On Jacob and the Happy Life 2.23–2.50

No enemy, then, can seize your soul unless it has first been made empty. Do not fear, then, those who can plunder treasures of gold and silver. They take nothing from you. For they take what you did not have, they take what you could not possess, they take what did not adorn your soul but burdened it, they take what did not enrich your heart but rather weighed it down; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also, as you heard read today. Many shut up their gold with the bolts of their doors, but they do not trust even their bars and locks; many employ watchmen, but they usually fear the guards themselves more; many brood over buried gold: their gold is under the earth and their heart is under the earth. Beware, then, lest you too bury your heart alive in the earth. The thieves of this gold, then, are not to be feared; that moneylender must be guarded against, who searches the substance of your soul to see whether you have contracted any debts of graver sin, who shuts your heart in the soil, who buries your soul under the same turf with which you covered your gold, who bends your mind under the interest of hundredths and buries it in a heavy tomb from which no one rises. Follow holy Jacob, who had nothing of others' vices and was not empty and void of his own virtues, who was filled with the fruit of righteousness.

But these are moral matters; this is the mystical one: that Laban, that is, 'whitened,' came to him, because Satan too disguises himself as an angel of light, and began to demand his own from him. Jacob answered him: 'See if anything of yours is with me,' that is: I have nothing of yours. Search, if you recognize any of your vices and crimes. I have taken nothing of your frauds with me, I have no fellowship with your guile; I have fled all that is yours as a contagion. And Laban searched and found nothing of his own. How happy the man in whom the enemy found nothing he could call his own, in whom the devil came upon nothing he could recognize as his! This seemed impossible in a man, but he bore the type of him who said in the gospel: 'The prince of this world will come and will find nothing in me.' For whatever belongs to the devil is nothing, since it can have no permanence or substance.

It is the Lord Jesus himself who was foreshadowed in Jacob, a man of two marriages, that is, a partner, as it were, of law and grace. He loved the virgin Rachel first and loved her with devoted affection as destined for him in marriage. But since Leah, like the law, came in alongside and crept in with weaker eyes, like the synagogue, which by blindness of mind could not see Christ, the grace of holy Rachel abounded more, who was sought beyond that first marriage, who already then signified by the meaning of her name the future primacy of the church. Blessed Rachel, who took away her reproach by her childbearing! Blessed Rachel, who hid the worship and errors of the gentiles and declared that their idols were full of uncleanness! Let no one think that the reverence of filial duty was violated because she sat while her father stood, since it is written: 'Whoever puts father or mother before me is not worthy of me.' Where the cause of religion was at stake, faith had to hold the judge's seat and faithlessness had to stand as a defendant. These things were proved to the point that the angels of God met holy Jacob as he set out.

Then he saw the camp of God drawing near and said: 'This is the camp of God'; for divine protection is wont to be present to the perfect and faithful. And being perfect, he was thinking about reconciliation with his brother, so as to invite him by humility, win him by services, and he thought he might even buy him with gifts. So he went to meet his brother with his wives and children, so that even if he was angry with him, he might be moved by the deference of kinship.

'And he bowed down seven times to the ground.' What does this mean? The law says: 'You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone'; and here he bows down to an intemperate, angry man, threatening the crime of fratricide. Or did he bow down to that earth, clotted with human blood, soaked with the poisons of serpents, or barren with wretched gravel, or bristling with hard and rough rocks? What, too, does it mean that he bowed down seven times? The solution would stick, did not this occur to us: that when Peter asked in the gospel, 'If my brother sins against me, how often shall I forgive him? Up to seven times?' the Lord Jesus answered: 'Not only seven times, but seventy times seven.' This, then, the holy patriarch signifies by the prophetic Spirit, looking to him who was to come, who would command that pardon be granted to a brother not only seven times but seventy times seven, so that Esau, moved by the sight of this, might forgive his brother the wrong he thought he had received and, though hurt, return to favor; for the Lord Jesus was to take on flesh and come to earth for this purpose, to give us manifold pardon for our offenses.

