Glaphyra in Pentateuchum

And having seen Shua there, he made her his wife, and he showed her to be the mother of three children—I mean Er, Onan, and indeed Shelah. And Er is interpreted as “leathern,” that is, “fleshy”; and Onan as “striking the heart”; and the third as “a drawing out,” that is, “a release and pacification.” And the only-begotten Word of God has come down also from the heavens, as from some holy land, the one truly hymned, and having naturally kindled the glory of the kingdom. For this is what the figure of Judah would suggest to us; for the meaning of the name indicates “praise.” And the tribe of Judah is set as the most kingly of the others, and in the highest pre-eminences. Therefore also the inspired Jacob, making his blessing upon him, says, “Judah, your brothers shall praise you.” And the most wise Paul has also testified that Christ sprang from the tribe of Judah, the one hymned by all creation. The only-begotten Word of God, then, has come down, and he visited the wilderness of Midian when the blessed Moses was then shepherding. For he appeared to him in the form of fire in the bush, and was joined in a certain manner through him, as to a foreign Canaanite woman, to the Synagogue of the sons of Israel in Egypt; just as indeed also Judah did through the one shepherding with Shua, which is also interpreted as “exaltation and elevation.” For the Synagogue of the Jews, having been called as it were into familiarity with God, was no longer lowly and trampled down, and having the meanness of slavery, but has become lofty and radiant. For it has been redeemed as from an iron furnace, and from a house of slavery, according to what is written.

Then of the Synagogue in Egypt, which was once alien and idolatrous, there came to be three peoples, fulfilling for God the rank of sons, and as it were sprung from one mother, but having their birth divided in time. And in what manner this happened, we shall say before long. Then Judah joined Tamar first to Er, who was the firstborn. But when God destroyed him because he was wicked, Onan, who was second both in birth and in time, immediately succeeded to the marriage. And he, since he did not wish to raise up seed for his brother, was destroyed together with the first, divine wrath having been brought upon him for this. Then the father did not permit the third, that is, Shelah, to take over the marriage, fearing lest he be destroyed together with the first. And what this matter means, I shall attempt to explain, since God is wise. For the first Synagogue, which was also in Egypt, which we have granted to be alien, because it had then become exceedingly savage in Greek manners and customs, God transformed, through a way of life according to the law, and showed it to be as it were a new Synagogue, and in some way another beside the first. And this is Tamar. But observe how the mystery is found also in the interpretations of the names. For Tamar is interpreted as “eclipse,” or “shaken.” And truly the Synagogue of the Jews has been shaken and has failed. How, or in what manner? For the worship according to the law has not remained entirely unshaken, but has given way to that in the Spirit. And henceforth the Synagogue through Christ has been brought in, accusing the first, as not having what is blameless.

But Christ also joined the Church to himself like a pure virgin, having dismissed that ancient and first one. Therefore the Synagogue of the Jews is rightly understood as a failing and tottering thing. And that no one is justified before God in the law, nor indeed was there in the Synagogue of the Jews any participation in the calm of God (for the law works wrath, according to what is written), the birth of the children of Judah, who had lain with Tamar, would hint at darkly. For Er, the firstborn, is leathery, that is, earthly. And since he was wicked, he was condemned to death. And wicked in truth was the first people shown to be, murmuring against God and saying: Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? Since he struck the rock, and waters flowed, and torrents were poured out, can he also give bread? But also when those who had been sent out returned from spying out the land of promise, they wailed childishly as though about to perish at once, insulting God who is mighty in all things with their disobediences. Therefore they also perished utterly, and no one entered into the land of promise, but their limbs fell in the wilderness, according to what is written. So then the firstborn Er, that is, the wicked and fleshly one, perished first, having no fruit of piety. For childlessness would again hint this to us as in a type; for visible things are, as it were, images of things perceived by the mind. Then after him, as a second son, as it were, of God who redeemed and led them out of the house of bondage, came the people after those.

