On the Blessings of the Patriarchs

First of all, how great a reverence we learn to show our parents, when we read that he who was blessed by his father was blessed, and he who was cursed was cursed! God gave this grace to parents so that the devotion of children might be stirred up. The prerogative of parents, then, is the discipline of children. Honor your father, then, that he may bless you. Let the devout son honor his father for the sake of grace, the ungrateful one out of fear. Even if the father is poor and has no wealth of riches to leave his children, he still has the inheritance of a last blessing, by which he may bestow the riches of holiness on his successors. And it is much more to become blessed than 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 Paul was to be the thirteenth apostle, chosen as it were later, a thirteenth tribe, divided into two, might be sanctified from the grandsons Manasseh and Ephraim, so that Paul, the outstanding preacher of the Old and New Testaments, would not be found outside the number of the ancestral tribes and could easily prove that the inheritance of the fatherly blessing had benefited him too.

What splendid mysteries are in this: that Joseph, taking his sons whom he had had in Egypt, Ephraim at his right hand, toward Israel his father's left, and Manasseh at his left, toward Israel's right, brought them before his father; and Israel, stretching out his right hand, put it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger and stood at his grandfather's left, and his left hand on Manasseh, who was at his right, and so, crossing his hands, blessed them! In this Joseph too kept the order of nature, so as to give more to the elder son, just as Isaac too wished to give the blessing to Esau, his first son; but he believed that the younger son should be preferred as a type of the younger people, just as he himself had been preferred by his mother.

Indeed Manasseh is designated by Latin interpretation 'from forgetfulness,' because the people of the Jews forgot its God who made it, and whoever of that people believes is called back, as it were, from forgetfulness. But Ephraim by the interpretation of his name promises fruitfulness of faith, he who increased his father, as Joseph himself says: '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 abandoning its own God.

Indeed the old man declared that this was spiritually a mystery about the peoples. For when his son thought he had erred through the fault of dimmer sight, he wished to shift his hands, saying: 'Not so, father; for this one is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head.' And he would not, but said: 'I know, my son, I know. This one too will become a people, and this one will be exalted; but his younger brother will be greater than he, and his seed will be a multitude of nations.' Indeed he also prophesied by the order of the blessing that Ephraim was to be preferred to his elder brother, saying: 'In you Israel will be blessed, saying: God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.' And therefore, though they were grandsons, they were adopted into the place of sons, so as not to be without a share in their grandfather's blessing.

When this blessing had been given, 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 case he might prefer the grace of the mystery, in this one keep the order of age; and also because he had earlier blessed all in the two, with all the posterity and offspring to come, so that a repeated blessing of the people would not seem superfluous nor the earlier one be thought weak. And rightly he says that he is conferring rather a repeated announcement of what would happen in later times than a blessing.

Indeed he began thus: 'Reuben, my firstborn, you are my strength and the beginning of my sons, hard to bear and hard and rash; you have done insult. Do not boil 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 rebuked rather than blessed? And therefore it is prophecy rather than blessing. For prophecy is the announcement of things to come, blessing the votive conferring of holiness and graces.

The Jews think that the old man says these things to his son Reuben because he lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and defiled his father's bed; but they are easily refuted, for that had happened before, whereas Jacob promises that he will tell what would happen in the last days, not what had been done. So the patriarch's statement is consistent and coherent: seeing the future passion of the Lord at the hands of the persecuting Jews, he curses the monstrous boldness of the firstborn people, which, unbelieving and not subject to God's law, not knowing how to bear the yoke of Christ with its hard neck, injured the author of life not only with the crime of murder but also with the outrage of sacrilegious mockery.

'Do not boil over,' he says, 'like water,' lest it break out into greater madness and the heat of fury and insanity not allow the sinners to come to their senses, but that they may do penance for their offenses, since the hard people went up to the father's bed and defiled the holy couch, that is, fixing the flesh of the Lord Jesus our creator to the gibbet of the cross, on which, as on a kind of bed and fatherly couch, his saints rest in saving refreshment. Who then would deny that it was said of the people, when all these things fit the people? For it was called the firstborn Israel, it was called stiff-necked; of it Moses said: 'But you are a stiff-necked people.' And in truth who is so hard, so rash and insulting 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, though they could not deny his divine works? The sequence of the gospel declares that this was committed with the scribes and high priests as its authors and Caiaphas, the chief of the priests, raging along with them. And therefore the holy prophet shrinks from sharing in so great a crime, lest by succession of descent they should dare to claim the fellowship of so great a patriarch.

