Works (CSEL) 3

First of all, how great a reverence we learn to render to our parents, when we read that whoever was blessed by his father was blessed, and whoever was cursed was cursed! Therefore God gave this grace to parents, that the piety of children might be called forth. The discipline of children, then, is the prerogative of parents. Honour, therefore, your father, that he may bless you. Let the dutiful son honour his father for grace's sake, the ungrateful for fear's sake. Even if the father is poor and has no abundance of riches to leave to his sons, yet he has the inheritance of his final blessing, by which he may bestow upon his successors the wealth of sanctification. And it is far better to become blessed than to become rich. Joseph hastened to receive the blessing.

Indeed he also presented his sons Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Jacob blessed; so that, since he had twelve sons and the thirteenth, the apostle Paul, was to be as it were a later-chosen one, the thirteenth tribe might be sanctified from his grandsons Manasseh and Ephraim, divided into the two; so that Paul might not be found outside the number of the paternal tribes—Paul who, as the distinguished preacher of both the Old Testament and the New, might easily prove that the inheritance of the paternal blessing had profited him also.

How illustrious are the mysteries in this, that Joseph, taking his sons whom he had begotten in Egypt—Ephraim at his right hand, but at the left of Israel his father, and Manasseh at his own left, but at the right of Israel—brought them before his father; but Israel, stretching out his right hand, laid it upon the head of Ephraim, who was the younger and stood at the left of his grandfather, and laid his own left hand upon Manasseh, who was at the right; and thus, with his hands crossed, he blessed them!

In this Joseph too preserved the order of nature, that he might give more honour to the elder son, just as Isaac also wished to confer the prior blessing upon Esau the elder son; but he believed that the younger son, as a type of the younger people, was to be preferred, just as he himself had been preferred by his mother. Indeed Manasseh, by the Latin interpretation, is marked as 'from forgetfulness,' in that the people of the Jews forgot their God who made them; and whoever from that people believes is, as it were, recalled from forgetfulness. But Ephraim, by the interpretation of his name, promises the fecundity of faith—he who increased his father, as Joseph himself says, saying: 'For God has increased me in the land of my humiliation.'

This is proper to the younger people, which is the body of Christ, increasing the Father and not forsaking its own God. Indeed the elder declared spiritually that this mystery concerned the peoples. For when his son supposed that he had erred through the defect of his dimmer sight, he wished to turn his hands, saying: 'Not so, father; for this one is the firstborn. Lay your right hand upon his head.' And he would not, but said: 'I know, son, I know. This one too shall be a people, and this one shall be exalted; but his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.' Indeed he prophesied that Ephraim was to be preferred to his elder brother even in the sequence of blessing, saying: 'In you shall Israel be blessed, men saying: God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh.'

And therefore, although they were grandsons, they were adopted in the place of sons, that they might not be without share in the ancestral blessing. When this blessing had been celebrated, he also called his sons. And he who before had preferred the younger to the elder began with the first, so that in the former he might prefer the grace of the mystery, while in the latter he might preserve the order of age; and at the same time because before, in the two, he had blessed all together with all their posterity and the offspring of those to come, lest either the repeated blessing of the people should seem superfluous, or the former should be reckoned weak. And deservedly he says that he is conferring rather a repeated announcement of those things which were to befall in later times than a blessing. Indeed he thus began:

'Reuben, my firstborn, you are my strength and the beginning of my children, hard to bear and hardly rash, you treated me with insult. Boil not over like water; for you went up to your father's bed: then you defiled the couch to which you went up.' Does he not seem to be reproved rather than blessed? And therefore it is prophecy rather than blessing. For prophecy is the announcement of things to come, but blessing is the votive bestowal of sanctification and of graces. And the Jews suppose that the old man says these things to his son Reuben for this reason: because he lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and defiled his father's couch—but they are easily refuted;

for this had been done before—but Jacob promises that he will speak of the things that were to come in the last days, not of the things that had been done. Therefore the judgement of the patriarch is fitting and consistent with himself, who, foreseeing the future passion of the Lord at the hands of the persecuting Jews, execrates the monstrous audacity of the firstborn people, which, unbelieving and not subject to the law of God, and not knowing how to bear the yoke of Christ upon its hard neck, assailed the author of life not only with the crime of slaying, but also with the injury of sacrilegious insult.

'Boil not over,' he says, 'like water,' lest it break forth into greater madness, and lest the fervour of fury and frenzy not allow the sinners to come to their senses, but that they may do penance for their offences; since the hard people went up to the father's bed and defiled the holy couch—that is, fixing to the gibbet of the cross the flesh of the Lord Jesus our Creator, on which, as upon a certain couch and ancestral bed, His saints rest in saving refreshment. Who then would deny that it is said of the people, since all these things suit the people? For he himself was called the firstborn of Israel; he himself is said to be of a hard neck; of him Moses said: 'But you are a people of a hard neck.'

And in truth, who is so hard and so rash and so insolent as the people of the Jews, who scourged with whips and pierced with nails the Lord Jesus, through whom they had seen the dead raised and the blind enlightened, although they could not deny His divine works? That this was committed both with the scribes and the high priests as instigators, and with Caiaphas the chief of the priests likewise raging, the narrative of the Gospel has declared. And therefore the holy prophet shunned partaking in so great a crime, lest through the succession of his race they should dare to claim for themselves fellowship with so great a patriarch. The righteous man bears witness and disowns the posterity which would not preserve its father's disposition; and because he foresaw the wickedness, he shudders at the contagion of their counsel.