He who was carried across the Jordan under the leadership of Joshua inherited the land of promise. But after this he also came under judges, yet he himself likewise fell under wrath from above. For he was truly Aunan, that is, one who has struck his heart. For he turned strangely to polytheism, having abandoned the one who is by nature and truly God. Therefore he both perished and served foreigners. For the book of those called Judges taught us these things. So this one too died in childlessness, just as Er did, sowing into nothing, that is, into the earth. Whence it was likely that no one at all would gain any fruit, or raise up seed for his brother. And the middle people, the second as it were in time, also shrank back, through the leniency according to the law, as it were to raise himself up to God in place of those who disobeyed, and to show forth by deeds a people now somehow newly sprung up. For this, I think, is what is meant enigmatically by raising up seed for his brother. So then, when the two had been put to death on reasonable grounds (for the one was wicked, and the other had struck his heart), the father excludes the third from converse with Tamar, fearing lest he too somehow be corrupted along with those already destroyed. For God did not permit the third people, as it were the youngest, the one as it were in the last time of the holy prophets (with whom the divine Baptist was immediately a neighbor, pointing out the present one from heaven, that is, Christ), to be somehow held in the embraces of the Synagogue of the Jews, nor does he wish to have fruit from it, lest it too somehow perish. For the law works wrath, but no one at all is justified in it.

Observe also how Shelah, the last of the people and, as it were, in faith, would very well demonstrate in himself the type. For it is interpreted "a pulling out," or "a release." For when the divine wrath had, as it were, consumed those of the blood of Israel because of the impieties against Christ and the intolerable drunkenness, those who had believed were pulled out as from a wild beast, and are released in a certain manner from the bonds that had taken hold of them for punishment. For the remnant has been saved, according to the Scriptures. And indeed God said somewhere through the voice of the prophet: "Just as when the shepherd pulls out of the lion's mouth two legs, or a lobe of an ear, so shall the sons of Israel be pulled out." Shelah, then, is "a pulling out," and for this reason it is also so named. But those who have believed, and have been pulled out from the multitude of the lost, reject the intercourse of Tamar—that is, bearing fruit in the law—as they may learn without difficulty, since the blessed Paul says concerning the boasts of those under the law: "But whatever things were gain to me, these I have regarded as loss for Christ." For he desired not to have a righteousness of his own—I mean, again, that which is in the law—but the righteousness that is from faith in Christ Jesus. Inseparable, then,

To Tamar, Shelah the youngest. For this reason she has remained a widow, and has continued in this state for long ages. For since God no longer permits the Synagogue of the Jews to bear fruit, she has been reckoned and has truly become a widow, as it were childless and bereft of a man, of the spiritual bridegroom. For Christ said somewhere, "She is not my wife, and I am not her husband." Is there, then, no word at all concerning her after this? Is she not deemed worthy of care from God? Do not suppose this. For although she has been condemned for the last and greatest impieties of all, God in his innate gentleness will have mercy on her in the last times of the age; and she too will bear fruit, the marks of Christ. And that she will walk behind the nations, we shall learn no less from what is written through them. For Judah, having gone up to shear his sheep, made his union with her as a side matter of his journey; and he leaves her to keep a staff, a ring, and a necklace, promising to send a kid as well. For Christ, having as it were his own and most necessary care—the receiving of the fruits of the rational flock, clearly of those who have believed and been sanctified in the Spirit—will make his fellowship in the Spirit with the Synagogue of the Jews, as it were passing and not altogether earnest, from time to time; and he will show her as it were fruitful, laboring with the wisdom that comes from him. And he will set himself before her, just as also before us, as a staff of power, as an image and likeness of God the Father (for this is the ring), as beautiful in beauty beyond the sons of men. For this, I think, is what the necklace signifies.