Then, about to seek concord from his brother, he slept in the camp. Perfect virtue has tranquillity and the stability of rest; therefore the Lord reserved this gift for the more perfect, saying: 'My peace I leave you, my peace I give you.' For it belongs to the perfect not to be easily moved by worldly things, not to be troubled by fear, not to be harried by suspicion, not shaken by terror, not vexed by pain, but, as on a very safe shore, to calm the mind, immovable at its faithful station, against the rising waves of worldly storms. This firmness Christ brought into Christian minds, bringing inner peace into the souls of the approved, so that our heart may not be troubled nor our soul harried. The apostle, the teacher, declared that this peace is above every mind, saying: 'And the peace of God, which surpasses every mind, will guard your hearts and thoughts in Christ Jesus.' The fruit of peace, then, is not to be disturbed in heart. Indeed the life of the just is quiet, but the unjust man is full of restlessness and disturbance. And so the ungodly man is more afflicted by his own suspicions than most are by others' blows, and the welts of the wounds are greater in his soul than in the bodies of those who are beaten by others.

It is a great thing for someone to be tranquil within himself and at one with himself. Outward peace is sought either by the anxious foresight of an emperor or by the hand of soldiers, or it comes from the favorable outcome of wars or from some slaughter of barbarians if they turn their arms against one another in hostile commotion. In that peace there is no virtue of ours, only an outcome. Certainly the glory of that peace is credited to the emperor; the fruit of this peace, which is in minds and held in the affections of individuals, is in us. The fruit of this peace is greater, by which the temptations of spiritual wickedness are repelled, than that by which enemy arms are repelled. This peace, which shuts out the enticements of bodily passions and calms disturbances, is loftier than that which quiets the incursions of barbarians; for it is more to resist an enemy shut up within you than one far away.

And so Jacob, who had cleansed his heart of all ill will and bore a peaceable disposition, after he had sent away all his possessions, remained alone and wrestled with God. For whoever disregards worldly things comes nearer to the image and likeness of God. For what is it to wrestle with God but to take up the contest of virtue, to grapple with one who is higher, and to become an imitator of God better than the rest? And because his faith and devotion were unconquerable, the Lord revealed hidden mysteries to him by touching the breadth of his thigh, because from his descent the Lord Jesus was to be born of a virgin, who would be neither unlike nor unequal to God. His cross was signified by the breadth of the numbed thigh, because, by the remission of sin spread through the whole world, he would be the bringer of salvation to all, who by the numbness and sleep of his body would grant the resurrection of the dead. Hence not without reason the sun rose upon holy Jacob, upon whose race the saving cross of the Lord shone; and at the same time because the sun of righteousness rises for one who sees God, for he himself is the eternal light.

And Jacob limped on his thigh. Because of this the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew even today. Would that they had eaten and believed! But since they were not going to do the will of God, therefore they did not eat. There are also some who take it this way: that Jacob limped on one thigh because, of the two peoples flowing from his descent, the numbness of one toward the grace of faith was already then declared to be coming. That, then, is the people which limped with the numbness of faithlessness.

Then, not long after a revelation of this kind, when Dinah, Jacob's daughter, had been violated by the son of a foreigner and the modesty of her virginity defiled, her brothers, who did not understand the mystery, out of zeal for vengeance slew the foreigners, who were offering fellowship in faith through the joining of their race; but Jacob, who by moral gentleness loved clemency, or by the mystical spirit foresaw the sacrament of the church to be gathered from the nations, received that scene of exacted vengeance unwillingly and with grief. Hence a divine answer was given to him as he prophesied the coming of the Lord Jesus: 'Rise and go up to the place Bethel,' that is, to the house of bread, where Christ was born, as the prophet Micah testifies, saying: 'And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come forth a ruler in Israel, and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.' Truly a house of bread, which is the house of Christ, who came to us from heaven as the bread of salvation, so that now no one hungers who gains for himself the food of immortality. There the patriarch is commanded to dwell, there to make an altar to God who appeared to him. There he received the foreign gods and hid them under the terebinth; there too Rachel was buried 'on the way,' it says, 'to Ephrathah; this is Bethlehem.' There too Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. What great mysteries, since there is the church of God, in which God appears and speaks with his servants!

