The apostle saw in these women the type of the two covenants, in accordance with the rule of allegory, but since what the text narrates actually took place, the literal sense also deserves consideration. The saints entered the married life not to pursue pleasure but for the sake of children. There is in fact a tradition that says they would go with their wives only when the time was suitable for conception. They would not go with them during the lactation period, when they were nursing their young, or when they were with child, because they regarded neither of these times as suitable for coming together. . . .

When Sarah, therefore, who was wise and holy, had observed for a long time that in spite of coming together with her husband she was not conceiving, she abstained from conjugal relations, and since she knew that it was in the order of things that he should have children, she gave him her slave girl as a concubine. This shows the moderation (sophrosyne) and the absence of jealousy of Sarah and the passionlessness (apatheia) of Abraham, who chose this solution at his wife’s instigation and not on his own initiative and who yielded to her request only in order to give birth to children. The literal sense too, then, is useful according to the considerations offered above.

As for the anagogical [mystical] teaching, one could explain the text by recalling that Paul allegorically transposed the two women into the two covenants.^[1] Philo also used allegory here but giving the text another application: He understood Sarah to represent perfect virtue and philosophy, because she was a free woman and wife, of noble birth and living with her husband in lawful union. Now virtue lives with the wise man in lawful union so that he can give birth from her to a divine progeny: Wisdom, in fact, begets a man of discernment.^[2] In Scripture the devout and holy man is addressed with the words your wife is like a fruitful vine. . . . Your children are like olive shoots around the table. So shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord.^[3]

Sarah then is allegorically transposed into perfect and spiritual virtue. Hagar, the Egyptian slave, symbolizes, according to Philo, the preliminary exercises (progymnasmata),^[4] and, in Paul, the shadow [of good things to come].^[5] It is not possible, in fact, to understand anything of the spiritual or elevated ideas without the shadow that is the letter or without a preliminary study of the introductory sciences, for one must first bear children from inferior unions. In the era of the shadow, they offered actual animal sacrifices, they celebrated Passover in an external and tangible way, they received physical circumcision, and all of this was preparing them gradually so that eventually they could offer to God a sacrifice of praise,^[6] which pertains to the free woman. As the zeal of the wise impels them to go on to the higher realities in due order, virtue impels them, by divine intention, to make use first of the introductory sciences and to have children from them. Since it is impossible, in fact, for one who has just recently approached virtue so successfully to attain perfection as to have children through her too, virtue counsels such a one to subject himself first to the preparatory disciplines so that by this path he might perfectly grasp her, if he is able.

Some might still be struck by the fact that Abraham had a relationship with his slave girl when he was already conversing with God, as it is written: Sarah said to Abraham, ‘See now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my maid to make children from her.’ And this is exactly what happened. But we should consider first of all that Abraham lived prior to the law of Moses and before the gospel; adultery, it seems, was not yet prohibited at this time. The penalty for the crime goes back only to the time of the law, which made adultery a crime. So there is no condemnation for the offense that precedes the law but only one based on the law. Abraham then cannot be said to have violated the law since he came before the law. Though in paradise God had praised marriage, he had not condemned adultery. In fact, he does not wish the death of sinners,^[1] and for this reason he promises the reward without exacting the penalty. Indeed, God prefers to stimulate with mild proddings than to terrify with severe threats. If you too sinned, when you were a pagan, you have an excuse. But now you have come to the church and have heard the law, You shall not commit adultery,^[2] you no longer have an excuse for the offense. However, since this discourse is directed also to those who are inscribed to receive the grace of baptism, if anyone has committed such a grave sin, let him be sure that he will be pardoned, but as one who has committed an offense. Let him know, however, that for the future he is obliged to abstain. Indeed, in the case of the adulterous woman spoken of in the Gospel, whom the scribes and Pharisees presented to the Lord, the Lord forgave her former sins but said, Go, and from now on be careful not to sin any more.^[3] In saying this to her, he says it to you. You have committed adultery as a pagan; you have sinned as a catechumen. The sin is forgiven you, remitted through baptism; go, and in the future, see that you do not sin. Such is the first defense of Abraham.

