed by God, the law, which was made 430 years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of no effect.^[2] So then these 430 years might be called four hundred, because they are not much more, especially since part even of that number had already gone by when these things were shown and said to Abraham in vision, or when Isaac was born in his father’s one hundredth year, twenty-five years after the first promise, when of these 430 years there now remained 405, which God was pleased to call four hundred. No one will doubt that the other things that follow in the prophetic words of God pertain to the people of Israel.

Anyone can see that God is here announcing Abraham’s departure from this life. As for the anagogical [mystical] sense, one could say the following: The wise person leaves this life in peace, while the sinner does so with troubled thoughts and an agitated soul. And the way death takes one, so is one judged. One who has already attained peace here below takes leave also in peace. But one who has nothing but disturbance and agitation in his or her thoughts will be judged also in this way. This is clear from the saying in Ecclesiastes: In the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.^[1] Things do not occur this way in historical reality, because a tree does not necessarily always lie where it falls. Often it is cleared away. But it is evidently humankind who is symbolically represented by the tree, namely, a person who will be judged as he or she is found.

In peace, then, as is fitting, Abraham will depart to his fathers. Being pleasing to God, he shares in their promise: First Christ, then those who are of Christ.^[2] And for the just themselves, there are different promises and different dwellings, because there are many mansions^[3] with the Father. The person full of zeal will go to be with his spiritual fathers, whose son he is through a moral likeness, even if, according to the flesh, he had fathers who were bad men.

After having said this of Abraham himself, God speaks of the children who will come from him: In the fourth generation they shall come back here, meaning the generation that would return to the land of inheritance. This is why he says that the return would take place after four hundred years, because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete—iniquity for which they will suffer ruin, so that their condemnation will allow the descendants of Abraham to occupy their land. For God inflicts even chastisements with measure and in time, using patience until the time of retribution has arrived. There is a similar and edifying saying in the Gospel: Then Jesus began to upbraid the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.^[1] To which one might object: Why then were the miracles not done in Tyre and Sidon, because they would have repented, but were performed instead in places where the people did not repent? We would respond that the Son of God who acted in this way is Wisdom. As he knew the hidden things, he knew that these people would not have been authentically repentant, even while doing penance, and this is why the miracles did not take place among them. And one could appropriately say about these people: It was better for them not to have known the truth than, having once known it, to return to their former errors. Thus he did not do works in Tyre and Sidon, because their repentance would be fragile. . . . However, one might also ask whether this was not said by the Savior in a hyperbolic manner, simply to make those people reflect who had seen his miracles and had not repented, for hyperbole is a common teaching device.

The patience and goodness of the judge are shown, then, in the fact that he waits until the sins of the Amorites have reached their full measure. It is only after reproaches, exhortations and everything that can provoke repentance that God inflicts chastisements. The same was true in the case of Pharaoh: often reprimanded and having obtained many reprieves, through his hardness of heart he brought upon himself the final judgment as well.

The history of the Jews, who went down into Egypt and came out from Egypt, seems to accord with this. The years they spent there were 430, but not all of them lived a hundred years and more, as did Moses and Joshua,^[1] so that the time of the fourth generation would be appropriate in this context. So let us search rather for a mystical sense. In fact, the number four adapts well to all numbers, and it is in a certain sense the root and base of the decimal. It also represents the midpoint of the number seven. In fact, the ninety-third psalm is entitled fourth day of the week because this number is the intermediary between the first three and those that follow. In fact, three days precede it: the first, the second and the third; and three follow: the fifth, the sixth, the seventh. One who sings this psalm is proceeding through the life of this world, so to speak, in accordance with aptly placed numbers, like a quadrangle stable and perfect. In four books the Gospel is complete and perfect. There are four mystical animals;^[2] and there are also four parts of the world, from which the assembled children of the church have propagated the most holy kingdom of Christ, coming from east and west and north and south. The holy church, therefore, has arisen with four sides. The decade too derives from this number. For if you total up the numbers from one to four you will have the number ten. Count one, add two to this: this makes three. Add three to three, this makes six. And to six add four, and this makes ten. Four then generates the decade, and the decade includes all numbers. Four is also the number of ages of a man: childhood, adolescence, virility and maturity. He rises gradually, and his wisdom is consolidated. Thus the fullness of wisdom comes, considering the ages, in fourth place. For this reason even if one has formerly been subjected to the king of Egypt, nevertheless with the age of maturity he is freed from his power and acknowledges his duty to follow the law. Then the sea of this life opens up to him.