There the idols of the gentiles are seized and hidden; for the faith of the church has abolished every observance of paganism. But I ask why he hid them under the mastic tree. Certainly that kind of tree is unfruitful. There, then, are the gods of the gentiles, where there is no fruit. There the earrings of the gentiles are buried, which they gave to Jacob, so that they may now become accustomed to hear a new tongue, may not know the old sleep of faithlessness, may have their ears deafened to sacrilege and be cleansed for grace. Not without reason did holy Daniel detect there the false testimony against Susanna. For faithlessness wished still to plant its roots there, but it could not hide, because it was detected by the prophetic Spirit. And the elder's error matched the true confession, that he should say chastity had been defiled there where the idols of the gentiles were buried; but the truth of the church did not cover faithlessness but hid it, and stopped the ears of paganism.

Fittingly too holy Rachel was buried there, because all who are baptized in Christ are buried with him. For so we are taught by the apostle, who says: 'For we were buried with him through baptism into death,' so that as he rose from death, raised by his own power, so we too may rise by his grace. Then truly every error of the gentiles is hidden, when someone has been washed from his vices, because our old man, nailed to the cross, no longer knows how to serve the old sin. Fittingly too a pillar is set up over Rachel's tomb, because the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth.

Jacob grew old, and he had already grown old in character before; but in him the tireless vigor of youth and the tranquillity of old age competed. For there is both an old age green with grace and a youth gray with counsels, of which Scripture says: 'For venerable old age and the age of old age is a spotless life.' Of this life was Jacob, who by good works anticipated the time of long old age, so that he both picked its fruit before the time and did not fear its last days when they came. Happy indeed is the young man who lives well, but happy too the old man who has lived well. For what the young man hopes for the older has obtained; what the old man has been, the young man wishes to be. Certainly the one, with a longer course still before him on a restless sea, is tossed by the waves; but the old man is in the haven of old age as in a harbor. Such was Jacob, who held the goods hardly to be hoped for by the young safe and secure, already shut and sealed with the key of grace. And to possess is better than still to hope. Jacob, then, was the old man to whom the young, struck by the storm of some time of adversity, betook themselves as to a harbor; while he himself, set as it were on a watchtower of this life, kept watch with anxious affection and foresaw remedies long before in doubtful matters. Indeed there was famine in all the land: whether the old man, laid aside, was the first to hear what the eager young men did not know

… I shall see. Meanwhile he was the first to advise his sons that grain abounded in Egypt and that they must go there to buy what they needed for their use. He also willingly gave way to the young men's counsel, so as to send his youngest son with them. And when they reported that his son Joseph was alive, he, though weakened in body yet vigorous in strength of soul, did not wait for his son to come to him, but went instead to his son; for with filial love the measure of rank does not weigh more. So he felt none of the hindrances of weary old age as he went; for love lightened the labor. But when he had enjoyed the fruit of his recovered son for some time, namely seventeen years, which in view of the patriarch's long life is a small portion of time, he knew that the end of his life was drawing near; he called his son Joseph and bound him by the future heir of his line not to bury him in Egypt; and having received his pledge, when a little later he fell ill and his son Joseph came to him, as though his strength had returned he sat up on his bed and blessed the twelve patriarchs and prophesied.

Let some now say that Jacob was not happy when he was in the very days of his death, he who mingled almost more conversation with God than with men; not happy when his eyes were heavy with age and he could not see — for to some blindness seems a grievous hardship of misfortune. But even then Jacob was happy, because he discerned in the Spirit those whom he could not discern with his eyes and sight. He saw things to come, who was thought not to see things present. Indeed Joseph himself erred: when he had placed his elder son at Jacob's right hand and his younger son at his left, so that the order of age might keep the order of blessing, Jacob stretched out his right hand over the younger grandson and his left over the elder; and when his son wished to move his father's right hand onto Manasseh, the elder, he answered: 'I know, my son, I know; this one too will become a people and will be exalted; but his younger brother will be greater than he.' And he added the reason for the preference, saying: 'His seed will be a multitude of nations.' So much better did he see, though his bodily sight was impaired, that he taught the one who saw that he had erred. For who sees better than one who sees Christ? Or who can call him impaired in his eyes who saw the church shining in Christ? Is it not clear, then, that weakness cannot hinder happiness? He, impaired in the gift of his eyes, he, with the strength of his body worn out, leaving his body on the bed as in a tomb, rose up within himself, and, gathering himself far from others and within himself, had withdrawn from present things and mingled with the coming age of the last days. For so it is written: 'I will announce to you,' he says, 'what will befall you in the last days.'