'Into their counsel,' he says, 'let not my soul come, and into their congregation let not my inward parts contend; for in their wrath they slew a man, and in their lust they hamstrung a bull.' What he says, he says indeed of his sons Simeon and Levi. But by their names he signifies the tribes, which were called by a like appellation. The Jews derive a most beautiful interpretation of this, and judge that he reproves the sons of Jacob for this reason: because, on account of the rape of their sister, these two beyond the other brothers, desiring to go and avenge it, pretended that they wished to enter into amity with the Shechemites, and therefore persuaded them that they ought to be circumcised, so that, by a concord of religion, peace might be established among them and a fellowship of acquired kinship be made firm.

But, attacking those who were circumcised while their wounds were still fresh and their strength weakened, which the pain had dissolved—on the third day, when it came upon them—they slew them when they were broken. And perhaps therefore these two are avengers beyond the others, because they are the originators of the scribes and the priests; for none more than the wise and the priests ought to vindicate chastity. But in this too the Jews err. For these very men had furnished their father the causes of his grief, asserting that they, though of that youthful age, had been avengers of outraged piety and vindicators of violated chastity.

This indeed holy Jacob could not condemn, because they did not suffer their sister, who had both lost her virginity and had no solace of vengeance, to remain in the position of a harlot, unavenged—especially since he himself approved that the deed was so done that, when he possessed Shechem, he gave it in death to his most beloved son Joseph, saying to him: 'I give you Shechem as a special portion above all your brothers, which I took from the hands of the Amorites with my sword and bow.' That this was done cannot be denied; yet we can interpret that by Shechem the shoulders are signified, by the shoulders works. He chose therefore holy Joseph beyond the others as heir of good works, whose works the brothers could not equal. For who could equal the deeds of Christ?

Then moreover, undefiled and chaste, he carried off spoils from this earthly lodging and from the authors of impurity, seizing by heavenly words and a spiritual sword a place given over to debaucheries and wickednesses for the habitation of the saints; so that where before dwellers in wantonness and princes of luxury had lived, where there had been incitements of lust and fuel of iniquity, there now holy priests might teach the lessons of chastity, and very many examples of virginal integrity might shine forth with a certain radiance of supernal light.

There are therefore three tribes which are designated by the names of the patriarchs, because from the tribe of Simeon come the scribes, from the tribe of Levi the chief priests, who completed their wickedness in the passion of the Lord, filling up the whole measure of their fathers' impiety. They themselves devised a counsel against the Lord Jesus, that they might slay Him, as Isaiah says: 'Woe to their soul, for they have devised an evil counsel against themselves, saying: Let us bind the just man, for he is unprofitable to us.' They themselves slew the prophets and apostles who announced the coming of the saving Lord and proclaimed the glory of His passion and resurrection. They themselves afterward, in their lust:

because they desired earthly wickednesses while shunning divine fellowships—chastity of body, sobriety of mind, contempt of money, the gain of grace—they hamstrung the bull, namely that one bringing forth horns and hooves, whom the poor see and rejoice, since by the word of God He exalted the horn of His people, by which He both repelled the enemies and earned the reward of the heavenly crown. This is the bull by which the Church is figured, then fuller as in the moon, when, as if resting upon bovine horns, she encloses the span of the whole world. Yet to this prophecy too he seems to add the grace of blessing. For both, to the firstborn Reuben, saying:

'Boil not over like water,' he established as a reproach of sin, because water is wont rather to cleanse offences and to recall our minds from all the fervour of vices; and again, saying to Simeon and Levi: 'I will divide you in Jacob and scatter you in Israel,' he showed that they were to be redeemed by the gathering of the nations; for when the shepherd was smitten, that flock which had before been gathered was scattered, so that he who was not within might enter, and thus all Israel might be saved. And especially on account of the tribe of Levi we ought to believe this, because from that tribe the Lord Jesus seems, according to the assumption of the body, to derive His lineage. From which tribe are the priests Levi and Nathan, whom holy Luke, in the book of the Gospel which he himself wrote, reckoned among the ancestors of the Lord.

For the priest of the Father and prince of all priests, as it is written: 'You are a priest for ever,' had to claim the succession of priestly origin. Whence Moses also blessed this tribe, saying: 'Give to Levi the lot of his suffrage and his truth to the holy man.' Moses also blessed the tribe of Reuben, as you have it written: 'Let Reuben live and not die, and let him be many in number.' For he would not have blessed, if according to the patriarch's judgement he had known them unworthy of blessing. Certainly what the one passed over briefly, the other completed. And because, through the mingling of lineage, the tribes of Judah and Levi were joined, therefore Matthew describes His family from the tribe of Judah. And the Apostle says:

that our Lord arose from Judah—so that from the tribe of Levi a priestly inheritance, full of holiness, might be reckoned, but from the tribe of Judah, from which were David and Solomon and the rest of the kings, the splendour of royal succession might shine forth—that the same one might be shown by the testimony of the Scriptures to be both king and priest. And deservedly holy Jacob poured himself out concerning the grace of Judah, saying: 'Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hands upon the back of your enemies; the sons of your father shall adore you. Judah is a lion's whelp. From the shoot, my son, you have gone up to me. Reclining, you slept as a lion and as a whelp: who shall rouse him? A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a prince from his loins, until He come for whom it is laid up, and He is the expectation of the nations:

binding his foal to the vine and the colt of his ass to the choice vine, he shall wash his robe in wine and his garment in the blood of the grape: his eyes are merrier than wine and his teeth whiter than milk.' The address indeed seems to be directed to Judah the patriarch, but that later Judah, the true confessor, is expressed, who was born from that tribe—He who alone is praised by His brothers, of whom He says: 'I will declare Your name to my brothers'—Lord by nature, brother by grace, whose hands, which He stretched out to the unbelieving people, are upon the back of His enemies. For with those same hands and by that same passion He both covered His own and subdued the adverse powers, and made subject to Himself all who were strangers to faith and piety. Of whom the Father says to the Son:

'And You shall have dominion in the midst of Your enemies.' These enemies their own malice made, not the will of Christ. In which is the great grace of the Lord. For the spiritual wickednesses which before were wont to bend our neck under the yoke of captivity—so that David himself wrote that he in some way felt the hands of those triumphing over him, saying: 'Upon my back the sinners have wrought'—these now, made subject to the triumph of Christ and to certain hands of His, that is, subjected to His deeds and works, undergo the misery of perpetual captivity. He surely it is who is adored by the sons of His Father, when He is adored by us, to whom He Himself granted that we should call upon the Father, whose servant it is a mark of virtue to be. 'Judah is a lion's whelp.'

Did he not clearly express both the Father and declare the Son? What is so evident, by which the Son is taught to be God of one nature with the Father? That one a lion, this a lion's whelp. By a humble comparison the unity of the same nature or power is understood. A king proceeded from a king, a strong one from a strong one. Because he foresaw those who would assert the Son to be of a younger age, he met them, adding: 'From the shoot you have gone up to me. Reclining, you slept as a lion and as a whelp.' And elsewhere you have that the whelp himself is the lion of the tribe of Judah. Therefore, because he had said 'whelp,' he rightly at once set 'lion,' as if to say: let not your ears be caught because they heard 'whelp'; I have expressed the Son, I have not said a lesser one. And He Himself is a lion just as the Father.

Let them hear that he called Him both a lion and a whelp—a lion as of perfect and full power, a whelp as a son—lest anyone, when he heard it, should think the Son not equal to the Father. The Son is not praised in such a way that He be separated from the Father. He proves Him equal who confesses Him Son. And wonderfully too he expressed His incarnation, saying: 'From the shoot you have gone up to me,' in that, like a sprout of the earth, He budded in the womb of the Virgin, and like a flower of good fragrance for the redemption of the whole world, sent forth from the maternal bowels with the splendour of a new light, He went up; as Isaiah says: 'A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall ascend from the root.' The root is the family of the Jews, the rod is Mary, the flower of Mary is Christ.

Rightly is it called a rod, which is of royal lineage from the house and fatherland of David, whose flower is Christ, who abolished the stench of worldly pollution and poured in the fragrance of eternal life. You have, then, the Incarnation; receive now the Passion. 'Lying down,' he says, 'you slept like a lion,' when he lay in the tomb at rest as in a certain sleep of his own body, just as he himself says: 'I slept and took my rest, and I rose up again, for the Lord will sustain me.' Whence also Jacob says: 'Who shall rouse him up?' That is: whom the Lord will sustain. Who else is there to raise him again, save that he himself should raise himself by his own and his Father's power? I behold him born by his own authority; I behold him dead by his own will; I behold him sleeping by his own power.

He who made all things by his own decision—by whose other aid would he need help in order to rise again? He therefore is the author of his own resurrection, who is the arbiter of death, who is awaited by the nations. Therefore, until he come, the leader shall not fail from Judah, that until his rising the faith of the royal succession may be preserved uncorrupted. For afterward, as we have taught in the treatise we delivered upon the Gospel, through Herod the succession was adulterated and lost the prerogative of dignity. For because they denied the true king, they began to have false ones. Therefore the patriarch says this:

There shall be preserved among the judges or kings of the Jews the inheritance of an unbroken succession carried on through kings, until he come for whom it is laid up, that he may gather the Church of God out of the assembly of all nations and from the devotion of the Gentile peoples—that is, it remains for him, it is reserved as a debt owed to him, to him is conferred the prerogative of so great a grace. And he himself is the expectation of the nations. He said more than if he had said: him the nations await; namely, that all the hope of the Church rests upon him. Therefore it is said to Moses: 'Loose the sandal from your feet,' lest he himself be believed the Bridegroom of the Church, who was being chosen as leader of the people. Therefore Joshua son of Nun loosed his sandal, that he too might preserve for him who was to come the grace of so great a gift. Therefore John says:

'After me comes a man whose sandal-thong I am not worthy to loose.' Therefore he says: 'He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices with joy.' That is: He alone is the Husband of the Church; this is the expectation of the nations; to him, surrendering the bond of nuptial grace, the prophets loosed their sandals. He is the Bridegroom, I am the friend of the Bridegroom: I rejoice because he has come, because I hear the nuptial voice, because now we hear not the harsh punishments of sins, the harsh torments of the Law, but the remission of crimes, the voice of gladness, the sound of delight, the exultation of the wedding feast.

This is he who binds his foal to the vine and the colt of his she-ass to the choice vine, so that the gathering of the nations—formerly remiss and neglectful, but now devoted through Christ—may possess the fervor of the Holy Spirit, and that we may be bound to that everlasting Vine, that is, to the Lord Jesus, who says: 'I am the vine, my Father is the husbandman,' bound as fruitful branches by certain indissoluble bonds of faith. This is that mystery which bade the colt of the she-ass be loosed in the Gospel, and the Lord Jesus himself sat upon it, that, bound to the vine, it might rest in the perpetual sweetness of the saints. 'He shall wash,' it says, 'his robe in wine.'