The just man protests and disowns the posterity that would not keep the father's affection, and because he foresaw the outrage, he shudders at the contagion of their counsel. 'Let my soul not come into their counsel,' he says, 'and let my inward parts not strive in their assembly, for in their anger they killed a man and in their desire they hamstrung a bull.' What he says he says indeed of his sons Simeon and Levi, but by their names he signifies the tribes that were called by the same name. The Jews divert this most beautiful interpretation and think he rebukes the sons of Jacob because, for the violation of their sister, these two above the other brothers, wishing to take revenge on the Shechemites, pretended that they wished to enter into friendship with them and therefore persuaded them that they should be circumcised, so that peace between them and the fellowship of accepting kinship by marriage might be confirmed by a common religion. But they attacked the circumcised while their wounds were still fresh and their strength weak, broken by the pain, and killed them on the third day after. And therefore perhaps these two were the avengers above the others, because they are the ancestors of the scribes and priests; for none ought more than the wise and the priests to avenge chastity.

But in this too the Jews err. For these two had given their father the reasons for their grief, asserting that, though at a youthful age, they had been avengers of wounded piety and of violated chastity. Holy <Jacob> could not condemn this, because they did not allow their sister to be treated as a harlot, who had both lost her virginity and had no consolation of vengeance; especially since he himself approved what was done, in that, <when> he possessed Shechem, he gave it at his 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.' This fact cannot be denied; yet we can interpret that by Shechem shoulders are signified, and by shoulders works. So he chose holy Joseph above the others as heir of good works, whose works his brothers could not equal.

For who could equal the deeds of Christ? Moreover, immaculate and chaste, he carried off spoils from this earthly lodging and from the authors of impurity, capturing with heavenly words and the spiritual sword a place, now free of sexual crimes and outrages, for the dwelling of the saints, so that where before the inhabitants of wantonness and princes of luxury lived, where there were incitements of lust and fuel of wickedness, there now holy priests teach the lessons of chastity and very many examples of virginal integrity shine with a kind of brightness of heavenly light.

It is the tribes, then, that are designated by the names of the patriarchs, because the scribes are from the tribe of Simeon, the chief priests from the tribe of Levi, who perfected their wickedness in the Lord's passion, filling up the whole measure of their fathers' impiety. They took counsel against the Lord Jesus to kill him, as Isaiah says: 'Woe to their soul, because they have taken evil counsel against themselves, saying: Let us bind the just man, for he is useless to us.' They killed the prophets and apostles who announced the coming of the saving Lord and preached the glory of his passion and resurrection. Afterward, in their desire, because they desired earthly outrages and fled divine fellowship — chastity of body, sobriety of mind, contempt of money, the gain of grace — they hamstrung the bull, namely that one bringing forth horns and hoofs, whom the poor see and rejoice, since by the word of God he exalted the horn of his people, with which he both drove back the enemy and earned the reward of the heavenly crown. This is the bull by which the church is figured, in the moon when it is fuller, when, resting as it were on bull's horns, it encloses the space of the whole world.

Yet he seems to add the grace of a blessing to this prophecy too. For in saying to the firstborn Reuben: 'Do not boil over like water,' he set limits to sin, because water usually cleanses offenses and calls our minds back from every heat of the vices; and again in saying to Simeon and Levi: 'I will divide you in Jacob and scatter you in Israel,' he shows that they are to be redeemed by the gathering of the nations; for when the shepherd was struck, the flock that had before been gathered was scattered, so that one who was not might come in, and so all Israel might be saved. And we should believe this especially because of the tribe of Levi, since the Lord Jesus seems to derive his descent, according to the taking on of the body, from that tribe. From that tribe are the priests Levi and Nathan, whom holy Luke counted among the Lord's ancestors in the book of the gospel he wrote. For the priest of the Father and prince of all priests, as it is written: 'You are a priest forever,' had to claim the succession of a priestly origin.

Hence Moses too blessed this tribe, saying: 'Give to Levi the lot of his approval 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 them if he had known them unworthy of blessing according to the patriarch's judgment. Certainly what the one passed over briefly the other completed. And since the tribes of Judah and Levi were joined by intermarriage, therefore Matthew describes his family from the tribe of Judah,

and the apostle says: 'For our Lord was born of Judah,' so that from the tribe of Levi a priestly inheritance full of holiness might be counted, and from the tribe of Judah, from which David and Solomon and the other kings came, the splendor of royal succession might shine, so that the same one might be shown by the testimony of the Scriptures to be king and priest. And rightly holy Jacob poured himself out on the grace of Judah, saying: 'Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hands shall be 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, my son, you went up. Lying down you slept like a lion and like a whelp; who will rouse him? A leader shall not fail from Judah nor a prince from his thighs, until he comes for whom it is reserved, and he is the expectation of the nations; binding his ass to the vine and the colt of his ass to the haircloth, 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.'