What, then, did he lack, with whom God was present, who had said to him as he was setting out: 'I will go down with you into Egypt, and I will lead you forever'? Nor was God lacking when the Holy Spirit spoke in him. Who is as powerful in his own home as he was in another's? Who as abundant in plenty as he in famine? Who as strong in youth as he in old age? Who as active in business as he at rest? Who as swift in the race as he on his bed? Who as glad in the flower of youth as he at the border of death? Who as rich in a kingdom as he in a foreign land? Indeed he blessed kings. And rightly he was not poor, who lacked nothing; he was not poor, who did not think himself poor. And who would call him poor, of whose company the world was not worthy, and therefore his citizenship was in heaven? He was very rich in the riches of simplicity and sincerity, comely with a greater beauty of soul than of body, which knows no withering, unflagging in age, free to leave this bodily hovel when he wished and to penetrate the heights of paradise by the vigor of his mind, exulting in spirit when he gave directions for the last rites of burial. For he did not presume that he would be shut in an earthly tomb, but received into a heavenly dwelling. And therefore he gave directions about the tomb as if for another; secure for himself, he thought that death to be immortality. He seemed entangled in the hindrance of the body, and with watchful affection he ran ahead into future times, saying of the persecutors of the Lord, the authors of wickedness who were to come forth from the tribe of Simeon and Levi: 'Let my soul not come into their counsel, and let my inward parts not strive to meet them.' Who is as strong in might as he was strong in weakness, who said: 'Cursed be their fury, for it was proud and rash, and their wrath, for it was hardened; I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel'?

Who is as melodious in songs as he was in his words, who was heard throughout the world, who is heard through all peoples and all ages? Who, rendering in sweet measures the seven differences of notes, ever rang out as he did with the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit? Though his limbs were loosened, yet lifting himself up in soul and raising himself in spirit, he did not seek the harmony of his body, like a cithara destroyed when the frame of its members was broken up, but, despising it with lofty mind, let it lie idle on the ground, while he soothed himself with inner song and delighted himself with prophetic melody, saying: 'Judah, may your brothers praise you; your hands are on the back of your enemies; the sons of your father shall bow down to you. Judah is a lion's whelp; from a shoot you went up, my son; lying down you slept like a lion and like a lion's whelp; who shall rouse him?' And further on: 'He will wash his robe in wine and his garment in the blood of the grape. His eyes are glad with wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.' What song is sweeter, what sound more pleasant than the remission of sins and the resurrection of the dead? This song holy David, that instrument of the divine voice and interpreter of the Lord's word, sang on the spiritual cithara. With these melodies of grace he soothed that lofty soul and mind; with this song he softened the harshness of this world, with this sound he softened the hardness of the age, with this psaltery he broke the terror of death, with this sweetness of strings he trampled down hell.

But let us hear also the other things that the holy patriarch Jacob sounded forth on that wonderful instrument of his mind: 'Naphtali is a vine let loose, putting forth beauty in its shoot. My son Joseph is increased, my son increased, my son sought with jealousy, my youngest son, return to me.' And further on: 'He has prevailed above the blessings of the abiding mountains and the desires of the everlasting hills.' What is sweeter than blessing, what more pleasing than eternity? The very words are a song, and in the words are great rewards of prayers and the heights of merits. What is sweeter than holy Joseph, who freed us from reproach by the mystery of the Lord's cross?

For just as Christ became a curse to undo the curse of the law, and became sin to take away the sin of the world, so he became a reproach to remove the reproach of the gentiles; but that reproach of Christ was reckoned more precious than the treasures of Egypt. And therefore Moses left the palace of King Pharaoh and chose the reproach of faith, and the seas were divided for that reproach. He himself, then, is Naphtali, the vine let loose through the whole world, to pour into all peoples the richness of the spiritual cup; he is the one increased, having the name above every name, who, since he offered himself to death for all, therefore hears from the Father: 'Return to me.' Jacob spoke and God was heard; he blessed, and the Lord resounded, saying to the Son: 'Return to me,' that is, return after the passion. Return to your throne, return with the trophy, return to me, so that the dead may follow you as you rise and may rise by your power and example alike, so that you may become the firstborn from the dead and sit at the right hand of the Father. Hence the Son too said: 'Hereafter you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power.'