For every vessel that serves for adornment would be understood as a sign of beauty. And he sends her also the kid, that is, he will grant forgiveness of sins. For a kid was sacrificed under the law for sin, and it hints at the remission of offenses. But Tamar is saved, even though she had received a sentence of death and was now being brought to the ultimate penalties. For Tamar had been condemned as having played the harlot. Yet she is saved; for she showed the staff, the ring, and the necklace. And she has confessed clearly that she has conceived from Judah, and that she has his fruit. And Christ will also release the Synagogue of the Jews from the necessity of being punished in due season, when she bears the symbols of communion with him, and clearly shows that she has conceived his own things. For thus, indeed, they too say, those who have chosen to be approved through faith in Christ: By the fear of you, Lord, we conceived in the womb, and we travailed, and we brought forth the spirit of your salvation, which we conceived upon the earth. But Tamar, travailing with a pair of infants, has now come to the very birth. Then the firstborn puts down his hand; but when he brought it back again, though he had already taken the scarlet cord, the second leaps out first, as if some barrier had been cut through, then the first comes out, last. And this too would be a sign not unclear to us that the nations have been called before those of the blood of Israel, and that those honored in later times have taken the glory of the firstborn. And he will see that he himself, without dispute, has accepted the sacrifice of Christ; for the scarlet would be a type of the holy blood.

Who then is it that has broken down the middle wall of the fence, and has called the second in the rank of the firstborn, but has placed the first behind? Or is it not clear that it is Christ, through whom and with whom be the glory to God and the Father with the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen. Still concerning Joseph. We must proceed to the remaining parts of the words which we have already previously made concerning Joseph, since the history that has been inserted in between—I mean that concerning Judah, and indeed also that concerning Tamar—has now come to its end, as is fitting for it. For having transferred the divinely inspired Joseph into the person of Christ, we said that he was cast into the pit by his brothers, and again that he was brought up and sold to the Ishmaelites, who were both merchants of the most fragrant spices and conveyors of them to those who did not have them.

And we said, adding this, that he was carried away by them into the land of the Egyptians; because the Only-begotten, having brought himself down into emptying, and having become in our condition, having been reckoned also a brother to those on the earth, and before others to those from Israel, endured death, and underwent the cross, and descended into Hades, of which the pit is also a type. Nevertheless he rose again, and was set apart from those of the blood of Israel. And he is given, as it were, to the merchants of the intelligible spices—that is, to the holy apostles, who, making the sweet fragrance of his myrrh, arrived in the land of the Gentiles, carrying him through the gospel proclamations to those who did not know him, clothed in the form of a servant. For he is proclaimed, having become in flesh for our sake, and in the form of a servant.

This, I think, is what is meant by Joseph being carried down into Egypt by the Ishmaelites. Let us then consider, if you please, what he experienced upon arriving there, and what he had to do in that situation. For while he was still young and among the youths, he conquered the shamelessness of the Egyptian woman, who all but forcibly pushed him, with great violence, toward consenting to do what is unlawful. For she clung to his garments persistently and shamelessly, and pressed him hard toward involuntary sin. But he, leaving even his garment behind, escaped the wild lewd woman and remained unconquered by the passion. After this he was slandered, the woman turning the charges against him, and the chaste and freedom-loving man was held in accusations of shamefulness. Nevertheless, he prevailed in the prison, as the text says. Christ too has been among the nations, as, I say, in the person of the holy apostles, who also declared that they bore his marks in their own body. For they refused to conform to those who chose to think the things of the world, and were far removed from fleshly desires. For such is always the life of the saints. But for this reason they were plotted against, and indeed, being slandered by those accustomed to regard as burdensome those who wish to live in Christ, they fell into trials and became prisoners. Nevertheless, they remembered Christ saying: If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, for this reason the world hates you—just as, of course, the lewd woman hated Joseph. Yet even in their labors they were enlarged, the grace of God softening those whom one would most expect to cause them distress. For the jailer, as I said, rejoiced in Joseph.

Then, when Pharaoh's eunuchs—I mean the cupbearer and, besides him, the baker—were in prison, he made their dreams clear. And for this reason, it says, the inspired Joseph was admired no little; but when Pharaoh himself also had a dream, having seen beforehand both the fruitfulness that was to come before long and the distress from famine—as previously in fat and lean cows, and afterward as in ears of grain—and when the wise men in Egypt had nothing to say, but had utterly given up being able to make plain what was indicated by the visions, he himself was testified to be able to do this; and coming forward, he made it clear. And indeed Pharaoh, marveling, appointed him steward and ruler over his own dominion. For Christ was persecuted, just as I said a moment ago, as in the person of the holy apostles. But those of whom the account speaks, being in the very midst of their labors, as exceedingly wise and able to make plain things hidden from many, were manifest at first to certain people in the world, and then also to the very rulers of the earth, who, believing that they too had the knowledge of things to come by revelation of God in the Spirit, permitted them to become stewards and rulers of nations, and to distribute to those in famine of teachings the things that also preserve unto incorruptible life—that is, the divine and heavenly word, and the education that conveys one to every single one of the best things.