The address seems to be directed to the patriarch Judah, but that later Judah, the true confessor, is expressed, who was born of that tribe, 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 spread out to an unbelieving people, are on the back of his enemies. For with the same hands and the same passion he protected his own and subjugated the opposing powers, and made subject to himself all who had no share in faith and piety. Of them the Father says to the Son: 'And you shall rule in the midst of your enemies' — whom their own malice, not Christ's will, made enemies. In this is the great grace of the Lord. For the spiritual wickednesses that used to bend our neck under the yoke of captivity, so that David himself wrote that he felt in a way the hands of those triumphing over him, saying: 'Sinners have built upon my back,' are now subject to Christ's triumph and to his hands, as it were, that is, subjected to his deeds and works, and undergo the hardship of perpetual captivity. He <is> surely the one who is worshiped by the sons of his father, when he is worshiped by us, to whom he has granted to call his Father our Father, whose servant it is a virtue to be.

'Judah is a lion's whelp.' Did he not plainly express 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 is the lion, this one the lion's whelp. By a humble comparison the unity of the same nature or power is understood. King proceeded from king, strong from strong. Because he foresaw that there would be those who would assert that the Son was of a younger age, he meets them by adding: 'From a shoot you went up. Lying down you slept like a lion and like a whelp.' And elsewhere you have that the whelp himself is the lion of the tribe of Judah. So because he had said 'whelp,' he rightly at once put 'lion,' that is to say: let your ears not be captured because they heard 'whelp'; I expressed the Son, I did not say a lesser one. He too is a lion as the Father is. Let them hear that he called him both lion and whelp: lion as of perfect and full power, whelp as son, lest anyone who heard should not think the Son equal to the Father. The Son is not so praised as to be separated from the Father.

He who confesses the Son proves him equal. And wonderfully he also expressed his incarnation, saying: 'From a shoot you went up,' because like a shrub of the earth he sprouted in the virgin's womb and like a flower of good fragrance went up, sent forth from his mother's womb with the splendor of new light for the redemption of the whole world, as Isaiah says: 'A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up from the root.' The root is the family of the Jews, the rod Mary, the flower of Mary Christ. Rightly the rod, which is of royal stock, of the house and family of David, whose flower is Christ, who abolished the stench of worldly filth and poured in the fragrance of eternal life.

You have, then, the incarnation; receive the passion. 'Lying down,' he says, 'you slept like a lion,' when he lay in the tomb, at rest as in a kind of sleep of his body, as he himself says: 'I slept and rested and rose, because the Lord will sustain me.' Hence Jacob too says: 'Who will rouse him?' — that is, the one whom the Lord will sustain. Who else is there to raise him, except that he raises himself by his own power and the Father's? I see him born by his own authority, I see him dead by his own will, I see him sleeping by his own power. He who did all things by his own choice, whose help will he need in order to rise? He himself, then, is the author of his resurrection, who is the arbiter of death, who is awaited by the nations.

Therefore 'until he comes, a leader shall not fail from Judah,' so that the reliability of the royal succession might be kept uncorrupted until his birth. For afterward, as we have shown in the treatise on the gospel, the succession was adulterated by Herod and lost the prerogative of its dignity. For because they denied the true king, they began to have false ones. So the patriarch says this: the inheritance of an inviolate succession will be preserved among the judges or kings of the Jews, carried on through the kings, until he comes for whom it is reserved, to gather the church of God from the assembly of all nations and the devotion of the gentile peoples; that is, it awaits him, it is kept as due to him, to him the prerogative of so great a grace is given.

'And he is the expectation of the nations.' He said more than if he had said: 'The nations await him,' because all the hope of the church rests on him. Therefore it is said to Moses: 'Loose the sandal from your feet,' lest he be thought the bridegroom of the church, who was being chosen as leader of the people. Therefore Joshua son of Nun loosed his sandal, so that he too might keep the grace of so great a gift for the one to come. Therefore John says: 'After me comes a man the strap of whose sandal 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, he is the expectation of the nations; to him the prophets loosed their sandals, yielding the union of nuptial grace. He is the bridegroom, I am the bridegroom's friend: I rejoice because he has come, because I hear the nuptial voice, because we no longer hear harsh punishments of sins, harsh torments of the law, but the remission of crimes, the voice of gladness, the sound of joy, the exultation of the wedding feast.

He is the one binding his ass to the vine and the colt of his ass to the haircloth, so that the gathering of the nations, before slack and careless but now devoted through Christ, may have the fervor of the Holy Spirit, and that we may be bound, like fruitful branches, by certain indissoluble bonds of faith to that everlasting vine, that is, to the Lord Jesus, who says: 'I am the vine, my Father is the vinedresser.' This is that mystery, that in the gospel he ordered the colt of the ass to be loosed, and the Lord Jesus himself sat on it, so that, bound to the vine, it might rest in the everlasting sweetness of the saints.