It was not because he was ablaze with the heat of some unbridled passion, not because he was overcome by the charm of seductive beauty that Abraham gave preference to a relationship with a slave girl over the conjugal bed, but through a desire to procure a posterity and to enlarge his progeny. After the flood the human race was still numerically sparse. Hence it was also a matter of moral obligation that no one be seen to have failed to render the debt to nature. For this reason, even the children of holy Lot^[1] were inspired by this motive to procure a posterity for themselves so that the human race would not become extinct. Thus the merit of having done one’s duty to society excused individual guilt. And it is not without significance that the wife is presented as the instigator of the deed. In [a] sense [this] exculpates her husband, so that no one could believe that he was carried away by some mad perversion. At the same time . . . women might learn to love their husbands, not to allow themselves to be tormented by empty suspicions of infidelity and not to dislike their stepchildren, when they themselves have been childless. That wonderful wife desired only that her husband forgive her sterility, and, wishing to avoid being herself the reason for her husband’s not having children, she persuades him to go in to the slave girl. Later on, Leah and Rachel did the same thing.^[2] Learn, O woman, to put aside jealousy, which often drives women to madness.

As we said above, it is a most authentic proof of moderation (sophrosyne) that Sarah gives in offering her slave girl to Abraham without a hint of jealousy, after she had observed that in ten months’ time she had not conceived. And we have acknowledged too the passionlessness (apatheia) of the wise man, in that his clear purpose in yielding to his wife’s request was to have children.

The anagogical [mystical] sense has already been expounded. It is in accordance with its goal that virtue asks us to first make use of the introductory sciences so as to first have children by them. This does not prevent the works of preparatory education from being themselves children of virtue, since they are engaged for the sake of virtue. By employing these, it was not long before the wise man effected a conception, for progress is spontaneous for the wise man.

Virtue’s purpose was, as we have said, that the wise man do training exercises first in preliminary education and shadow so that later, with this training behind him, he might arrive at greater things—which is the proper procedural order. It is likewise illogical that after the knowledge of perfect things one should turn back to petty things. This is in fact what the apostle Paul writes to the Galatians, who, after the gospel had been preached to them, wanted to live with the shadow, which is the law. . . . They had been taken in by a certain Ebion,^[1] who wanted to practice Judaism after having become a Christian and who was so successful in persuading others that the apostles gave him this surname to show his poverty. Ebion, in fact, means poor, and he was so called because of the perversion and poverty of his ideas. As for the fact that the Galatians were of pagan origin, Paul writes, Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings that by nature are not gods, but now you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God.^[2] He reproached them, as I said, in these terms (to produce now the text I announced): Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?^[3] Indeed, when once they had given a wholly divine beginning to their edifice, they were looking for figures in an inappropriate manner, for they were searching for them when it was no longer their time. For we must understand why the visible circumcision was given and until what time it was appropriate to practice it. If one has understood this, he has had children from the concubine and is able, after this, to comprehend the circumcision of the heart that is effected by the Spirit. This holy man, upon the advice of virtue, went in to the slave girl whom she had placed at his disposal, as we have explained, and the slave girl conceived. But after this, it is inappropriate to remain with her beyond the time of her favor. Many indeed, having made use of the preparatory exercises in view of the perfect teaching, never go beyond this point, thus giving birth to a progeny of slavery, and in a certain sense dishonor virtue. . . . One dishonors virtue, then, who gives other things precedence over it. For if one chooses virtue, not for its own sake but for the sake of something else—praise, for example, or glory—then in a certain sense one is dishonoring the good, which in itself is not susceptible to dishonor.

The words ek sou^[1] can be understood in two ways: either by you or from the time that. The interpretation by you gives the following sense: When one who has engaged the preparatory exercises in view of virtue and perfect wisdom [the promise of faith] remains at that preparatory level [that is, the relation with Hagar], in a sense he wrongs virtue, because he has not properly employed what comes before it. But the translation from the time that also yields the same sense, the only difference being the one already mentioned, because in this case too virtue is wronged by one who is eager to have children from the preliminary exercises alone and who makes of this level of child bearing a kind of end in itself.

