Augustine of Hippo : They were wrestling in the womb of their mother, and it was said to Rebekah, when they were wrestling there, "Two peoples are in your womb." Two men, two peoples, a good people, an evil people; but still they are wrestling in one womb.How many evil people there are in the church! And one womb carries them until they are separated in the end. And the good shout against the evil, and the evil shout back against the good, and both are wrestling in the bowels of the one. — TRACTATE ON THE GOSPEL OF John 11.10.2-3 Caesarius of Arles : Almost everyone accepts the fact that blessed Isaac represented a type of the Lord our Savior. Therefore Isaac prefigured Christ and blessed Rebekah the church, because although like the church she remained sterile for a long time, she conceived through the prayer of blessed Isaac and the Lord's gift. Now the children struggled in her womb, and not tolerating this annoyance, she said, "If this be so, why am I pregnant?" Then the Lord replied to her, "Two nations are in your womb; two peoples shall stem from your body. One people shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger." Indeed, as the apostle says, dearly beloved, "All these things happened to them as a type, and they were written for us." Therefore Rebekah corporally conceived of blessed Isaac, because the church was going to conceive spiritually of Christ. Moreover, just as the two children struggled in Rebekah's womb, so two peoples continually oppose each other in the church's womb. If there were only wicked or only good persons, there would be just one people. In the church, so much the worse, good and bad people are found, two peoples struggling as in the womb of the spiritual Rebekah—the humble, indeed, and the proud, chaste and adulterous, meek and irascible, kind and envious, merciful and avaricious. — SERMON 86.2 Ephrem the Syrian : "God blessed Isaac," and Isaac prayed for Rebekah, who was barren. After twenty years God heard him, and she conceived. Her sons struggled together within her womb. She went to inquire of the Lord, and it was told her, "Two nations are in your womb," that is, the Edomite and Hebrew nations. To whom did she go to inquire? It was to Melchizedek that she went to inquire, as we mentioned above in the genealogy of Melchizedek. She returned quickly because of the pangs that were striking her, and she gave birth to Esau and Jacob. — COMMENTARY ON Genesis 23:1 Origen of Alexandria : Now meanwhile let us see what this means that is said: "Rebekah went to inquire of the Lord." "She went." Where did she go? From that place in which the Lord was not, did she go to that place in which He was? For this seems to be indicated when it is said: "she went to inquire of the Lord." Is not the Lord everywhere? Did He not Himself say: "I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord"? Where then did Rebekah go? I think that she did not go from place to place, but passed over from life to life, from act to act, that she crossed over from good things to better, that she pressed on from useful things to more useful, that she hastened from holy things to holier. For it is absurd if we should think Rebekah so unskilled and untaught—she who had been instructed in the house of the wise Abraham under the most learned husband Isaac—as to suppose the Lord shut up within some place, and to go thither to inquire what the leaping of the little ones within the womb signified. But do you wish to see that this comes to the saints by custom, that, when they have seen something shown to them by God, they say that they either go away or cross over? Moses, when he had seen the bush burning and not consumed, marveling at the sight said: "I will pass over and behold this sight." Certainly he too was not signifying that he would traverse some span of earth, nor climb mountains nor go apart into the steep places of the valleys. The vision was close to him, in his mouth and in his eyes. But he says: "I will pass over," to show that, admonished by the heavenly vision, he ought to ascend to a higher life and to cross over from those things in which he was to better things. So therefore now too it is recounted of Rebekah that: "she went to inquire of the Lord"—she who, as we have said, is to be reckoned to have gone not by the steps of her feet, but by the advances of her mind. And you therefore, if you begin to behold not those things "which are seen, but those which are not seen," that is, not the carnal but the spiritual, not the present but the future, you will be said to have gone "to inquire of the Lord." If you tear yourself away from your old manner of life and from the company of those with whom you had lived shamefully and notoriously, and join yourself indeed to honorable and religious acts, when you are sought among the comrades of baseness and are by no means found in the troops of the guilty, it will be said of you too that: "he went to inquire of the Lord." So therefore the saints go away not from place to place, but from life to life, from their first practices to better practices. — HOMILIES ON Genesis 12.2 Tertullian : The very vitals of Rebekah are stirred, though the child is a long way from birth and there is no breath of air. Behold, the twin offspring struggles in the womb of their mother, though there yet is no sign of the two nations. We might regard as prophetic this struggle of the two infants, who are at enmity even before they are born, who show animosity before animation, for their restlessness disturbed their mother. When, however, the womb is opened, their number known and the symbolic implications of their condition made manifest, we see clearly not only the separate souls of those children but even then the beginning of their rivalry. — ON THE SOUL 26.2 Augustine of Hippo : REBEKAH CONSULTS THE LORD. — Regarding what the Scripture says about Rebecca, went to enquire of the Lord when her children moved in her womb. But where did she go? There were no prophets, no priests either for the service of the Tabernacle or the Temple of the Lord. Where did she go, if not at the place where Abraham had established an altar? But the Scripture says absolutely nothing about the way the answers were given there, if by means of a priest, it seems incredible that it had not been mentioned, if there were any, and that no mention be made of it that there were priests there, or perhaps once they had expressed their desires there by prayer, they waited asleep to receive the answer in their dreams? Or was Melchizedek still alive, whose excellency was so great, that some doubted whether he was a man or an angel? Or was there, at that time, men of God like himself, by whom they could be consulted? Whatever may be of these opinions and any others that have escaped my memory, the truth is that Scripture cannot lie when it says that Rebekah went to consult the Lord and that the Lord answered. [ — QUESTIONS ON GENESIS, Q. 71 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)