'He will wash,' it says, 'his robe in wine.' A good robe is Christ's flesh, which covered the sins of all, took on the offenses of all, hid the errors of all; a good robe, which clothed all with the garment of joy. He washed this robe in wine when, as he was baptized in the Jordan, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and remained on him. By this it is signified that the fullness of the Holy Spirit was undivided in him and did not depart. Hence the evangelist too says that the Lord Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan. Jesus washed his robe, then, not to wash away filth of his own, which there was not, but ours, which there was. Indeed he added: 'and his garment in the blood of the grape,' that is, in the passion of his body he washed the nations with his blood. For the nations are the garment of the Word, as it is written: 'As I live, says the Lord, I will put them all on as a garment,' and elsewhere: 'Like a cloak you will change them, and they will be changed.' So with his own blood he cleansed not his own sins, which were not, but the offenses we committed. And rightly he said 'grape,' because like a grape he hung on the wood. He is the vine, he the grape: the vine clinging to the wood; the grape, because his side, opened by the soldier's lance, sent forth water and blood. For so John said that there came out of him water and blood: water for washing, blood for the price. The water washed us, the blood redeemed us.

And therefore the prophet says: 'His eyes are glad with wine, and his teeth whiter than milk,' signifying the prophets and apostles. For some, like Christ's eyes, foresaw and announced his coming, of whom he himself says: 'Abraham saw my day and was glad,' and one of the prophets says: 'I saw the Lord of hosts'; seeing him they were filled with spiritual joy. But others, that is, the apostles, whom the Lord cleansed from every stain of sin, were made whiter than milk, whom no stain afterward darkened. For milk is temporal, but the grace of the apostles remains forever, who, preparing for us those spiritual and heavenly foods, have fattened the inward parts of the inner mind. There are also some who think that the bright commandments of the Lord, uttered by the divine mouth, became like milk for us, nourished by which we came to the food of the heavenly bread. Hence Paul too says: 'I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able.' The Corinthian, at the beginning of faith, is given milk to drink; those saints whose faith is proclaimed in the whole world are, as weaned, strengthened by more solid food.

'Zebulun shall dwell by the sea, and he shall be by the approaches of ships, and shall extend as far as Sidon.' The very interpretation of the name promises better things, because its Latin rendering signifies 'deliverance from things of the night,' which is surely good and belongs to him who hopes under the wings of the Lord, whose truth surrounds him, so that he does not fear the terror of the night and the business that walks in darkness.

This Zebulun, then, 'shall dwell by the sea,' he says, so that, himself free from danger, he may see the shipwrecks of others and watch others tossing on the strait of this world, who are carried about by every wind of doctrine, while he remains immovable on the root of faith, just as the holy church, rooted and grounded in faith, watches the storms of the heretics and the shipwrecks of the Jews, since they denied the helmsman they had. It dwells, then, by the waves, but is not moved by the waves, and is ready rather to bring help than liable to danger, so that if any, driven by heavy storms, wish to flee to harbor, the church may be at hand as a harbor of salvation, which with outstretched arms calls those in danger into the bosom of its calm, showing them a place of safe anchorage. So the churches in this world, like seaports spread along the shores, meet those in distress, saying that a refuge has been prepared for believers, to which ships battered by the winds may be brought in.

In these churches are the princes of Zebulun and the princes of Naphtali, as Psalm 67 teaches. Some of them are deliverers from the storm of the night, crying: 'Let us cast off, then, 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, Corinthians, our heart is enlarged.' These are the ones who, though they were in darkness, saw a great light, as the prophet testifies, saying: 'Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan; the people that sat in darkness saw a great light; for those who sat in the region of the shadow of death a light has dawned.'

So the Lord our God placed the heirs of this patriarch as lookouts by the approaches of ships, whose watchful care and spiritual succession extend as far as Sidon, that is, reach to the nations, so that the Lord's mercy may lighten the sins of the nations. For Sidon is the firstborn son of Canaan, son of that Ham who was condemned by his father's curse for irreverence toward his father. So the deliverance of the night, set as on the watch of a spiritual bulwark, lest anyone strike the rocks of this life, extends even to sinners of the gravest crimes and to the Sidonians themselves, who before, through violent superstition, were called 'hunters of crimes,' as the interpretation teaches; and it has absolved them, the inheritance of the curse being loosed and the inheritance of blessing given, so that where guilt was greater, there grace may now be richer.

'Issachar desired the good, resting between the lots. And seeing the rest, that it was good, and the land, that it was rich, he put his shoulder to labor and became a farmer.' Issachar means 'reward,' and therefore it is referred to Christ, who is our reward, because we purchase him for ourselves for the hope of eternal salvation not with gold and silver but with faith and devotion. Hence David too says of him: 'Behold, the inheritance of the Lord is sons, the reward the fruit of the womb.' And Moses says of him: 'The reward of those who dwell by the sea.' This is he who desired the good from the beginning and did not know how to desire what is evil. Of him Isaiah too says: 'Before the child knows how to call father or mother, he does not trust in wickedness, 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 middle between Moses and Elijah, to show us that he has rest in their words, through whom many, renouncing sins, believe in the living God; or that they themselves are witnesses of his resurrection and blessed rest.

