Isaac

ISAAC. - Son of Abraham and Sarah, father of Jacob and Esau. He is the second of the great patriarchs of the Jewish people. In Sacred Scripture he is presented as the son of the promise, the heir of the messianic blessings. Abraham had already had a son, Ishmael (v.), by Hagar, Sarah's slave (Gen. 16). But the Lord foretold that another would be the heir and the blessed seed, the son whom the free woman, Sarah, would bear him (Gen. 17:16-21; 18:10-14). Indeed, at the foretold time Sarah, now ninety years old, gave birth to a son, who was circumcised on the eighth day and was named Isaac (Jiṣbāq = "he laughs"), not so much in memory of his mother's incredulous laughter (Gen. 18:10 ff.) as because of the joyful laughter that his birth brought to the family (ibid. 21:1-7).

Abraham was then 100 years old. Soon, on account of the children, the conflicts between the two mothers, Sarah and Hagar, grew acute. Ishmael too, older in age and of indomitable character, began to harass the little I. (Gen. 21:9 says only that Ishmael "was playing" with I.: doubtless these were jokes in bad taste, cf. Gal. 4:29). Living together became difficult, and Abraham, yielding to the pressure of his wife Sarah and following the explicit command of Yahweh, sent away Hagar and her son (Gen. 21:9-21).

On this episode St. Paul makes a twofold reflection: a) that the privilege for Israel of being the people of God does not come from mere carnal descent from Abraham, but rather from the free promise of grace, to which the merit of faith in Abraham corresponds (cf. Rom. 9:7 ff.); b) that the two sons of Abraham with their mothers symbolize the two Testaments, whose contrasts after the coming of Jesus Christ are evident: the one (the Old Testament), of Mount Sinai, represented in Hagar, mother of slaves, such as indeed the Jews are, excluded from the "promises" in punishment for their unbelief; the other (New Testament), symbolized in the free woman Sarah (Jerusalem, the Church), mother of free children, who are the believers, heirs of the promises made to Abraham (cf. Gal. 4:22 ff.).

At the age of 40 I. married Rebecca, daughter of Bethuel, of his own lineage of Terah: the negotiations for the marriage were conducted by the old and faithful steward of Abraham, Eliezer, who brought the bride to I. from Haran of Mesopotamia (Gen. 24). After the death of his father, whom I. buried in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre (cf. Gen. 25:8 ff.), he received from God a solemn confirmation of the promises made to Abraham, in almost identical words (Gen. 25:11; 26:2-5). Having no offspring, he turned to Yahweh and after 20 years of marriage had two twins, Esau (v.) and Jacob (v.), the second of whom supplanted the firstborn, succeeding first in getting him to yield the right of primogeniture (Gen. 25:21-34), and then in stealing the firstborn's blessing from the old father (Gen. 27). And although I. kept his preferences for Esau, nevertheless, once the deed was done, he recognized Jacob's acquired right, and confirmed to him the blessing given, granting Esau a blessing of lesser degree and of a material order. At the time of this episode I. was 137 years old: having lost his sight, he believed his end was near. In reality he lived another 43 years.

I. too, like his father before him, took refuge at Gerar

(today Tell Gemmeh, southeast of Gaza) in the land of the Philistines, during a famine that afflicted the country. There he applied himself to agriculture, and, thanks to the benevolence of the King and to his industriousness, he rapidly improved his position, so as to arouse the envy of the Philistines, who began to harass him over the old question of the wells. I., a peaceful man and averse to conflicts, left the country and returned to Beer-sheba, where Yahweh appeared to him another time: shortly afterward the same king Abimelech came to be reconciled with I. and to renew the pact of friendship (Gen. 26). On the occasion of the sojourn in Gerara an episode is reported analogous to the one that had befallen Abraham (cf. Gen. 20): I. too, for fear of unpleasant surprises, attempted to pass off his own wife Rebecca as his sister; but, once the truth was discovered, he received from Abimelech assurance of full freedom for himself and for his woman (Gen. 26, 6-11). It is not known whether the Abimelech mentioned here is the same as the one of the preceding account (Gen. 20), or, as seems more probable, a namesake son of Abraham's friend. The identity of the account has also led some to think of a possible duplication of the same episode.

I. died in Hebron at the age of 180 years, and was buried by his two sons Esau and Jacob in his father's tomb, in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre (Gen. 35, 27 ff.; cf. 49, 31). The most important event in the life of I. is the sacrifice of which, by God's command to Abraham, he himself was to be the victim; it is more commonly called the "sacrifice of Abraham." It is one of the most celebrated episodes of the Old Testament (Gen. 22), most widely commemorated in Christian liturgy and art. Yahweh, enjoining Abraham to offer him in holocaust his beloved son I., put his faith and obedience to a hard test (cf. Heb. 11, 17-19). The test was successfully passed, and the Lord rewarded the patriarch by accepting a ram for the holocaust in place of the son, and by solemnly confirming the promises already made. Indirectly, the practices of human sacrifice, frequent among the Semites and Canaanites, were also thereby condemned. The biblical account (Gen. 22) is altogether a hymn to the greatness of Abraham, and even from the literary point of view it is judged "a masterpiece of psychological representation" (H. Gunkel, Genesis, Göttingen 1901, p. 209).