Will anyone deny that Jacob was happy at the very last moment of death, when he was pouring out divine oracles? Deny that Joseph was happy in prison, where by the spirit of wisdom he interpreted the truth of the dreams he had heard and revealed the course of the future? Deny that Isaiah was happy when he was sawn in two, Jeremiah when he was sunk in the mire, holy Daniel when he stood unafraid among the lions and the prophet, snatched up by an angel, brought him his dinner? Not, surely, happy because he dined on another's dinner, but because by his merits he shut the unfed mouths of the lions. And who would not call happy the mother of the Maccabees, who added herself as an eighth to the deaths of her seven sons for the glory of the heavenly triumph?

Nor will I pass over you, Eleazar, a priest as I am a priest, but one to be helped by your prayers: a priest by descent, learned in the law, ripe in years, when you were brought before Antiochus the persecutor, you could neither be caught by temptations, nor swayed by rewards, nor broken by the bitterness of tortures. Indeed he began with flatteries, because he judged that his tortures could be overcome. 'I blush,' he said, 'at your gray hair, I revere your old age, I admire your prudence: why do you think you must abstain from good food that nature bestows? Relax this obstinacy, wake up at last, while I still prefer to persuade you rather than force you, lest, overcome by torments, you do what you refuse when invited by reason.' To this the old man answered: 'We, Antiochus, are not led by stubbornness, but held by reverence for the law, which has commanded us to abstain from pork. You judge it a very fine creature; yet you cannot deny that temperance is better than pleasure, obedience to the law better than transgression. But if you think it a light thing that we should eat pork, how will one who despises the law in the least things keep it in great ones? Or if a creature of that kind is precious, you are avenged in that we are cheated of what is finest. Our abstinence is a training in chastity. For we learn to cut back luxury, overcome desires, shut out lust, resist the pleasures of the body. It is also an exercise of fortitude not to yield to punishments for the law, and a mark of justice and prudence too, to keep in the fear of God, with death set before us, what we have chosen to follow. Who would command free men's food? And who would offer himself to be laughed at by being a slave in this? But you will not laugh. I am not so old that my strength of soul does not grow young.'

So when he was hung up and beaten severely from this side and that, and his aged limbs could no longer bear the punishment of the blows, the executioners and the rackers grew tired; bent to the ground, he kept an unbending mind. And someone, whether pitying his great age or wishing to trap him by temptation, said: 'Just answer that you will eat; we will keep you free of that food.' But he cried out: 'Far be it from me to become, as an old man, an incentive to the error of the young, I who until now was a saving pattern of our way of life. Shall I gain a little more life by these mockeries and sell the labors of my whole life for the brief provision of old age? Old age ought to be the harbor, not the shipwreck, of the former life. I will not deny you, law of our fathers; I will not abjure you, holy institutions of our ancestors; I will not discolor you, priestly fillets; I will not openly defile you, gray hair, with the dust of faithlessness.' Why say more? By dying under torture he became for the rest a teacher of perseverance, who had been chosen as an example of weakness. Happy, then, the man in whom torments could not overcome reason. Is he not happy who could be victor over punishments by strength of soul and, with the oarage of piety, keep his suffering intact amid such waves?

After him seven boys were set up with their mother. One may mock the tyrant, who, thinking it clever to begin with the old man, chose a teacher to make his disciples braver. He tried to lure their boyish age, as it were, into guilt with rewards and to drive them into fear with terrors. But they, not unworthy of so great a leader, answered: 'Why do you despise <us> or trick us as boys? But our faith is gray-haired, our discipline strong. Try it, at least: subject our boyish bodies to whatever punishments you please; you will not find boyish hearts, nor will the engines of torture be more powerful than the watch we keep over the observance of the law. Childhood, rivaling old age, will overcome the man whom old age has defeated. We sons follow our father, we disciples our teacher. Gather the instruments of punishment you have set out: by being seen they bring us a meditation on patience, not the terror of ignorance.'