These men also gained possession—or rather, through them Christ did—of the territory of the nations for God the Father, just as, to be sure, Joseph did of the Egyptians' land for Pharaoh; and to him were born two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, from his mother Aseneth, the daughter of Petephres, who was a priest. And Manasseh is interpreted as forgetfulness of the evils that had befallen him; and Ephraim as growth and progress toward the better. For from a sacred mother, as it were—I mean the Church—fruits have come to be, and those called from among the nations would be reckoned among the sons of God through faith in Christ, and they too will be brought into forgetfulness of their labors. For they shall forget, it says, their former affliction, and it shall not come up into their heart. For upon their head are praise and exultation and gladness, which shall overtake them. Pain, grief, and groaning have fled away. So then, in due time they will come into forgetfulness of evils, and they will advance also into growth, running on to the sweet end of hope. For they will migrate from earthly things to heavenly things, from things measured in time to things beyond time; from corruption to incorruption, to glory from dishonor, from weakness to power. And while the famine was still pressing and continuing, the sons of Jacob went down to Egypt to buy food. Then, with a brief account slipping in between, and Joseph all but growing angry with them (for he kept saying that they had by no means come for the sake of food, but rather to spy out the land), and demanding Benjamin, who was his brother and the youngest, and insisting that they would not get off from the Egyptians unscathed unless they brought the young man forward—

He is brought in at last, when their father has yielded them up. And when they had come together with the child, he then called them to the hearth, and satisfied them with bread and wine, having washed them with water. For having been oppressed, as it were, and squeezed out by unbearable famine—clearly the intelligible one—the Jews at the appointed times, letting go of their high and haughty brow, will come to Christ, longing for the food that comes from him, holy and spiritual, I say, and life-giving. And he will not receive them, except not without the new people, of whom Benjamin would also be a type. But when they have come as it were in one mind and as with a single purpose, he will receive them gladly, and will bring them in as it were into his own house, that is, the Church. Then, washing them with pure water, the bath of regeneration, he will nourish them with bread and wine—the word speaks mystically. But let us say this also in addition: Joseph was recognized by his brothers when they had arrived together with Benjamin, and indeed he deemed them worthy of his table, just as I said a moment ago. But giving no allotment, he ordered them to depart altogether, carrying word back to his father—I mean Jacob. But when he had come down, and he had seen him already present together with his children, then, then he assigned them the land that is best of all. And this too would be a clear sign, that Christ will receive those of Israel who return in the last times of the age, with the new people evidently present with them in a manner of one mind. For this, as I said, is Benjamin. Yet not without the holy Fathers will the inheritance that is in hope be restored to us.

For just as they themselves, although they died in faith—as indeed the wise Paul said, "They did not obtain the promise," God having provided something better concerning us, so that they might not be made perfect apart from us—so we too will wait for the Fathers, so that we might not be made perfect apart from them. Therefore, together with the holy Fathers, the first and the middle and the last peoples, we shall receive the best and uncreated inheritance of the kingdom of heaven in Christ; through whom and with whom be glory to God and the Father with the Holy Spirit forever. Amen. Concerning Joseph and his sons Ephraim and Manasseh. 1. Every good gift and every perfect bestowal is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. And I say that there is none of these so venerable and excellent goods which we do not gain through Christ. For he has become, it says, a mediator between God and men, and through him we have obtained access in one Spirit to the Father and God in the heavens. Therefore he also said: "No one comes to the Father except through me." In him and through him is every fullness of grace and a splendid inheritance. For God, being rich, became poor for our sake, so that we might become rich by his poverty, and ascending to the glory of the holy Fathers, we might be able to partake of the hope most fitting for them. But see

