Chapter CXL.—In Christ all are free. The Jews hope for salvation in vain because
they are sons of Abraham.
“Hence also Jacob, as I remarked before, being himself a type of Christ, had married
the two handmaids of his two free wives, and of them begat sons, for the purpose of indicating
beforehand that Christ would receive even all those who amongst Japheth’s race are descend-
ants of Canaan, equally with the free, and would have the children fellow-heirs. And we are
such; but you cannot comprehend this, because you cannot drink of the living fountain of
God, but of broken cisterns which can hold no water, as the Scripture says.718 But they are
cisterns broken, and holding no water, which your own teachers have digged, as the Scripture
also expressly asserts, ‘teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’719 And besides,
they beguile themselves and you, supposing that the everlasting kingdom will be assuredly
given to those of the dispersion who are of Abraham, after the flesh, although they be sinners,
and faithless, and disobedient towards God, which the Scriptures have proved is not the
case. For if so, Isaiah would never have said this: ‘And unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left
us a seed, we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah.’720 And Ezekiel: ‘Even if Noah,
and Jacob, and Daniel were to pray for sons or daughters, their request should not be gran-
ted.’721 ‘But neither shall the father perish for the son, nor the son for the father; but every
one for his own sin, and each shall be saved for his own righteousness.’722 And again Isaiah
says: ‘They shall look on the carcases723 of them that have transgressed: their worm shall
not cease, and their fire shall not be quenched; and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh.’724
And our Lord, according to the will of Him that sent Him, who is the Father and Lord of
all, would not have said, ‘They shall come from the east, and from the west, and shall sit
down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of
the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.’725 Furthermore, I have proved in what
has preceded,726 that those who were foreknown to be unrighteous, whether men or angels,
are not made wicked by God’s fault, but each man by his own fault is what he will appear
to be.
718 Jer. ii. 13.
719 Isa. xxix. 13.
720 Isa. i. 9.
721 Ezek. xiv. 18, 20.
722 Ezek. xviii. 20.
723 Literally, “limbs.”
724 Isa. lxvi. 24.
725 Matt. viii. 11 f.
726 Chap. lxxxviii, cii.
Chapter CXL.—In Christ all are free. The Jews hope for salvation in vain because they are sons of Abraham.
717
Chapter CXL.—In Christ all are free. The Jews hope for salvation in vain…