For indeed, signifying through another instance the power of the mystery of the cross, God spoke through Moses in the blessing with which he blessed Joseph: 'From the blessing of the Lord is his land, from the seasons of heaven and the dews, and from the deep of the springs below, and according to the season of the produce of the sun's turnings, and from the conjunctions of the months, and from the top of the ancient mountains, and from the top of the everlasting hills, and from the ever-flowing rivers, and from the fullness of the fruits of the earth. And let the things acceptable to Him who appeared in the bush come upon the head of Joseph and upon his crown. Glorified among his brethren as firstborn, his beauty is as that of a bull; his horns are the horns of a unicorn; with them he shall gore the nations together, even to the ends of the earth.'
For one could not say or demonstrate that the horns of a unicorn pertain to any other object or figure than to the type that represents the cross. For there is one upright piece of wood, from whose topmost part the highest part rises up like a horn; and when the other piece of wood is fitted on, the ends appear on either side like horns joined to the one horn; and the piece fixed in the middle, like a horn, projects out from it too—on which those being crucified are mounted—and it too is seen as a horn, shaped together and fixed along with the other horns.
And the phrase 'With them he shall gore the nations together, even to the ends of the earth' is indicative of what has now come to pass among all the nations. For having been gored—that is, pricked to the heart—those from all the nations have been turned through this mystery to the worship of God, away from vain idols and demons; while to the unbelieving the same figure is shown to be for their dissolution and condemnation; just as in the case of the people who came out of Egypt, through both the type of the stretching out of the hands of Moses and the invocation of the name of Jesus by the son of Nun, Amalek was defeated while Israel prevailed.
And through the type and sign set up against the serpents that bit Israel, the lifting up appears to have taken place for the salvation of those who believe—because from then on it was proclaimed beforehand to the serpent that death would come about through Him who was to be crucified, but salvation to those bitten by it who flee for refuge to the One who sent His crucified Son into the world. For the prophetic Spirit did not teach us through Moses to believe in a serpent, since it shows that he was cursed by God from the beginning, and in Isaiah signifies that he will be destroyed as an enemy by the great sword, which is Christ.