And so, to call the nations to the grace of his resurrection — for that is the rich and fertile land which brings forth eternal fruits, fruits a hundredfold and sixtyfold — he put his shoulder to labor, subjecting himself to the cross to bear our sins. And therefore the prophet says: 'whose government is upon his shoulder,' that is, the power of the divinity over the passion of the body, or the cross rising above the body. He set his shoulder, then, leaning on the plow, patient in undergoing every insult, so subject to labor that he was wounded for our iniquities and made weak for our sins. 'And he became a farmer,' knowing how to sow his land with good grain and plant fruit-bearing trees with deep roots.

'Dan shall judge his people like one tribe of Israel. And let Dan be a serpent sitting in the way, biting the horse's heel in the path, and the rider shall fall backward, awaiting salvation from the Lord.' The simple understanding holds that the tribe of Dan also gave a judge in Israel. For after Joshua son of Nun there were judges of the people from various tribes. Samson too was of the tribe of Dan and judged twenty years. But the prophecy does not signify him, but the Antichrist, who, to come from the tribe of Dan, a cruel judge and monstrous tyrant, will judge the people. Like a serpent sitting in the way he will try to throw down those who walk the way of truth, wishing to trip up the truth. For this is to bite the horse's heel, so that the horse, wounded by the outpouring of poison and the serpent's tooth, lifts its heel, as Judas the betrayer, tempted by the devil, lifted his heel against the Lord Jesus, to throw down the rider, who threw himself down in order to raise up all. He fell, then, not prostrate on his face as though dozing, but backward, so that, stretching from the higher things to the former, he might await salvation from the Lord; for he knew he would be raised, and therefore he waited to raise up Adam who lay fallen.

Hence, when we are running well on the way, let us beware lest a serpent lurk somewhere in the path and undermine the horse's step, that is, our body's, and suddenly throw down the sleeping rider. For if we are awake, we ought to be on guard to some extent and avoid the serpent's bite. Let not the sleep of negligence, then, overcome us, the sleep of the world; let not the sleep of riches overcome us, lest it be said of us too: 'They slept their sleep, and all the men of riches found nothing.' But there are also sleeping riders, of whom it is written: 'Those who mounted horses slumbered.' If avarice wounds your breast, if lust inflames you, you are a sleeping rider, and therefore you cannot rein in your body, that is, your horse. Be awake, then, so that even if you are thrown down, that is, if you die, you do not sleep. For those who sleep their sleep find nothing; but you, await salvation from the Lord; look to it as coming, so that you may find the grace of the resurrection. Judas was sleeping: indeed he did not hear the words of Christ. Judas was sleeping, and with the sleep of riches, seeking a reward from betrayal. The devil saw him sleeping and weighed down by the heavy sleep of avarice; he put himself into his heart, wounded the horse, threw down the rider, whom he separated from Christ.

Moses blessed this tribe, saying: 'Dan is a lion's whelp, and he will leap out from Bashan,' that is, from confusion. Hence we ought to understand rather according to the Greek, from which the Latin translated, that Dan himself became a serpent sitting in the way. Dan is interpreted 'judgment,' and therefore this tribe underwent the grave danger of judgment, into which the Antichrist slipped as a serpent, to wound the runner with his poisons. Yet that tribe will be freed from confusion when it has confessed the rising rider, who says: 'Whoever has been ashamed of me before men, I too will be ashamed of him before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever has confessed me before men, I too will confess him before my Father who is in heaven.'

'Gad, a band will try him, and he will try them at the heels.' The trial is the band and cunning of the scribes and priests, who tested the Lord Jesus about Caesar's tribute and John's baptism, as Scripture taught; and the Lord Jesus in his righteousness turned the test back on them. 'At the heels,' that is, answering at once without any deliberation, so as to trap the testers instead. For when they said: 'By what authority do you do these things?' he did not answer what was asked, but himself proposed a question, saying: 'I too will ask you one thing; if you tell me, I too 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 test me, hypocrites? Show me the coin of the tax.' And when they offered it, he asked again: 'Whose is the image and inscription?' They say to him: 'Caesar's.' There, then, he bound them by their own words, constrained them by their own commitment — then he said to them: 'Render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's' — so that they could not go against their own words. Indeed they marveled and went away from him. But it is no wonder if he answered 'at the heels,' who saw what was before his feet.

Moses clearly explained that this prophecy of holy Jacob is about Christ; for he says thus: 'Blessed is he who enlarged Gad. He rested like a lion, breaking arms and rulers. And he saw from his beginning that there the land of the rulers gathered together with the princes of the peoples was divided; the Lord did justice and judgment for Israel.'

We recognize, then, who rested like a lion <when> he broke the arms of the mighty, because from the beginning he saw the divisions of those testing him. There, then, is the gaping of the earth that swallows the slanderers, where the testing of the faithless is.