He ordered the eldest to be chosen. But he said, laughing: 'You rightly keep the order of nature. But why do you think the law of God should be violated? For piety indeed we are all eldest; but I rejoice that it begins with me. What do you seek, tyrant? I confess that we serve the most high God. And you teach us what we ought to do: if you want to wring the truth from us with such persistence, why should we not think we must hold it with all our strength?' Why say more? Punishments of various kinds were applied. But piety conquered the fury of savagery: the soul was driven out, not religion.

The second came forward and, not unworthy of his brother, fulfilled the duties of a pious confession. And when the skin of his head was being torn off, he answered: 'You take away the skin, but I have a spiritual helmet which you cannot take away.' And truly no one can take away this helmet, as the apostle afterward taught in the church of the Lord: that Christ is the head of the man and we are his members. Rightly the boy foresaw this apostolic teaching by the divine Spirit. The savage beasts stripped the crown of his head and raged with leopard-like ferocity. But he, failing, said: 'How sweet it is <to die for religion>, how pleasant every bitterness of death for piety, because the reward of these labors remains! Yours, king, are the heavier torments; you are tortured more severely by hidden punishments, because you see yourself conquered in your power.'

When he too had died, he ordered the third to be set before him. And when he tried partly to trap him by snares and partly wished to strike him with terror, the boy answered him: 'I will not do your will nor yield to your command. By that blessed passion and nobility of my brothers I will not deny our devoted brotherhood. Apply whatever punishments you like; by pressing harder you will gain only this by the harshness of your punishments, that you receive greater testimonies of our brotherhood.' So he ordered his tongue to be cut out. But he cried out: 'You are conquered, Antiochus, you who order the instrument of the voice to be cut off. You have confessed that you cannot answer reason, and you show that the scourges of our tongue are greater than your lashes. For we do not fear your lashes; you cannot bear the scourges of our voice. But these are the scourges of piety, yours the scourges of faithlessness. Yet even when the tongue is removed, it will scourge you more heavily with its murmur as it falls. Do you think you escape, Antiochus, if you snatch away the voice? God hears even the silent, and hears them more. Behold, I have opened my mouth, I have loosed my tongue. Cut off the tongue, but you will not cut off constancy, you will not take away virtue, you will not blot out reason, you will not snatch away the testimony of truth, you will not snatch away the cry of the heart. If the tongue is cut off, the blood will cry out, and it will be said to you: The voice of your brother's blood cries to me. For he hears the voice of blood who hears inner thoughts — though darkness may cover them and the enclosure of walls surround them, let the ungodly say that no witness stands by him — God searches all things, sees all things, and there is no crime that can be hidden from the judge of all, who knows all things before they happen. Why do we give words? Wounds are more eloquent: even if wounds are covered, even if the scar is hidden, faith is not hidden. Yet do not applaud yourself that by taking away the tongue you snatch away the confession of praise. We have praised God enough with speech; now let us praise him with suffering.'

When he too had been killed, he ordered the fourth to be bound to the wheel, so that by its turning he might be loosened in all his limbs. But he, as he was savagely tortured, said: 'You loosen the members of the body, but you add grace to the passion and do not snatch away the comfort of death. For the voice of thunder is in the wheel, because in the good and unhindered course of this life the heavenly oracle resounds, as it resounded in John and James, the sons of thunder. So now I recognize more clearly what I have read, that a wheel runs within a wheel and is not hindered. For a well-rounded life turns in any suffering without any stumbling, and within these things too the wheel runs. The law runs within grace, and the observance of the law is within the course of divine mercy; for the more it is rolled, the more it is proved. It is better here to endure adversity from the ungodly, so that there we may find consolation from the Lord.' And he too, finishing his course, broke off his breath and, as victor, poured out his soul.

When the fifth was set before him, he ordered that after he had first been beaten, fire should be brought to him and flames placed beneath him. Gore flowed from his wounds, and the blood poured out from his dug-out sores put out the very balls of flame; but amid the crackling of the fire he was heard saying: 'Thanks be to you, Lord, that you have given us to say: We have passed through fire, as your same prophet says elsewhere: You have tested us with fire, as silver is tested with fire. I shall stand before you like gold purified by the fire, and if there was any guilt, the fire has burned it away.' And so he too, transformed from corruption to incorruption, breathed out his life.