In the literal sense, this statement introduces the beginner to the passionlessness (apatheia) of the patriarch, who had received the slave girl from his wife without looking for pleasure and who now yields to his wife and withdraws in accordance with her wishes. As for the spiritual sense, the zealous man, even if he is still at the introductory level, since he is not altogether a stranger to virtue, receives with pleasure her reproaches and thus more rapidly abandons the petty things. As one who submits to her, he follows her directions in the use of the preparatory exercises and allows her to control them. Since he is desirous to make virtue the goal of all his words, actions and thoughts, he willingly accepts any corrections that come from her.

And here follow the times of Abraham’s sons, the one by Hagar the bondmaid, the other by Sarah the free woman, about whom we have already spoken in the previous book. As regards this transaction, Abraham is in no way to be branded as guilty concerning this concubine. For he dealt with her for the begetting of progeny, not for the gratification of lust, and not to insult but rather to obey his wife, who supposed it would be solace of her barrenness if she could make use of the fruitful womb of her handmaid to supply the defect of her own nature. By that law of which the apostle says, Likewise also the husband has not power of his own body, but the wife,^[1] Sarah could, as a wife, do benefit to him through childbearing by another, when she could not do so in her own person. Here there is no wanton lust, no crude lewdness. The handmaid is delivered to the husband by the wife for the sake of progeny and is received by the husband for the sake of progeny, each seeking not guilty excess but natural fruit. Then the pregnant bondwoman despised her barren mistress, and Sarah, with womanly jealousy, rather laid the blame of this on her husband. Yet even then Abraham showed that he was not a slavish lover but a free begetter of children and that in using Hagar he had guarded the chastity of Sarah his wife and had gratified her will and not his own. He had received her without seeking her, gone in to her without being attached, impregnated without loving her. For he says, Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her as you please. Here is a man able to treat different women as they require—his wife temperately, his handmaid compliantly, neither intemperately!

There is a kind of maltreatment of the slave girl that we have likened, by anagogy, to the preparatory exercises (progymnasmata): the shadow [Hagar] of things to come [the generative promise] is transcended. For one who is hastening toward perfection no longer needs that which is preparatory. This is why it is quite natural that the slave girl should flee, because what belongs to the introductory level no longer remains when progress and perfection have arrived.

It is well too that Hagar was found by a spring of water, for beginners find themselves engaged in purifications, which are signified by water.^[1] By contrast, those who are more fully matured come into a desert place, no longer needing purifications, having already rid themselves of vices and having been endowed with virtue.

From this text one gains insight into the virtue of Hagar as well, and one becomes aware that she is a woman not to be despised since an angel converses with her and shows concern for her that is hardly superficial, for it is evidently by the will of God that [the angel speaks]. It is not at all improbable that Hagar was a person of zeal, because she was chosen by the holy woman Sarah to sleep with Abraham. Her nobility of soul is likewise shown by the fact that she says, I am fleeing from my mistress, Sarah, without saying anything bad about her. We earlier had hypothesized that Sarah represented virtue and a spiritual understanding of the Scriptures but that Hagar represented the introductory knowledge and the shadow. One who approaches the divine teaching should listen to Scripture in such a way as to understand it first according to the letter, while grasping its spirit gradually and in due order.

Sarah’s child therefore requires an introductory course so that by this means he might reach the more perfect things. Similarly it would be said of the Israelites that they were the first to whom the oracles of God were entrusted,^[1] which were given to them until the time of correction.^[2] No one, in fact, who remains trapped in the letter and at the introductory level can claim Wisdom itself. If then lovers of Wisdom, who make use of what belongs to the introductory level, should remain there, they are in a sense despising virtue, but if they return to better sentiments, they put aside the introductory method so that it makes a kind of flight. For once progress has arrived, the earlier things pass away. That which has been the possession of Hagar the Egyptian is transcended. It is to earthly examples that the introductory teaching appeals for support. . . .

The angel then, having found her fleeing because of the greatness of virtue, makes her retrace her steps. The word of the Master indeed causes even what belongs to the introductory exercises to redound to virtue. . . .