'Asher, his bread is rich, and he will give food to rulers.' Asher by Latin interpretation signifies riches. Who, then, is rich, except where is the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God? Who is rich but the Lord Jesus, who always abounds and never fails? He came poor into this world and abounded for all, filled all. How great he is in riches, who by his poverty made all rich! But poor for our sake, rich with the Father. He was poor, to rescue us from want, as the apostle teaches, saying: 'For your sake he became poor, though he was rich, so that by his poverty you might be enriched.' His poverty enriches, his hem heals, his hunger satisfies, his death gives life, his burial raises again. This, then, is the rich treasure, whose bread is rich. And rightly rich, for whoever eats it cannot hunger. This bread he gave to the apostles to distribute to the people of believers, and today he gives it to us, the bread which the priest himself consecrates daily with his words.

This bread, then, has become the food of the saints. We can also take it of the Lord himself, who gave us his 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 that comes down from heaven, so that if anyone eats of it, he may not die.' And lest anyone think he speaks of this death, which comes through the separation of soul and body, and rightly doubt, knowing that the holy apostles died this death, he added: 'I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this, he will live forever'; that is: I did not speak above of temporal life nor of the death of this life; even if one has died this death, yet if he has received my bread, he will live forever. For he receives it who examines himself; and he who receives it will not die the death of the sinner, because this bread is the remission of sins.

Moses too prophesied most beautifully in his blessings, saying: 'Blessed of the sons is Asher, and he will be acceptable to his brothers, and he will dip his foot in oil. Iron and bronze will be his shoe, and as your days are, so will your strength be. There is none like your God in heaven, your helper, great and comely of the firmament; and God of the beginning protects you, and through the strength of mighty arms; and he will cast out the enemy from before you, saying: Perish. And Israel will dwell in confidence alone upon the land of Jacob, in grain and wine, and heaven will be yours with the mist of dew.'

'Naphtali is a vine let loose, putting forth beauty in its shoot.' One shoot of the vine is cut off because it seems useless, lest the vine run riot in an empty exuberance of shoots; another is cut back a little and let go, so that it may bear fruit, whose beauty is put forth in generation, because while it reaches up to the heights it embraces the vine, and climbing to the top it clothes the necks of the vines on the trellis with a necklace of precious branch. That one too is a beauty in generation, because with full branches it overflows with many fruits.

This is comely, but much more beautiful is that it signifies the branch clinging to the spiritual vine, whose branches we are, and we can bear fruit if we remain in the vine; but if not, we are cut off.

The holy patriarch Naphtali was an abundant branch. Hence Moses says: 'Naphtali is the fullness of those who receive; he will be filled with blessing from the Lord; he will possess the sea and the south,' explaining what Jacob had said, that he is a vine let loose, that is, freed from the bonds of death by the grace of faith. In this is signified the people of God, called to the freedom of faith and the richness of grace, spread through the whole world, which clothes the yoke of Christ with good fruit and embraces the wood of that true vine, that is, the mysteries of the Lord's cross, and does not fear the danger of confessing him, but rather, even when placed in persecutions, glories in the name of Christ.

He is truly let loose from bonds who is tied by no bond of fear — hence the prophet too says: 'They will go out and leap like calves loosed from their bonds' — and therefore he puts forth beauty in his shoot, because, placed in a place of pasture and brought up beside the water of refreshment through the sacraments of his regeneration, he sprouts 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 he who is beautiful above all 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 put on beauty.' For he has put on the beauty of the church by grace, which, laying aside in that washing the ugliness of all offenses, shone with the splendor of heavenly grace. And therefore the bridegroom says of her: 'Who is this that looks forth like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, chosen as the sun, a wonder as an array?'

Now, to conclude the story as with a kind of epilogue, as divine Scripture too concludes it, let us set out the prophecy of holy Jacob concerning the name of holy Joseph: 'My son Joseph is to be increased, my son is to be increased, envied, my youngest son, return to me. Against him they took counsel and cursed, and the archers aimed at him. And their bows were broken with might, and the sinews of their arms and hands were loosened by the hand of the mighty one of Jacob; and from there Israel prevailed from the God of your father. And my God helped you and blessed you with the blessing of heaven above and the blessing of the earth that holds all things, because of the blessing of the breasts and of the womb, the blessings of your father and mother. It has prevailed above the blessings of the abiding mountains and the desires of the everlasting hills; they will be on the head of Joseph and on the crown of those brothers over whom he was set.'

What is the reason that the father favored his son Joseph more richly than all his sons, except that he saw in him the prefiguring mysteries of Christ? Hence, blessing rather the one who was awaited than the one who was seen, he says: 'My son Joseph is to be increased.' Who is to be increased but Christ, whose grace is always increased and whose glory has no end to its advance? Of him John too says: 'He must increase, but I must decrease,' because through his saving and perfect name grace has been heaped up and has abounded in this world — 'my son is to be increased' — and therefore, because they saw him increasing, his brothers began to envy him; and the spiritual Joseph too incurred envy from those whom he cherished most. Indeed he said: 'I came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,' and they said: 'We do not know where he is from.' He healed them, and they denied him.