A good robe is the flesh of Christ, which covered the sins of all, took up the offenses of all, concealed the errors of all—a good robe, which clothed all with the garment of gladness. He washed this robe in wine when, as he was being baptized in the Jordan, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and remained upon him. By this is signified that the fullness of the Holy Spirit was undivided in him and did not depart. Whence also the Evangelist says that the Lord Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan. He washed therefore his robe—not that it might cleanse his own filth, which was not in it, but ours, which was there. Finally he added: 'and in the blood of the grape his mantle'—that is, in the Passion of his body he washed the nations with his own blood.

For the mantle of the Word is the nations, as it is written: 'As I live, says the Lord, I will surely clothe myself with them all as with a garment'; and elsewhere: 'As a cloak you shall change them, and they shall be changed.' Not therefore with his own blood did he cleanse his own sins, which did not exist, but our offenses which we committed. And well did he say 'one' grape, because as a cluster he hung upon the wood. He himself is the Vine, he himself the Cluster: the Vine clinging to the wood; the Cluster, because the soldier's lance, opening his side, sent forth water and blood. For so John said, that there went out from him water and blood—water for the laver, blood for the price. The water washes us, the blood redeems us. And therefore the prophet says: 'His eyes are gladdened by wine and his teeth whiter than milk,' signifying the prophets and apostles.

For some, like the eyes of Christ, foresaw and announced his coming—of whom he himself says: 'Abraham saw my day and rejoiced'; and one of the prophets says: 'I saw the Lord of Sabaoth.' Beholding him, they were filled with spiritual gladness. But the others, that is the apostles, whom the Lord cleansed from every stain of sins, were made whiter than milk, whom afterward no spot defiled. For milk is temporal, but the grace of the apostles abides perpetually; for they, preparing for us those spiritual and heavenly nourishments, fattened the inward parts of the inner mind.

There are also those who reckon the commandments of the Lord, luminous and uttered by the divine mouth, to have been made for us as milk; nourished by which we have come to the sustenance of the heavenly bread. Whence also Paul says: 'I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able.' The Corinthian at the beginning of faith is imbued with the drink of milk; but those holy ones, whose faith is proclaimed in all the world, being as it were weaned, are strengthened with more solid food. 'Zebulun shall dwell by the sea, and he himself by the landing-places of ships, and shall extend as far as Sidon.' The very interpretation of the name promises better things, in that the Latin rendering signifies a deliverance from things of the night—which is altogether good and belongs to him who hopes under the wings of the Lord, who encompasses him.

His truth shall deliver him, that he fear not the terror by night, nor the matter that walks in darkness. This Zebulun, then, 'shall dwell by the sea,' it says, that he himself, immune from danger, may behold the shipwrecks of others and watch others tossed in the strait of this world, who are carried about by every wind of doctrine, while he himself remains unmoved, rooted in faith—as is the most holy Church, rooted and grounded in faith, beholding the storms of heretics and the shipwrecks of the Jews, since they have denied the helmsman whom they had. He dwells, therefore, near the waves, not tossed by the waves, and more ready to bring help than exposed to danger, so that if any, driven by grievous tempests, wish to flee to the harbor—

—the Church may be at hand as a harbor of salvation, which with arms outspread calls the imperiled into the bosom of her tranquillity, showing the place of a faithful anchorage. The Churches, then, in this age, like maritime harbors spread along the shores, meet the laboring, telling those who believe that a refuge is prepared, whither vessels battered by the winds may draw themselves to safety. In these Churches are the princes of Zebulun and the princes of Naphtali, as the sixty-seventh Psalm teaches; of whom some are deliverers from the nocturnal tempest, crying: 'Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light'; others are of apostolic breadth, who can say: 'Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged.'

These are they who, when they were in darkness, saw a great light, as the prophet testifies, saying: 'The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan. The people who sat in darkness saw a great light; on them who sat in the region of the shadow of death a light has arisen.' Therefore the Lord our God set scouts near the landing-places of ships—the heirs of this patriarch, whose ever-watchful care and spiritual succession extends as far as Sidon, that is, reaches even to the nations, so that the mercy of the Lord may lift away the sins of the peoples. For Sidon is the firstborn son of Ham—of him, namely, who because of irreverence toward his father's piety was condemned by his father's curse.

Therefore the nocturnal deliverance, set as it were in the watch-posts of a spiritual rampart, lest anyone strike upon the rocks of this life, extends even to the sinners of the gravest crimes and to the Sidonians themselves, who formerly, in their vehement superstition, were called 'hunters of wickedness,' as the interpretation teaches; the inheritance of the curse being dissolved and the inheritance of blessing being bestowed, it absolves them—so that where the guilt was greater, there now grace might be more abundant. 'Issachar desired what is good, resting between the boundaries; and seeing that rest is good, and the land that it is rich, he set his shoulder to labor and became a man tilling the soil.'

Issachar is interpreted 'reward,' and therefore he is referred to Christ, who is our reward, in that we purchase him for ourselves unto the hope of eternal salvation not with gold or silver, but with faith and devotion. Whence David also says of him: 'Behold, sons are an inheritance of the Lord; the fruit of the womb a reward.' And Moses says of him: 'A reward for those who dwell by the sea.' This is he who desired what is good from the beginning, and knew not how to desire what is evil. Of whom Isaiah also says: 'Before the child knows to call father or mother, he does not trust in malice, choosing what is good.' He rested between the lots of the Old and New Testament, or in the midst of the prophets.