The virtuous one must in fact know the principles and the goal, while the one who is still at the introductory stage often remains at this level under the pretext that virtue is too high. He flees, as it were, the effort required by perfection. This is what is revealed in the statement I am fleeing from Sarah, my mistress.

Moreover, when the beauty of the spiritual law is illuminated, that which is no more than shadow flees. Sacrifices that are luminous compared with those of the shadow^[1] were in fact announced in the transmitted teaching and have been effectively introduced in practice. Likewise too that which was only partial^[2] is abolished when that which is perfect is present. A case of fleeing far from the face is the one who, on hearing the Lord say, you must be born from above, inquires, How can a man be born when he is old?^[3] for he is interpreting a divine saying in human terms.

The literal sense is clear enough. From the point of view of allegory, it is suggested that even in the case of one who has done a purposeless act that he believes to be obligatory for those who revere the shadow of the law and who is in a sense fleeing from its spiritual sense, the Word of the Master brings him back to the original divine intention. And in fact the Lord gradually made it clear that the things in Scripture that were of the shadow would cease to be, when he says, What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?^[1] and Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High.^[2]

It is a great thing then to be under the hands of the spiritual doctrine, referred to as mistress, and to be humble under her hands; not that the slave girl is of lowly estate in herself, but only with respect to the mistress. For in this matter what is glorified is not really glorified at all, because its glory is transcendent.

As in concrete image, we see here foreshadowed the fact that once the Emmanuel has appeared and his mystery has been shown to the world, the types of the Mosaic cult necessarily disappear, giving way to the evangelical teachings, the better and more perfect precepts. Of what image am I speaking? Because Sarah had not had children, Hagar, after having given birth to Ishmael, began to show arrogant contempt for her owner, the free woman. Sarah was unable to bear that arrogance and began also to mistreat the Egyptian woman. The latter fled from the house and lost her way in the desert. An angel from heaven asked her where she was going and where she had come from. She replied, I am fleeing from my mistress, Sarah. And the holy angel replied, Return to your mistress, and humble yourself under her hands. She was ordered then, by the voice of the angel, not to depart from the free woman—from instruction, that is, which summons to the dignity of free persons—and to humble herself instead under the free woman’s hands. The cult according to the law, in fact, which takes place through images and types, is as it were the servant of evangelical teachings. In it, obscurely, the beauty of the truth is revealed. At this point in time, the law, which was once established by Moses through the ministry of angels,^[1] receives an order from the voice of an angel to bend the neck to the evangelical oracles and to bow and yield, even if unwillingly, to the free woman. This, I maintain, is the spiritual interpretation of Hagar’s imposed submission to the rule of Sarah. We should remember, moreover, that even the venerable Paul sees Hagar and Sarah as prefiguring the two Testaments: One, who bears children for slavery, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem,^[2] and the other—Sarah—who bears for the dignity of the free.^[3]

It is not implausible that one who is living the life of a beginner should also be judged worthy of a blessing, for, if his progress continues toward the appropriate goal, he will arrive at perfection. But notice that when the text was talking about virtue—for it is from virtue that the true seed of Abraham comes—after God had led him outside and said to him, Look toward heaven, and number the stars if you can count them, he had added, So shall your descendants be.^[1] But notice that in the case of Hagar it is not said, Your descendants will be like the stars, but only They will not be able to be numbered for their multitude. Can you not conclude from this a difference: that the progeny of that which is perfect is luminous and that which pertains to the introductory level is not?

At that time, giving birth to children was regarded as a matter of great importance in view of the multiplication of human beings, as we have explained—this, moreover, at a time when virginity and the teaching on virtue did not yet have much credibility. This is why even prayers were said for conception and they counted such a thing as giving birth among the blessings. So much for the literal explanation.

