Two Testaments, Two Mothers, Two Sons

Haec enim sunt duo testamenta, unum quidem a monte Sina, in servitutem generans, quae est Agar. Sina enim mons est in Arabia, qui conterminus est ei, quae nunc est Jerusalem, et servit cum filiis suis. Illa autem quae sursum est Jerusalem, libera est, quae est mater omnium nostrum. Pene cunctorum super hoc loco ista est explanatio, ut Agar ancillam, interpretentur in Lege, et in populo Judaeorum: Saram autem liberam, in Ecclesia, quae de gentibus congregata est, quae mater sanctorum sit, Paulo dicente: Quae est mater omnium nostrum. Haec diu non peperit, antequam Christus de Virgine nasceretur, et sterilis fuit, necdum risu mundi Isaace de electo patre cum voce sublimium dogmatum resonante: siquidem et Abraham in nostra lingua, pater electus cum sonitu refertur. Agar autem quae interpretatur παροικία, id est, incolatus, sive peregrinatio, sive mora, generat Ismael, qui tantum audiat Dei praecepta, nec faciat hominem rusticum, sanguinarium, deserta sectantem: qui universis fratribus suis de libera procreatis inimicus sit, et adversa eis fronte resistat. Nec mirum vetus Testamentum, quod in monte Sina, qui est in Arabia, et confinis est ei, quae nunc est Jerusalem, constitutum est atque conscriptum, non esse perpetuum: cum et incolatus a perpetua possessione diversus sit, et Sina montis nomen tentationem sonet: et Arabia significet occasum: et econtrario quae sursum est Jerusalem, quae est libera materque sanctorum, demonstret hanc Jerusalem, quae in praesenti est, deo sum esse, et in humili infirmoque demersam. Sunt qui duo Testamenta et aliter intelligant: ut Scripturam divinam, tam veterem quam novam, juxta diversitatem sensus eorumque sententiam qui legunt, aut ancillam interpretentur, aut liberam, et eos, qui adhuc litterae serviant, et spiritum timoris habeant in servitutem, de Agar Aegyptia velint esse generatos: eos autem qui ad superiora conscendant, et allegorice velint sentire quae scripta sunt, filios esse Sarae, quae in lingua nostra, ἄρχουσα, id est, princeps, interpretatur, genere feminino. Et hoc ob illam necessitatem se asserunt usurpare: quia iniquum sit Moysen, et cunctos prophetas de ancilla, quoslibet vero gentilium de libera intelligere procreatos. Unde melius esse, ita non solum de his qui in Ecclesia sunt, pro diversitate, ut suprae diximus intellectuum, alios servus, alios liberos arbitremur: sed etiam de uno eodemque homine quamdiu sequitur historiam, ancillae eum es e filium: cum autem aperitente Jesu Scripturas, incensum fuerit cor ejus, et in fractione panis inspexerit eum quem antea non videbat: tunc et ipsum Sarae filium nominari.  Sanctus Hieronymus, Commentariorum in Epistolam ad Galatas, Liber II, Cap IV

For there are two testaments, one from Mount Sinai, birthing in servitude, which is Hagar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, and it borders upon that which is now Jerusalem. and she serves with her sons. The latter is the Jerusalem which is above, free she is, and the mother of all of us. 1  Nearly everything about this passage has been explained, that Hagar is a slave girl, understood in the law and in the people of the Jews, and the free woman Sarah is the Church from which the Gentiles are gathered, she who is the mother of the saints, with Paul saying that she is the mother of all of us. 2 She did not give birth before Christ was born from the Virgin, sterile she was, not yet was the smile of Isaac in the world from the chosen father with voice resounding with sublime teaching; Abraham in our tongue meaning chosen father with a cry. And Hagar is translated as alien, or wanderer, or delayer, she who birthed Ismael, who may only hear the commandments of God, who cannot become a farming man, but he is a killer, cut off in the desert, an enemy to every brother  born free, and against them he thrusts his head. 3 It is not to be wondered that the Old Testament which was given and written on Mount Sinai which is in Arabia, bordering on that which is now Jerusalem, is not forever, when it was far from the perpetual possession. And Mount Sinai resounds with the name of temptation, and Arabia signifies murder, and on the contrary that which is the Jerusalem above, which is the free mother of the saints,  this Jerusalem declares which is in the present, with God I am, and amid the humble and lowest. But there are those who understand the two Testaments in a different manner, that the Divine Scripture, the old and the new, on account of the differing understanding of those who read, may be interpreted as the slave or the free woman, and those who are still servants of the letter and have the spirit of fear in servitude, they would have as children of Egyptian Hagar, and those who rise to the things above and wish in allegory to grasp what is written, they are the sons of Sarah, which in our tongue is princess, that is prince of the feminine class. And on account of this they must assert themselves superior, that Moses was inferior and all the Prophets were from the slave woman, and the children of the gentiles are from the free woman. Whence better it is, I think, that not only concerning those who are in the Church is there difference, as we have given the understanding above, with some slaves and some free, but that even the same man while he alone follows the narrative is the son of the slave woman, but when he does so with Jesus there is an opening of the Scriptures, his heart is on fire, and in the breaking of bread, he looks on him whom he did not see, 4 and then the same man is named a son of Sarah. Saint Jerome, Commentary on St Paul's Letter to the Galatians, Book 2 Chap 4 1 Gal 4. 24-26 2 Gal 4. 26  3 cf Gen 16. 11-12 3 Lk 24.30-32