And therefore he appeared in the midst between Moses and Elijah, to show us that he has his rest in their words, through whom very many, renouncing their sins, believe in the living God; or that they themselves are witnesses of his resurrection and blessed repose. And so, that he might call the nations to the grace of his resurrection—for that is the rich and fertile land which bears eternal fruits, fruits a hundredfold and sixtyfold—he set his shoulder to labor, subjecting himself to the cross, that he might bear our sins. And therefore the prophet says: 'whose government is upon his shoulder,' that is, upon the passion of his body is the power of his divinity, or the cross towering above his body.

He set his shoulder, then, bending over the plow, patient in undergoing all reproaches, so subjected to labor that he was wounded for our iniquities and made weak for our sins. And he became a man tilling the soil, knowing how to sow his land with good grain and to plant fruitful trees with deep root. 'Dan shall judge his people as one tribe in Israel. And Dan became a serpent lying in the way, biting in the path the horse's heel, and the rider shall fall backward, awaiting salvation from the Lord.' The simple sense indeed holds this: that Dan too gave a judge to the tribe in Israel. For after Joshua son of Nun there were judges of the people from the various tribes.

Moreover, Samson too was of the tribe of Dan, and he judged for twenty years. But it is not he that the prophecy signifies, but Antichrist, who, to come forth from the tribe of Dan, a savage judge and a monstrous tyrant, shall judge the people. Like a serpent lying in the way, he shall try to cast down those who walk the way of truth, desiring to supplant the truth. For this is to bite the horse's heel: that, by the infusion of venom, the horse, wounded and pierced by the serpent's tooth, may lift up its heel—just as Judas the traitor, tempted by the devil, lifted up his heel against the Lord Jesus, in order to cast down the rider, who cast himself down that he might lift up all.

He fell, therefore, not prostrate upon his face as one dozing, but backward, so that, stretching himself from the higher things toward what is before, he might await salvation from the Lord; for he knew that he would be raised again, and therefore awaited to lift up Adam as he lay. Whence, when we run well in the way, let us beware lest anywhere a serpent lurk in the path and undermine the footstep of the horse, that is, of our body, and suddenly cast down the sleeping rider. For if we are watchful, we ought to take heed in some measure and turn aside the bite of the serpent. Let not, therefore, the sleep of negligence oppress us, the sleep of the world; let not the sleep of riches oppress us, lest it be said also of us: 'They slept their sleep, and all the men of riches found nothing in their hands.' But there are also sleeping horsemen, of whom it is written:

'They slumbered who mounted the horses.' If avarice wounds your breast, if lust inflames it, you sleep as a horseman, and therefore you cannot rein in your body, that is, your horse. Watch, therefore, that even if you are cast down—that is, even if you die—you may not fall asleep. For they who sleep their own sleep find nothing; but you, await salvation from the Lord, look for it to come, that you may find the grace of resurrection. Judas was sleeping: indeed, he did not hear the words of Christ. Judas was sleeping, and that the sleep of riches, who sought a wage from betrayal. The devil saw him sleeping and oppressed by the heavy sleep of avarice; he flung himself into his heart, wounded the horse, cast down the rider, whom he separated from Christ.

Moses blessed this tribe, saying: 'Dan is a lion's whelp, and he shall leap out from Bashan'—that is, from confusion. Whence, according to the Greek, from which the Latin translated, we ought rather to understand that Dan himself became a serpent lying in the way. Dan is interpreted 'judgment,' and therefore that tribe underwent the grave peril of judgment, into which the serpent Antichrist glided, who wounds the runner with his venoms. But nevertheless that tribe shall be set free from confusion, when it shall have confessed the rising Rider, who says: 'He who has been ashamed of me before men, him will I also be ashamed of before my Father who is in heaven. But he who has confessed me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in heaven.'

'Gad—temptation shall tempt him, and he himself shall tempt them at the feet.' Temptation is the gathering and cunning of the scribes and priests, who tempted the Lord Jesus concerning the tribute of Caesar and concerning John's baptism, as Scripture has taught; upon whom the Lord Jesus, in his own righteousness, turned back the temptation. 'At the feet,' that is, replying at once without any deliberation, whereby he the more confounded those who tempted him. For when they said, 'By what authority do you do these things?', he did not answer their inquiries, but himself also put forth a question, saying: 'I too will ask you one word. If you tell me, I also will tell you by what authority I do these things.' Again, when they said, 'Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?', he said: 'Why do you tempt me, hypocrites?

Show me the coin of the tribute.' And when they offered it, he again asked: 'Whose is this image and superscription?' They say to him: 'Caesar's.' There, then, he bound them with their own words, constrained them by their own admission—then he said to them: 'Render the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and the things that are God's to God'—so that they could not contradict their own words. Finally, marveling, they went away from him. But it is no wonder if he 'replied at the feet,' who saw before his feet. Moses plainly set forth that this prophecy of holy Jacob is concerning Christ; for thus he says: 'Blessed is he who enlarged Gad. As a lion he rested, breaking the arms and the princes. And he saw from his beginning that there the land of the assembled princes was divided together with the princes of the peoples;'

'the Lord did righteousness and judgment in Israel.' We recognize, therefore, who it is that rested like a lion, when he had broken the arms of the mighty, because from the beginning he saw the divisions of the tempters. There, then, is the opening of the earth which swallows up the slanderers, where the temptation of the faithless is. 'Asher—rich is his bread, and he himself shall give food to princes.' Asher in the Latin interpretation signifies 'riches.' Who, then, is rich, except where there is the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God? Who is rich except the Lord Jesus, who always abounds and never fails? Poor, he came into this world, and he abounded toward all, he filled all. How great is he in riches, who by his own poverty made all rich! But poor for our sake, rich with the Father.

