8. See Gn 32:26-29.
100 SAINT A UG UST1NE - SERMONS should we think there in that wall of this great number of Jews dispersed throughout different countries, as a testimonial to the divine scriptures, which they ignorantly carry with them everywhere. In these, you see, Jacob limps, after the hollow of his thigh has been struck and shriveled up,7 which stands for the multitude of his race limping away from his paths. But in the holy wall which has acceded from them to the peace of the cornerstone, we should think of those in whom Jacob was blessed.8 It's the same person, after all, who was both blessed and lamed; blessed in the descendants who were sanctified, lamed in those who were rejected.
The ones we should think of in this wall are the crowd of them who went ahead and followed behind the Savior's donkey, crying out Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (Mk 11:9; Ps 118:26). We should think of those who were chosen from that crowd as disciples and made apostles. We should think of Stephen, called by a Greek name meaning "crown," the first after the Lord's resurrection to be crowned with martyrdom. We should think also of those persecutors who turned into so many thousands of believers when the Holy Spirit came.9 We should think of the Churches, about which the apostle says, But I was unknown by sight to the Churches of Judea which were in Christ; but they were only hearing that the one who once used to persecute us is now preaching as good news the faith he once tried to lay waste; and in me they magnified God (Gal 1:22-24). That is how the Israelite wall should be thought about, and joined to the wall coming from the Gentiles which is now so con¬ spicuous. And in this way Christ the Lord will be found not for nothing to have been foretold as the cornerstone, once upon a time laid in a manger, later lifted up to the summit of heaven.
NOTES
1. All I would be prepared to guess about this sermon is that it is earlier than Sermon 201, but later than Sermons 203; this on the presupposition, which I do not regard as in any way certain (see Sermon 203, note 1), that Augustine's attitude toward the Jews grew consistently more benign the older he got.
2. Commutaret\ a very literal, and indeed mistaken, translation in Augustine's version of the Greek apokatallaxei, which means "reconcile." He would, I am sure, interpret commutaret in that sense.
3.1 suspect his saying two differences etc. was just a slip of the tongue, because he was thinking about two walls. He doesn't appear to have had two particular differences or causes of hostility specifically in mind.
4. Quoting Is 28:16; see also Rom 9:33.
5. He means the nourishment of the gospel, primarily, of Christ himself as the Truth; only secondarily is he thinking of Christ in the eucharist.
6. See Ps 118:22. 7. See Gn 32:25.
8. See Gn 32:26-29. 9. See Acts 2:41.