ST. PAUL’S LETTER TO THE GALATIANS 4:22-27
Brethren, Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise. Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written, “Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and shout, you who are not in travail; for the children of the desolate one are many more than the children of her that is married.
The contrast here is by means of an allegory where a spiritual principle is drawn from a familiar earthly story. Every Jew knew the story of Abraham’s two sons.
Saint Paul equates the Jews who rejected Jesus with the wife of bondage and the free wife with the Church.
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