Tractates on the Gospel of John

¹⁶ “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw, and was glad.” Abraham's seed, Abraham's Creator, bears a great testimony to Abraham. “Abraham rejoiced,” He says, “to see my day.” He did not fear, but “rejoiced to see it.” For in him there was the love that casts out fear. He says not, rejoiced because he saw; but “rejoiced that he might see.” Believing, at all events, he rejoiced in hope to see with the understanding. “And he saw.” And what more could the Lord Jesus Christ say, or what more ought He to have said?

“And he saw,” He says, “and was glad.” Who can unfold this joy, my brethren? If those rejoiced whose bodily eyes were opened by the Lord, what joy was his who saw with the eyes of his soul the light ineffable, the abiding Word, the brilliance that dazzles the minds of the pious, the unfailing Wisdom, God abiding with the Father, and at some time come in the flesh and yet not to withdraw from the bosom of the Father? All this did Abraham see. For in saying “my day,” it may be uncertain of what He spoke; whether the day of the Lord in time, when He should come the flesh, or that day of the Lord which knows not a dawn, and knows no decline.

But for my part I doubt not that father Abraham knew it all. And where shall I find it out? Ought the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ to satisfy us? Let us suppose that we cannot find it out, for perhaps it is difficult to say in what sense it is clear that Abraham “rejoiced to see the day” of Christ, “and saw it, and was glad.” And though we find it not, can the Truth have lied? Let us believe the Truth, and cherish no doubt of Abraham's merited rewards. Yet listen to one passage that occurs to me meanwhile.

When father Abraham sent his servant to seek a wife for his son Isaac, he bound him by this oath, to fulfill faithfully what he was commanded, and know also for himself what to do. For it was a great matter that was in hand when marriage was sought for Abraham's seed. But that the servant might apprehend what Abraham knew, that it was not offspring after the flesh he desired, nor anything of a carnal kind concerning his race that was referred to, he said to the servant whom he sent, “Put your hand under my thigh, and swear by the God of heaven.” What connection has the God of heaven with Abraham's thigh?

Already you understand the mystery: by thigh is meant race. And what was that swearing, but the signifying that of Abraham's race would the God of heaven come in the flesh? Fools find fault with Abraham because he said, Put your hand under my thigh. Those who find fault with Christ's flesh find fault with Abraham's conduct. But let us, brethren, if we acknowledge the flesh of Christ as worthy of veneration, despise not that thigh, but receive it as spoken of prophetically. For a prophet also was Abraham. Whose prophet? Of his own seed, and of his Lord. To his own seed he pointed in saying, “Put your hand under my thigh.” To his Lord he pointed in adding, “and swear by the God of heaven.”