He was poor in order to vindicate us from want, as the Apostle teaches, saying: 'that for your sakes he became poor, though he was rich, so that by his poverty you might be enriched.' By whose poverty he enriches, his hem heals, his hunger satisfies, his death gives life, his burial raises up. This, then, is the rich treasure, whose bread is rich. And well 'rich,' which whoever eats shall not be able to hunger. This bread he gave to the apostles, that they might distribute it to the people of believers; and even today he gives it to us, which he himself as priest daily consecrates with his own words. This bread, then, has become the food of the saints. We can also receive the Lord himself, who gave us his own flesh, as he himself says: 'I am the bread of life.'

'Your fathers ate manna in the desert and died; but this is the bread which came down from heaven, that if anyone eats of it he may not die.' And lest anyone suppose that he speaks of that death which comes through the separation of soul and body, and rightly doubt, since he knows that the holy apostles died this death, he added: 'I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this, he shall live forever.' That is: I did not speak above of temporal life, nor of the death of this life—by which even if anyone dies, yet if he receives my bread, he shall live forever. For he receives who proves himself; but he who receives shall not die the death of a sinner, because this bread is the remission of sins.

Moses too most beautifully prophesied in his blessings, saying: 'Blessed of his sons is Asher, and he shall be accepted by his brothers, and he shall dip his foot in oil. Iron and bronze shall be his sandal, and as your days are, so shall your strengths be. There is none like your God in heaven, your helper, both great and comely, the firmament's, and the protecting God of the beginning and through the strength of mighty arms. And he shall cast out the enemy from your face, saying: Let him perish. And Israel shall dwell trusting alone upon the land of Jacob, in grain and wine, and your heaven shall be to you with a cloud of dew.' 'Naphtali is a vine let loose, putting forth beauty in its shoot.'

One shoot of the vine is cut away, which seems useless, lest the vine run riot in the empty luxuriance of its shoots; another is for a little while pruned back and let loose, that it may bear fruit, whose beauty is put forth in its offspring, because, while it lifts itself toward things above, it embraces the vine, and ascending to the summit clothes the joined necks of the vines, as it were, with the necklace of a precious branch. There is also that beauty in the offspring, because with full branches it pours forth abundant fruits. This is comely, but much more beautiful is that which signifies the branch clinging to the spiritual Vine, whose shoot we are, and we can bear fruit if we abide in the Vine; but if not, we are cut off. The holy patriarch Naphtali was an abundant branch. Whence Moses says:

'Naphtali, the satisfaction of those who receive; he shall be filled with blessing from the Lord, he shall possess the sea and the south'—explaining what Jacob had said, that he is 'a vine let loose,' that is, stripped of the bonds of death through the grace of faith; in which is signified the people of God, called to the liberty of faith and to the abundance of grace, spread throughout the whole world, who clothe the yoke of Christ with good fruit and embrace the wood of that true Vine, that is, the mysteries of the Lord's cross, and fear not the peril of confessing him, but rather, even when set in persecutions, glory in the name of Christ. This is he who is truly let loose from bonds, who is bound by no chain of fear—whence the prophet also says:

'They shall go out and leap like calves loosed from their bonds'—and therefore in his shoot he puts forth beauty, because, set in a place of pasture and reared beside the water of refreshment through the sacraments of his regeneration, he buds forth the good beauty of the Word and is taken up into that most beautiful grace of Christ, who can increase the loveliness of your beauty. Indeed, comely above all, he gives what he has, because no one can give what he does not have; and therefore it is said: 'The Lord has reigned, he has clothed himself with beauty.' For the grace of the Church has put on beauty, which, laying aside in that laver the foulness of all its offenses, shone with the splendor of heavenly grace. And therefore the Bridegroom says of her:

'Who is this that looks forth as the dawn, fair as the moon, choice as the sun, a marvel like an ornament?' Now, that we may conclude the history as it were with a kind of epilogue—just as the divine Scripture itself is brought to a close—let us set forth the prophecy of holy Jacob concerning the name of holy Joseph: 'My son to be enlarged, Joseph; my son to be enlarged, the object of envy; my younger son, return to me. Against whom, taking counsel together, they cursed him, and aimed at him the bow of the Lord. And their bow was crushed with might, and the sinews of the arms of their hand were loosed by the hands of the mighty one of Jacob; and thence Israel prevailed by the God of your father.'

'And my God helped you and blessed you with the blessing of heaven from above and with the blessing of the earth that has all things, because of the blessing of the breasts and of the womb, the blessings of your father and your mother. They prevailed above the blessings of the abiding mountains and above the desires of the everlasting hills: they shall be upon the head of Joseph and upon the crown of those brothers over whom he was set.' What is the reason that the father attended Joseph above all his sons more abundantly, except that in him he saw the mysteries prefiguring Christ? Whence, blessing rather him who was awaited than him who was seen, he says: 'My son to be enlarged, Joseph.' Who is to be enlarged except Christ, whose grace is ever increased, and whose glory has no end of its advance?