As for the spiritual sense, it could be this: One who has begun to be educated according to God and who is at the introductory stage is like one in a gestation period. The Master’s word, however, makes him the promise that he will give birth, for masters who teach are often perspicacious when they see the efforts of their disciples and they acknowledge too their natural gifts. That the fruit of the womb is uncertain one can learn from a Gospel saying, when the Savior remarks, Alas for those who are with child and for those who give suck in those days!^[1] Such situations in fact are precarious when a trial comes along. This is why, wishing to wean those who are in this situation, the Word says, Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast, affliction upon affliction, hope upon hope,^[2] for, as people who are henceforth on a solid diet, they receive affliction upon affliction. But there are imperfect people of whom Paul writes, I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready.^[3]

There are a number of differences that distinguish a man who is studious, sophisticated and urbane from a man who is none of these things. We say then of this latter type that by comparison with one who is a city person and a man of science, he is a simpleton, a rustic or man of the country,^[1] and that by comparison with an educated and cultivated individual, he is uneducated or at least of low education. The fruit engendered by virtue is a style of life conformed to laws. So the person who does not live as a citizen according to the laws of the city of the living God,^[2] of the heavenly city,^[3] is a man of the country. For, since he is not able to live up to the constitution of this city, he lives in the country and not yet in the city.

And it is well that the text says not only that he is of the country but also that he is a man, for a share in the Word of God is not yet given to one who is just beginning. This will not happen until he has made some progress—for those whom Scripture called godly are those into whom the Word of God has entered.^[4] It is then that he will be a citizen of the heavenly city. Appropriately of such people, in fact, the wise Paul writes these words in the epistle to the Hebrews: To the mountain of Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.^[5] For it is there that they will be inscribed. The Savior indeed says, Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.^[6] This is certainly not to be taken in the sense that these names composed of syllables are literally written in heaven. But these are names relative to virtue, and as such they have in heaven an inscription that will perpetuate their memory. Such are the people who are inscribed in heaven, but those who are of contrary mind, who are concerned only with earthly things, have not managed to do more than inscribe their names on earthly things. Jeremiah rightly says in their regard: Those who turn away from thee shall be written in the earth.^[7]

In the verses read before, it was an angel of God who was speaking with Hagar. Here she names him Lord and God. It is not too much of a stretch to say that the angel was not in the service of his own words but of God’s, as are also the prophets. For, in a certain sense, when angels exercise their ministry and when they foretell the future, they do the work of prophets. The name angel indicates an activity, not a substance; the same is true of the name prophet. [Since] the angel was speaking the words of God, Hagar called him God because of the One who lived in him. Similarly, when Isaiah prophesies, he sometimes speaks in his own person, as a man who has within himself the prophetic spirit, and he sometimes, as it were, makes God the character who speaks, without adding says the Lord. For example, he writes, I made the earth and created man upon it,^[1] but (it is he himself speaking) as one sent by the Lord he proclaims, Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken.^[2] We say this to show that the words of Isaiah are not all spoken as though he were merely an intermediary but that participation in God confers also the authority of God; and because of God’s dwelling in them, those who share in him are called gods. This is so true that an angel speaking to Moses was also called God. It is written in fact: And the angel of the Lord called him and said to him, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.^[3] If one looks at the minister, these are words of angels, but if one looks at the sense, they are words of God.

It is well too that the vision of the instructing Word was seen between Kadesh and Bered. Kadesh in fact is interpreted to mean holy, and Bered, lightning.^[1] It is between these two things that divine education takes place: the holy, on the one hand, to which it belongs (to see the divine things) and the lightning, on the other, which is a luminous state. For your lightnings lighted up the world.^[2]

It is plausible to say that it was to establish the fact that Hagar was a serious woman and Ishmael an authentic son of Abraham that Scripture went out of its way to remark that Hagar bore a son to Abram. What follows is clear as to the literal sense, but let us examine too the anagogical [mystical] sense. When the person who is making progress gives birth according to the goal assigned by the master, the child he bears is not to be despised. The verse then applies the metaphorical notion of generation to the master who correctly teaches and who thus provides profitable seed. This is why it is said, Hagar bore to Abram. The proof that the meaning is indeed what I have indicated according to the terms of Scripture is that, in the following phrase, And Abram called the name of his son, the Word adds, whom Hagar bore him. If an idea (like the one I suggested) were not in the background here, the text would simply have said, And Abram named his son, without adding whom she bore him.