...setting the eye of his mind upon the Holy Scriptures. For it says here again: And it came to pass after these words, that it was reported to Joseph, that his father was troubled. And taking his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, he came to Jacob. And it was reported to Jacob, saying: Behold, your son Joseph comes to you; and Israel, strengthened, sat upon the bed. And Jacob said to Joseph: God appeared to me in Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, and said to me: Behold, I will increase you and multiply you, and I will make you into gatherings of nations, and I will give you this land, and to your seed after you, for an everlasting possession. Now therefore your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt, before I came to you into Egypt, are mine, Ephraim and Manasseh, as Reuben and Simeon shall be mine. But the offspring, which you shall beget after these things, shall be yours, they shall be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance. And I, when I was coming from Mesopotamia of Syria, Rachel your mother died in the land of Canaan, as I was approaching the hippodrome of Chabratha of the land, to come into the land of Ephratha, and I buried her in the way of the hippodrome. This is Bethlehem. For the blessed Jacob had been brought up in a good old age, according to what is written. But since he was absent from our affairs, he intended to bless those from Joseph...

...since they were born of a foreign mother, Aseneth the daughter of Petephres the priest, so that no one of the sons of Israel might abhor them and consider their race alien and foreign, the wondrous Jacob wisely and providentially attempts to teach both Joseph himself and his other sons that, following the divine decrees, he makes all their descendants his own. For he says: God appeared to me in the land of Canaan, and that I shall be the father of very many peoples, and I shall be enlarged also into nations and gatherings of nations, he openly promised. At the same time, then, he also persuades them to honor God with true opinions. And he teaches them to regard as their own those who are near of kin, or rather those sprung from them, even if they happen to have been born of a foreign mother. 2. Going a little beyond the bulk of the history, we say this: Thus we too who have been justified in faith have become in Christ sons of God and members of the household of the saints, with him mediating and through himself binding us to himself and to the Father and to the choirs of the saints; just as, indeed, Joseph also, placed as it were in between, made Ephraim and Manasseh sons of his own father, and they were enrolled also in the very register of the patriarchs. For now, he says, your two sons who were born to you in Egypt are mine, Ephraim and Manasseh; as Reuben and Simeon they shall be mine. That is, they shall be among the firstborn, and they shall be ranked also with those in obedience. For Reuben was the firstborn. And Simeon in turn is interpreted as obedience. And through faith we who were last have become first, and the people from the nations has obtained the glory of the firstborn.

But they have been honored because of obedience and compliance. For Christ himself has testified to them, saying thus: "A people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me." For even if we have been born of a mother, as it were, of another kind, because the Church has been called out from the Gentiles, nevertheless Emmanuel will suffice, intervening to join us through himself to God the Father, and to enroll us in the lots of the saints, and to bring us to the glory that befits them, and to make us a holy race. And observe how, out of love for the blessed Joseph, he places his own sons among his own children. For we too have been loved in Christ, and since through him we have been born with a spiritual birth in the Spirit, we have become acceptable to the Father, just as I said a moment ago; and we have been ranked together with the saints before us. Moreover, even if we have been called sons of God the Father, we shall again be under the hand of the one who brings us near and unites us to him, that is, Christ. For see how the blessed Jacob, after enrolling in his own children both

Ephraim and Manasseh, but the offspring," he says, "that shall be born to you shall be yours." You understand, then, that even if we are called sons of God and the Father, we shall nonetheless be Christ's. And this, I think, is what he said to the Father: "Those whom you have given me out of the world were yours, and you have given them to me; and I have been glorified in them." Indeed, Jacob said that Rachel was buried in Bethlehem. We have often recalled that we have named Rachel as an image and type of the Church from the Gentiles. And it could be, I think, that someone who wished to speak would not be speaking falsely, that the Church has passed over to another life, clearly the better one and superior to the life in the world: dead to the world because she does not endure to think the things of the world, but living to God spiritually in Christ through a gospel way of life. For even if she is in the world because of life in the flesh, yet, so to speak, she is hidden, having nothing of the world's splendor, and she has all but been buried together with Christ. And this, I think, is what Paul, the wisest of us, said: "For you have died, and your life has been hidden with Christ in God." For understand that when Rachel was buried in Bethlehem and was no longer seen, Emmanuel himself was all but hidden along with her. For he had not yet been born through the holy Virgin. Let us therefore praise this kind of death of the Church, which leads back to the beginnings of the holy life that is in Christ. And I think it is also necessary to mention that further point. When the father received the children of Joseph as his own, their mother being dead, he gives instructions also concerning her.