Of whom John also says: 'He must increase, but I must decrease,' because through that saving and perfect name of his, grace was heaped up in this world and abounded—'my son to be enlarged.' And therefore, because the brothers saw him increasing, they began to envy him; and Joseph, understood spiritually, incurred envy from those whom he the more cherished. Finally he was saying: 'I came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' And they were saying: 'We do not know whence he is.' He was caring for them, and they were denying him. 'My son,' he says, 'the younger.' Truly the younger, who was almost the last in birth. Finally, Scripture too says: 'Jacob loved him, because he was the son of his old age.' This too is referred to Christ.

For to the world growing old and now declining, the Son of God, shining forth, came late through the childbearing of the Virgin Mary. As the son of old age, according to the mystery, he received a body—he who was before the ages always with the Father. Whence the Father says to him: 'Return to me,' calling him back to heaven from the earth, him whom for our salvation he had sent. And so, raising up his only-begotten Son, he made void the counsel of those who cursed—whence Isaiah also says: 'The counsel of your spirit is vain'—and he loosed all the revilings which, as though hurling arrows, they were directing. He crushed the power of those who trusted in their own strengths and not in God. 'Thence,' he says, 'Israel prevailed by the God of your father. And my God helped you.'

Who is it that strengthened Israel and helped the Son, except God the Father alone, who said: 'Jacob my child, I will sustain him; Israel my elect, my soul shall receive him'? 'And he blessed him with the blessing of heaven from above and with the blessing of the earth that has all things'; for he subjected all things to him, the heavenly as the blessing of heaven and the earthly as the blessing of earth, that he might rule over both men and angels. And so 'in that as it were contemptible body you prevailed,' he says, 'because of the blessing of the breasts and of the womb, the blessings of your father and your mother.'

By 'breasts' he meant either the two Testaments, by the one of which he was announced, by the other shown forth—and well 'breasts,' since the Son nourished and reared us as it were with a kind of spiritual milk and offered us to God—or he means the breasts of Mary, which were truly blessed, by which the holy Virgin gave the drink of milk to the people of the Lord. Whence also that woman in the Gospel says: 'Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!' But as to what he says:

'the womb, the blessing of your father and your mother'—if we should wish to understand only the womb of Mary, the reason will lie hidden why he joined both blessings—for he could have spoken of the womb of the mother alone—but I think it more beautiful that, according to the spiritual mystery, we understand both generations of the Lord Jesus, both according to divinity and according to the flesh, since before the ages he was begotten of the Father. Whence the Father also says: 'My heart has belched forth a good Word,' in that he proceeded from that innermost and incomprehensible substance of the Father and is ever in him. Whence the Evangelist also says: 'No one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; he has declared him.'

As, therefore, the 'bosom' of the Father is understood as a spiritual thing, a certain innermost secret of the paternal love and nature, in which the Son ever is, so also the 'womb' of the Father is a spiritual thing of the inner hidden mystery, from which, as from a generative womb, the Son proceeded. Finally, we now read variously of the 'womb' of the Father, now of his 'heart,' by which he belched forth the Word, now of his 'mouth,' from which righteousness proceeded, from which wisdom went forth, as she herself says: 'I came forth from the mouth of the Most High.' Thus, since the One is not defined and the one signifies all things, it signifies rather the spiritual mystery of the paternal generation than any bodily member.

But as we understand that generation from the Father, so also, for the completion of faith, let us understand the generation from Mary, when the womb of the mother is blessed—that womb, namely, the virginal womb of Mary, which brought forth to us the Lord Jesus. Of whom the Father says through Jeremiah the prophet: 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you came forth from the womb of your mother, I sanctified you.' The prophet therefore declared a twofold substance in Christ, of divinity and of flesh, the one from the Father, the other from the Virgin, yet so that he was not without share of his divinity, when he was born of the Virgin and was in a body. 'Whence also he grew strong above all the mountains and the desires of the everlasting hills.'

For above all those men of sublime merit—the patriarchs and prophets and apostles, and even beyond the sun, the moon, the archangels—he flashed forth like the light of heaven, as he himself says: 'The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above the lord.' For which of them was there to whom all things were subjected—to whom he himself gave what they were? In whom all his saints are blessed, because he himself is the Head of all above the heads of all—for the head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ—and above the crowns of all, because he himself is the preeminent Crown of the universe; but he is the most exalted Crown of the just, whom he calls brothers, won through grace and a certain fellowship of regeneration.

Whence also by the 'brothers' of Joseph we understand rather those brothers of whom he says in the Psalm: 'I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the Church I will sing to you.' Finally, Moses too, about to complete the course of this life, when he blessed the tribe of Joseph, was blessing not that Joseph now indeed deceased, but Christ, as you have it written of Joseph: 'From the blessing of the Lord is his land, from the bounds of heaven and from the dew and from the deeps of fountains below, and according to the season of the sun's course, and from the conjunctions of the months, and from the summit of the mountains from the beginning, and from the summit of the everlasting hills, and according to the season of the earth's fullness; and from him who appeared in the bush, may it come upon the head of Joseph and upon his crown, honored among his brothers.'

His glory is as the firstling of the bull, his horns are like the horns of the unicorn; with them shall he winnow the nations together, even to the uttermost parts of the earth. These are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and these the thousands of Manasseh. The blessing is the same, which holds all the fullness of things heavenly and earthly and the special grace of Christ, who, when He was seen in the bush, said to Moses himself: 'Loose the sandal from your feet'; who is God over all things, since He Himself is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He Himself might hold the primacy, for in Him it pleased God that all fullness should dwell. And therefore to Him alone is borne the prerogative of this blessing, from the height of heaven to the uttermost parts of the earth.

