And of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her: and the highest himself shall establish her.
Read Chapter 87
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
6. Listen now to a deep mystery. Rahab is there through Him, through whom also is Babylon, now no longer Babylon, but beginning to be Jerusalem. The daughter is divided against her mother, and will be among the members of that queen to whom is said, "Forget thine own people, and thy father's house, so shall the king have pleasure in thy beauty." For how could Babylon aspire to Jerusalem? How could Rahab reach those foundations? How could the Philistines, or Tyre, or the people of the Ethiopians? Listen to this verse, "Sion, my mother, a man shall say." There is then a man who saith this: through whom all those I have mentioned make their approach. Who is this man? It tells if we hear, if we understand. It follows, as if a question had been raised, through whose aid Rahab, Babylon, the Philistines, Tyre, and the Morians, gained an entrance. Behold, through whom they come; "Sion, my mother, a man shall say; and a man was born in her, and Himself the Most High hath founded her" (ver. 5). What, my brethren, can be clearer? Truly, because "very excellent things are spoken of thee, thou city of God." Lo, "Sion, O mother, a man shall say." What man? "He who was born in her." It is then the man who was born in her, and He Himself hath rounded her. Yet how can He be born in the city which He Himself founded? It had already been founded, that therein He might be born. Understand it thus, if thou canst: "Mother Sion, he shall say;" but it is "a man" that "shall say, Mother Sion; yea, a man was born in her:" and yet "he hath founded her" (not a man, but), "the Most High." As He created a mother of whom He would be born, so He founded a city in which He would be born. What hope is ours, brethren! On our behalf the Most High, who founded the city, addresses that city as a mother: and "He was born in her, and the Most High hath founded her."
