{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>Let us now see how the times of the city of God run on\r\nfrom this point among Abraham's descendants. In the time\r\nfrom the first year of Isaac's life to the seventieth, when his\r\nsons were born, the only memorable thing is, that when he\r\nprayed God that his wife, who was barren, might bear, and\r\nthe Lord granted what he sought, and she conceived, the\r\ntwins leapt while still enclosed in her womb. And when she\r\nwas troubled by this struggle, and inquired of the Lord, she\r\nreceived this answer: \"Two nations are in thy womb, and two\r\nmanner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the\r\none people shall overcome the other people, and the elder\r\nshall serve the younger.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_316_316\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_316_316\">[316]</a> The Apostle Paul would have us\r\nunderstand this as a great instance of grace;<a id=\"FNanchor_317_317\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_317_317\">[317]</a> for the children\r\nbeing not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, the\r\nyounger is chosen without any good desert, and the elder is\r\nrejected, when beyond doubt, as regards original sin, both\r\nwere alike, and as regards actual sin, neither had any. But\r\nthe plan of the work on hand does not permit me to speak\r\nmore fully of this matter now, and I have said much about it\r\nin other works. Only that saying, \"The elder shall serve the\r\nyounger,\" is understood by our writers, almost without exception,\r\nto mean that the elder people, the Jews, shall serve the\r\nyounger people, the Christians. And truly, although this\r\nmight seem to be fulfilled in the Idumean nation, which was\r\nborn of the elder (who had two names, being called both Esau\r\nand Edom, whence the name Idumeans), because it was afterwards<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_152\">[Pg 152]</a></span>\r\nto be overcome by the people which sprang from the\r\nyounger, that is, by the Israelites, and was to become subject\r\nto them; yet it is more suitable to believe that, when it\r\nwas said, \"The one people shall overcome the other people,\r\nand the elder shall serve the younger,\" that prophecy meant\r\nsome greater thing; and what is that except what is evidently\r\nfulfilled in the Jews and Christians?</p>","headings":["THE CITY OF GOD.","BOOK SIXTEENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45305-paragraph-260"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"11853ab9299432e26dc85f8719f7f752f1d876ad550f6b5c6b44e8fe1c886199","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume II","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Books XVII-XVIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[{"book":"GEN","chapter":25,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"Gen. xxv. 23","verse":23,"verse_end":23}],"headings":[],"id":"pg45305-Footnote_316_316","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_316_316","source_ebook":45305,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_316_316\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_316_316\"><span class=\"label\">[316]</span></a> Gen. xxv. 23.</p></div>","source_sha256":"7e0ced9e70512f3cf050b53c9d548e36b70d468d875153869f95d8aff5bbb530","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45305/pg45305-images.html#Footnote_316_316","text_sha256":"8b4d12dbe96b30fc6a0cefd32e0bee4647ffdbf42b1e6e33246275f96e68a89d","verified":false,"work_id":null}