For He Himself is before all things, and in Him all things consist, who also by the blood of His cross made peace with all things, whether they be things on earth or things in heaven. Bearing the figure of Him, holy Joseph is beautifully blessed, that he might be honored among his brethren: 'His glory is as the firstling of the bull, having the horns of the unicorn, with which he shall winnow the nations.' And He is a good bull, as a victim for sins and a sacrifice for the whole world, that He might make peace with all things. His glory is holy; for every firstborn is holy, as we have shown elsewhere, whence Levi merited to be called firstborn, not by the order of age, but by the prerogative of sacred succession. And truly holy is His glory, of whom it is written, when He rose again:

He is fairer in form than the sons of men, for He Himself is the firstborn from the dead, having the horns of the unicorn. But since it speaks of horns, how it could set them as belonging to the unicorn must be inquired, since the unicorn itself, as the learned say, is not found among the breeds of wild beasts. And therefore we ought rather to understand 'the one Word,' since the substantial Word of God is one, not many words. Whence also Hannah says: 'The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth, and shall give strength to His king, and shall exalt the horn of His Christ'; and Isaiah says: 'A vineyard was made for the beloved on a horn, in a fruitful place,' since in the only-begotten Son of God the Church flourishes, holding the one Word of God, in whom is the fullness of power and wisdom, by whose richness the harvest of faith sprang up.

It is this Word that the saints follow. 'Ten thousands,' he says, 'of Ephraim, and thousands of Manasseh,' that is: let Him have dominion over both Jews and Gentiles, and from both peoples gain for Himself the fullness of the Church. And therefore holy Jacob placed his right hand upon Ephraim, because she who speaks in the Song of Songs proclaims Him: 'My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of ten thousands.' Lastly, the young women too proclaimed the author of David and of Mary, from whose succession Christ was born through the Virgin's childbearing, 'by ten thousands,' but Saul 'by thousands,' although for reverence's sake they ought rather to have given greater weight to the king. He therefore who has exalted the horn of Christ, confessing His glory, himself also receives horns.

Hence also the saints are called unicorns in a verse of the psalm: 'And the beloved is as the son of the unicorns.' For just as in an animal of this kind, when horns rise up for it, this signifies the advance of fuller age, so when horns begin to sprout from a certain head of our soul, they seem to signify the advance of a more perfect virtue, and they grow so long as they may be completed. With this horn the Lord Jesus broke the nations in pieces, that He might crush superstition and restore salvation, as He Himself says: 'I will strike and I will heal.' And therefore the prophet, as it were an imitator of this bull, says: 'In you we will winnow our enemies,' that is, destroying every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. And therefore, according to the law, clean animals have horns;

for the law is spiritual. For those who are able by the word of God and by the keeping of virtue to drive off the allurements of this world seem to be defended by their horns, as by certain weapons of their own head. And rightly is the power of the wondrous word called a horned trumpet, which kindles the good soldiers of Christ to battle, that we may carry off spoils from the enemy, the devil. We are therefore in the battle-line, and we see very many of our own held captive in the camp of the adversaries. These must be stripped by us of the most grievous yoke of servitude. The devil has very many wolves, which he sends against the sheep of Christ. And therefore the spiritual Joseph, in order to save his sheep, seized that very enemy who came to plunder the sheep, making the wolf Paul into a teacher out of a persecutor.

Concerning whom Jacob says, as it is written: 'Benjamin is a ravening wolf; in the morning he shall still devour, and at evening he shall divide the spoil to the princes.' He was a wolf when he scattered and devoured the sheep of the Church; but he who had come as a wolf was made a shepherd. He was a wolf when he was Saul, when he entered into houses and dragged men and women into prison. He was a wolf when, breathing out threats and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, he sought letters from the chief priests, that he might fall upon the little servants of Christ. Whom, as a wolf wandering in the darkness of night, Jesus blinded by pouring forth His light.

Therefore Rachel, when she bore Benjamin, called his name 'the son of my sorrow,' prophesying that from that tribe would come Paul, who would afflict the children of the Church in the time of his persecution and vex their mother with grievous sorrow. Yet nevertheless the same man afterward, at a later time, divided food to the princes, preaching the word of God to the Gentiles and drawing very many to faith, who, when he disputed, like the deputy Paulus the proconsul and Publius the chief man, received the grace of the Lord. And beautifully too did Moses, when he blessed the tribe of Benjamin, say: 'The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in confidence, and God shall overshadow him all the days, and the beloved of the Lord shall rest between the shoulders.' He also was made a chosen vessel;

for he was not converted otherwise than by the mercy and love of the Lord. Whence he himself, attributing nothing to his own merit but referring all to Christ, says: 'For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain.' He dwelt in confidence in the house which before he laid waste; he dwelt in the tabernacles of Christ, who before wandered like a wolf in the woods; and God overshadowed him, when Christ was seen by him. Although with open eyes he saw nothing, yet he saw Christ; and rightly did he see Him present whom he also heard speaking. This overshadowing is not of blindness, but of grace. Lastly, it is said to Mary:

'The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you.' 'And he shall rest between the shoulders,' that is, amid good deeds and precious works. For above too you have that Issachar 'put his shoulder to labor and became a man of husbandry.' Imitating him, Paul set the new seedlings of faith, and therefore, like a good farmer, said: 'I planted, Apollos watered.'