'My youngest son,' he says. Truly the youngest, who was almost the last born. Indeed Scripture too says: 'Jacob loved him because he was the son of his old age.' This too is referred to Christ. For to a world growing old and already setting, the Son of God shone forth, coming late through the childbirth of the Virgin Mary. As the son of old age, according to the sacrament, he took on a body, he who was always with the Father before the ages. Hence the Father says

to him: 'Return to me,' calling him back from earth to heaven, whom he had sent for our salvation. So, raising his only-begotten Son, he made void the counsel of the cursers — hence Isaiah too says: 'Vain is the counsel of your spirit' — and he undid all the insults which they aimed like arrows. He broke the power of those who trusted in their own strength and not in God. 'From there,' he says, 'Israel prevailed from the God of your father. And my God helped you.' Who is it who strengthened Israel and helped the Son but God the Father alone, who said: 'Jacob my servant, I will uphold him; Israel my chosen, my soul will uphold him'?

'And he blessed him with the blessing of heaven above and the blessing of the earth that holds all things'; for he subjected all things to him, heavenly things as the blessing of heaven and earthly things as the blessing of the earth, so that he might rule both men and angels.

So in that seemingly contemptible body 'you prevailed,' he says, 'because of the blessing of the breasts and of the womb, the blessings of your father and mother.' By 'breasts' he meant either the two Testaments, by one of which he was announced, by the other shown — and rightly breasts, since the Son reared us and offered us to God as nourished with a kind of spiritual milk — or he speaks of Mary's breasts, which were truly blessed, with which the holy Virgin milked the drink of milk for the people of the Lord. Hence that woman in the gospel too said: 'Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that you sucked!' But as for his saying: 'the blessing of the womb, of your father and mother,' if we wish to understand Mary's womb alone, the reason why he joined both blessings will be hidden — for he could have spoken of the mother's womb alone. But I think it more beautiful that, according to the spiritual mystery, we understand both generations of the Lord Jesus, according to the divinity and according to the flesh, because he was begotten of the Father before the ages. Hence the Father too says: 'My heart has uttered a good word,' because he proceeded from that inmost and incomprehensible substance of the Father and is always in him. Hence the evangelist too says: 'No one has ever seen God except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; he has made him known.' Just as the bosom of the Father is understood spiritually as a kind of inmost secret of fatherly love and nature, in which the Son always is, so too the womb of the Father is that of a spiritual inner mystery, from which the Son proceeded as from a womb of generation. Indeed we read variously now of the Father's womb, now of his heart, from which he uttered the Word, now of his mouth, from which righteousness proceeded, from which wisdom came forth, as she herself says: 'I came forth from the mouth of the Most High.' So since no one thing is defined and all sound as one, it signifies the spiritual mystery of the Father's begetting rather than some bodily member. But just as we understand that begetting from the Father, so too, for the completion of faith, let us understand the begetting from Mary, when the mother's womb is blessed, surely that of the Virgin Mary, who brought forth for us the Lord Jesus. Of her the Father says through the prophet Jeremiah: 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came forth from your mother's womb I sanctified you.' The prophet, then, 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 did not lack his divinity when he was born of the virgin and was in the body.

Hence too he grew strong above all the mountains and the desires of the everlasting hills. For he shone out above all those men of lofty merit, patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, and even beyond the sun, moon, and archangels, as the light of heaven, as he himself says: 'The disciple is not above the teacher, nor the servant above the master.' For which of them was there to whom all things were subject, to whom he himself gave what they were? In him all his saints are blessed, because he is above the heads of all, the head 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 is the surpassing crown of all things; but he is the highest crown of the just, whom he calls brothers, gained by grace and a kind of fellowship of regeneration. Hence by 'Joseph's brothers' 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.'

Then Moses too, about to complete the course of this life, when he blessed the tribe of Joseph, was surely blessing not that Joseph already dead 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 depths of the springs below, and according to the season of the course of the sun, and from the meetings of the months, and from the top of the mountains from the beginning, and from the top of the everlasting hills, and in the season of the fullness of the earth; and may what is pleasing to him who appeared in the bush come upon the head of Joseph and upon his crown. Honored among his brothers, the firstborn of the bull is his glory, his horns the horns of the unicorn; with them he will toss the nations together to the end of the earth. These are the ten thousands of Ephraim and these the thousands of Manasseh.'

It is the same blessing, which has all the fullness of heavenly and earthly things and the special grace of Christ, who, seen in the bush, said to Moses himself: 'Loose the sandal from your feet,' who is God over all, because he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself may have the first place in all things, since in him it pleased all fullness to dwell. And therefore the prerogative of this blessing is given to him alone, from the summit of heaven to the end of the earth. For he is before all, in whom all things consist, who also through the blood of his cross made peace for all things, whether on earth or in heaven. Bearing his type, holy Joseph is beautifully blessed, so as to be honored among his brothers.

