{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/102/1020477.htm","path":"chr/ecf/102/1020477.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/102/1020477.htm","text":"Chapter 28.\u2014Of the Change of Name in Abraham and Sarah, Who Received the Gift of Fecundity When They Were Incapable of Regeneration Owing to the Barrenness of One, and the Old Age of Both.\nNow when a promise so great and clear was made to Abraham, in which it was so plainly said to him, \u201cI have made thee a father of many nations, and I will increase thee exceedingly, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall go forth of thee. And I will give thee a son of Sarah; and I will bless him, and he shall become nations, and kings of nations shall be of him,\u201d 928 \u2014a promise which we now see fulfilled in Christ,\u2014from that time forward this couple are not called in Scripture, as formerly, Abram and Sarai, but Abraham and Sarah, as we have called them from the first, for every one does so now. The reason why the name of Abraham was changed is given: \u201cFor,\u201d He says, \u201cI have made thee a father of many nations.\u201d This, then, is to be understood to be the meaning of Abraham; but Abram, as he was formerly called, means \u201cexalted father.\u201d The reason of the change of Sarah\u2019s name is not given; but as those say who have written interpretations of the Hebrew names contained in these books, Sarah means \u201cmy princess,\u201d and Sarai \u201cstrength.\u201d Whence it is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews, \u201cThrough faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed.\u201d 929 For both were old, as the Scripture testifies; but she was also barren, and had ceased to menstruate, so that she could no longer bear children even if she had not been barren. Further, if a woman is advanced in years, yet still retains the custom of women, she can bear children to a young man, but not to an old man, although that same old man can beget, but only of a young woman; as after Sarah\u2019s death Abraham could of Keturah, because he met with her in her lively age. This, then, is what the apostle mentions as wonderful, saying, besides, that Abraham\u2019s body was now dead; 930 because at that age he was no longer able to beget children of any woman who retained now only a small part of her natural vigor. Of course we must understand that his body was dead only to some purposes, not to all; for if it was so to all, it would no longer be the aged body of a living man, but the corpse of a dead one. Although that question, how Abraham begot children of Keturah, is usually solved in this way, that the gift of begetting which he received from the Lord, remained even after the death of his wife, yet I think that solution of the question which I have followed is preferable, because, although in our days an old man of a hundred years can beget children of no woman, it was not so then, when men still lived so long that a hundred years did not yet bring on them the decrepitude of old age.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II: City of God: Cha...","type":"page"}