An Eternal Possession

Dabo tibi et semini tuo post te terram in qua habitas, omnem terram cultam in possessionem aeternam.  Quaestio est quomodo dixerit aeternam, cum Israelitis temporaliter data sit; utrum secundum hoc saeculum dicta sit aeterna, ut ab eo quod est αἰὼν graece, quod est saeculum significat, dictum sit: αἰώνιον, tamquam si latine dici posset saeculare ; an ex hoc aliquid secundum spiritalem promissionem hic intellegere cogamur, ut aeternum dictum sit, ideo quia hinc aeternum aliquid significatur; an potius locutionis est Scripturarum, ut aeternum appellent, cuius rei finis non constituitur; aut non ita fit ut deinceps non sit faciendum, quantum pertinet ad curam vel potestatem facientis; sicut ait Horatius: Serviet aeternum, qui parvo nesciet uti. Non enim potest in aeternum servire, cuius ipsa vita, qua servit, aeterna esse non potest. Quod testimonium non adhiberem, nisi locutionis esset. Sanctus Augustinus Hipponensi, Quaestionum in Heptateuchum, Liber I, Cap XXXI

'I give to you and your seed after you that land in which you dwell, all the cultivated earth as an eternal possession.' 1  The question is: how does it say 'eternal' when it was given to the Israelites but for a time? Can it be that this age is called an eternity and that which the Greek have as αἰὼν and our 'age' signifies may have been meant? As again the Greeks say αἰώνιον and we say 'for the age.' But this is something we are obliged to understand as a spiritual promise, that was spoken as eternal, because by it something eternal is signified, or rather it is a way of speaking in Scripture that things are called eternal of which the end is not established, or what is to happen may not be done, as much as it pertains to the care or the ability to do it, and so Horace says, 'He shall be a slave for eternity who does not know how to live on little.' And yet he is not able to be a slave in eternity whose life in which he is a slave is not eternal. So likewise that passage I would not admit, unless it is a way of speaking. Saint Augustine of Hippo, Questions on the Heptateuch, Book 1, Chap 31 1 Gen 17.8 2 Horace Epis 1.10. 41