'The firstborn of the bull is his glory, having the horns of the unicorn, with which he will toss the nations.' And a good bull, as a victim for offenses and the sacrifice for the whole world, to make peace for all things. His glory is holy; for every firstborn is holy, as we have shown elsewhere, whence Levi deserved to be called firstborn not by order of age but by the prerogative of sacred succession. And truly his glory is holy, of whom it is written at his rising: 'Beautiful in form above the sons of men,' because he is the firstborn from the dead, having the horns of the unicorn. But since he said 'horns,' we must ask how he put 'of the unicorn,' since the unicorn itself, as the experts say, is not found among the kinds of wild animals. And therefore we ought rather to think of the one Word, because the substantial Word of God is one, not many words. Hence Hannah too says: 'The Lord judges the ends of the earth, and he will give strength to the king and exalt the horn of his anointed,' and Isaiah says: 'The beloved had a vineyard on a horn in a rich 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 crop of faith has sprouted. This Word the saints follow.

'The ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh,' he says, that is: may he rule both Jews and gentiles and gain for himself from both peoples the fullness of the church. And therefore holy Jacob put his right hand on Ephraim, because you read the bride saying in the Song of Songs: 'My brother is white and ruddy, chosen out of ten thousand.' Indeed the young women too praised David, Mary's ancestor, from whose line Christ was born through the Virgin's childbirth, with ten thousands, but Saul with thousands, though out of reverence for the king they should have weighed more toward him. Whoever, then, has exalted the horn of Christ, confessing his glory, himself also receives horns. Hence the saints too are called unicorns in the verse of the psalm: 'And the beloved like the son of unicorns.' For just as with such an animal, when its horns come out, it signifies the advance of fuller age, so when horns begin to sprout from a kind of head of our soul, they seem to signify the advance of more perfect virtue, and they grow until they are complete. With this horn the Lord Jesus shattered the nations, to crush superstition and restore salvation, as he himself says: 'I will strike and I will heal.' And therefore, as an imitator of this bull, the prophet says: 'In you we will toss our enemies,' that is, destroying every height that lifts itself up against the knowledge of God. And therefore, according to the law, clean animals have horns; for the law is spiritual. For those who can drive off the enticements of this world by the word of God and the observance of virtue seem to be armed with horns, as with weapons of their head. And rightly the trumpet of horn is called the power of wonderful speech, which kindles Christ's good soldiers to battle, so that we may carry off spoils from the enemy, the devil. We are in battle, then, and we see very many of our own captive in the enemy's camp. They must be freed by us from the very heavy yoke of slavery.

The devil has very many wolves which he sends against Christ's sheep. And therefore the spiritual Joseph, to keep his sheep, seized the enemy himself who came to plunder the sheep, making the wolf Paul a teacher instead of a persecutor. Of him Jacob says, as it is written: 'Benjamin is a ravening wolf; in the morning he will still eat, and at evening he will divide food to the rulers.' He was a wolf when he scattered and devoured the sheep of the church; but he who had come as a wolf became a shepherd. He was a wolf when he was Saul, when he entered houses and dragged men and women to prison. He was a wolf when, breathing threats and murder against the Lord's disciples, he sought letters from the chief priests to attack Christ's servants. Him, roaming like a wolf in the darkness of night, Jesus blinded with light poured round him. Therefore Rachel, when she bore Benjamin, called his name 'son of my pain,' prophesying that from that tribe would come Paul, who would afflict the children of the church in the time of his persecution and trouble the mother with grievous pain. Yet the same man afterward, at a later time, divided food to rulers, preaching the word of God to the nations and calling very many to faith, so that through his preaching both the proconsul Paulus and the chief man Publius received the grace of the Lord.

Beautifully too did Moses say, when he blessed the tribe of Benjamin: 'The beloved of the Lord will dwell in confidence, and God will overshadow him all his days, and he will rest between his shoulders, the beloved of the Lord.' He also became a chosen vessel; for he was converted only by the Lord's mercy and love. Hence he himself, attributing nothing to his own merit but giving 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 in me was not wanting.' He dwelt in confidence in the house he had formerly laid waste; he dwelt in the tents of Christ, who before wandered like a wolf in the woods; and God overshadowed him when Christ appeared to him. Though with his eyes open he saw nothing, yet he saw Christ. And rightly he saw him present, whom he also heard speaking. This overshadowing is not of blindness but of grace. Indeed it is said to Mary: 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.'

'And he will rest between his shoulders,' that is, among good deeds and precious works. For above too you have that Issachar put his shoulder to labor and became a farmer. Paul imitated him and planted the new seedlings of faith, and therefore, like a good farmer, he said: 'I planted, Apollos watered.'