Homily Against Publishing the Errors of the Brethren

⁹ I did desire to say more, and to teach you other reasons for which Rebecca, and Rachel, were barren; but the time does not permit; urging on the discourse to the power of prayer. For on this account indeed I have mooted all these points, that you might understand how the prayer of Isaac unbound the barrenness of his wife; and that prayer for so long a time. “Isaac,” it says, “continually prayed about Rebecca his wife, and God listened to him.” For do not suppose that he invoked God and had immediately been listened to; for he had spent much time in praying to God.

And if you desire to learn how much, I will tell you this too with exactness. He had spent the number of twenty years in praying to God. Whence is this manifest? From the sequence itself. For the Scripture, desiring to point out the faith and the endurance and the love of wisdom of that righteous man, did not break off and leave untold even the time, but made it also clear to us, covertly indeed, so as to rouse up our indolence; but nevertheless did not allow it to be uncertain.

Hear then how it covertly indicated to us the time. “Now Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebecca, a daughter of Bethuel the Syrian.” You hear how many years old he was when he brought home his wife: “Forty years old,” it says, “he was when he took Rebecca.” But since we have learned how many years old he was when he married his wife, let us learn also when he after all became a father, and how many years old he was then, when he begot Jacob; and we shall be able to see how long a time his wife had remained barren; and that during all that time he continued to pray to God.

How many years old then was he when he begot Jacob? “Jacob,” it says, “came forth laying hold with his right hand of his brother's heel: on this account he called him Jacob, and him Esau. Now Isaac was sixty years old when he begot them.” If therefore when he brought Rebecca home he was forty years old, and when he begot the sons sixty, it is very plain that his wife had remained barren for twenty years between, and during all this time Isaac continued to pray to God.