Nevertheless, according to many "critics," it is completely legendary and of late composition (it belongs, according to the Wellhausenian theory, to the Elohist document,

8th or 9th century B.C.). It would represent a stance taken by Judaism against the abominable Canaanite rites; moreover it would serve to demonstrate that in more remote times the sacrifice of firstborn children was in use also among the Hebrew people (B. Stade, H. Gunkel, E. Renan, A. Loisy, W. F. Paterson, etc.). According to others (E. König, R. Kittel, C. H. Cornill) the account would simply express the horror of Abraham and his companions at the sight of the human sacrifices in use among the Canaanites. These suppositions are arbitrary and in sharp contrast with the biblical text, of far more ancient date, whose linear simplicity is a guarantee of historicity. They overlook a fact, which is the key to the interpretation of the whole account: Yahweh's intention to put the patriarch to the test (tentavit: Gen. 22, 1); God did not will the actual immolation of the son, but the interior sacrifice of obedience. Nor can the practice, in pre-Mosaic times, of human sacrifices among the Hebrew people be demonstrated at all (cf. E. Mader [v. bibl.], p. 149 ff.).

Christian tradition has always seen in the sacrifice of I. an eminent type of the sacrifice of Christ: in Abraham one can discern the Eternal Father who does not spare his Only-Begotten (cf. Rom. 8, 32) for the salvation of humanity; I., carrying on his own shoulders the wood for the sacrifice, in the humble acceptance of his condition as victim, is an expressive figure of Christ ascending with the cross to Calvario to immolate himself there; the ram offered in place of I. represents in some way the vicarious satisfaction of Christ. "Isaac Christi passuri est typus," says St. Ambrose (PL 14, 446), following Irenaeus (PG 7, 986), Tertullian (PL 2, 662), Cyprian (PL 4, 629).

In the Latin liturgy the sacrifice of I. is commemorated in the prayers for the dying, and above all in the canon of the Mass after the Consecration ("... sacrificium patriarchae nostri Abrahae"); moreover it has a place of honor in the liturgy of Holy Saturday and of the vigil of Pentecost.

Gaetano Stano

I. IN ART

In ancient Christian art, besides the numerous scenes of the sacrifice (v. ABRAHAM), I. sometimes appears in the act of blessing Jacob and Esau, as, for example, on a sarcophagus now in the Louvre Museum (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, p. 235, pl. 116, 1), or reclining on his bed in the act of blessing Jacob (Gen. 25:28), as in the mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore (Wilpert, Mosaiken, p. 434, pl. 11, 1); this scene was also in the basilica of S. Felice in Nola, as we learn from St. Paulinus (Carm. 27, v. 62), and it was also found in S. Ambrogio in Milan (V. Forcella and E. Seletti, Iscrizioni cristiane di Milano anteriori al IX sec., Codogno 1897, p. 213).

Later the said scene is found again in the Bible of St. Paul, in the cycle of the basilica of St. Peter (Wilpert, Mosaiken, p. 383); in that of St. Paul, as is attested by cod. Barb. lat. 4406 (Venturi, V, p. 1351, fig. 137), in the cathedral of Monreale, etc.

Rarer is the scene of I. when, having become blind, he calls Esau to himself (Gen. 27:3), which was represented in the cycle of the Vatican Basilica (Wilpert, Mosaiken, p. 383). I., with Jacob and Esau, returns both in the cycle of S. Giovanni ante portam Latinam and in that of Ferentillo and Monreale. The scene of the deception and of the undeceiving of I. is in the upper basilica of S. Francesco of Assisi (Venturi, V, p. 139, fig. 113). At Nola in the basilica of S. Felice there was also depicted the episode of the Philistines who stop up the wells of water for I. (St. Paulinus, Carm. 27, vv. 618-619). Finally the death and burial of I. (Gen. 35:28-29) are depicted in the Genesis of Vienna (fol. 14, 27), (W. von Hartel and Wickhoff, Die Wiener Genesis, Vienna 1895, fol. 14, 27).

Enrico Josi

APOCRYPHAL TESTAMENT OF ISAAC

A Jewish apocryphon of the 2nd or 3rd century A.D.; it has come down to us, together with the apocryphal testament of Jacob, in Coptic, Arabic and Ethiopic versions, as an appendix to the testament of Abraham (v.).

Together they form a triptych, conceived and developed according to a single scheme: the appearance of the angel Michael, who gathers the members of the family around the patriarch, who before dying is admitted to the vision of the secrets of heaven and of the places of punishment; there follow recommendations of a moral nature. The latter, missing in the testament of Abraham, are developed in the testament of I. In the three apocrypha there are certain features of a Christian coloring, such as a prophecy of the birth of Jesus Christ, and references to Mt. 5:28, Rom. 1:18, Eph. 4:26, which nevertheless do not compromise their Jewish origin. The three testaments have been published, in the Coptic text, by I. Guidi (Rendiconti della R. Accademia dei Lincei, 5th series, 9 [1900], pp. 157-80, 223-64); passages of the Arabic version have been translated into English by W. E. Barnes, in M. R. James, Apocrypha of the Old Testament, London 1920, pp. 131-54 (The Testament of Abraham; Appendix). - See plate XV.

Gaetano Stano