Therefore to mark out the place in which he was buried would be nothing other than persuading us that it is fitting to exercise the due care for it. And God and the Father was also commanding the Son concerning the Church, and He persuades Him to deem it worthy of care, since it had been conquered by death because of the ancient curse. Therefore David, the divine, also cried out to us to the Father and God in the heavens: Command, O God, with your power; strengthen, O God, this which you have worked in us. For almost pointing out also the body held by death, he was entreating that through the power of God and the Father—that is, of the Son—it be released from corruption, and that it return again to what was in the beginning, that is, to the blessed and undefiled life in Christ. 3. That Israel, being firstborn and honored with the prerogatives for this, was stripped of the glory that was in him, and that the grace of so bright a renown has passed over to the new people who have come from the Gentiles, we shall know no less from what follows. For seeing, it says, Israel the sons of Joseph, he said: Who are these to you? And Joseph said to his father: They are my sons whom God has given me here. And Jacob said: Bring them near to me, that I may bless them. But his eyes were heavy from old age, and he could not see. And he brought them near to him, and he kissed them and embraced them, and Israel said to Joseph: Behold, I have not been deprived of your face, and behold, God has shown me also your seed. And Joseph brought them out from his knees, and they bowed down to him with their face upon the ground.

But Joseph took his sons, Ephraim on his right, but Israel on his left; and Manasseh on his left, but Israel on his right; he brought them near to him. And Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim—this one was the younger—and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, crossing his hands. And he blessed them and said: The God in whose presence my fathers Abraham and Isaac were well-pleasing; the God who nourishes me from my youth until this day; the angel who delivers me from all evils, bless these children. For the youths stood by. And the old man inquired whose they were. And indeed Joseph also says to these things: They are my two sons. Then, when they had been brought forward and had come near, he deemed them worthy of kisses and embraces. Understand, therefore, how we who were, as it were, in some way not known to God and the Father, have become known and near in Christ. And he receives us very gladly, the Son testifying to us our kinship with himself, and thus he deems us worthy of love, he calls us to union—clearly the intelligible and spiritual union. And a kiss would be a very clear type of love, and an embrace or enfolding a type of union. Therefore also the most wise Paul writes to those who have believed in Christ, at one time saying: But now you who once were far off have become near, clearly because Christ brings us forward; and at another time: But now, having known God, or rather having been known by God.

For he deems them worthy of visitation, and God the Father alone recognizes those who have a spiritual kinship with the Son and have been enriched with regeneration through the Spirit under him and through him. Just as, to be sure, in Egypt he made known those who were smeared with the blood of the lamb, saying: And I will see the blood, and I will cover you, and there shall be no plague among you to destroy you, when I strike in the land of Egypt. And Jacob, having become very glad at his son, that is, Joseph, said: Behold, I have not been deprived of your face, and behold, God has shown me also your seed. For as far as it concerned the Jews, the Father was deprived of the Son. For they supposed that he would be held fast by the gates of Hades and would lie dead there together with the others, and so they wrapped him in death. But it was not possible for the author of life to be wrapped in death. Therefore he came back to life, and the Father has beheld him again, and the race from him and in him—clearly those who believed, the holy nation, the royal priesthood, the people for a possession. And Christ himself rejoices over them, saying: Behold, I and the children whom God has given me. And Joseph brought them near to his father, and they bowed down. Then, with Manasseh, who was the firstborn, standing on the right, and the younger Ephraim on the left, Jacob crossed his hands and laid them on them, and honored Ephraim with the imposition of the right hand, while he deemed Manasseh worthy, as it were, of second place, giving him his left hand, and so he begins the blessing upon them.

For we have been received as worshippers, both the first peoples and those after them, with not Moses nor the prophets bringing us forward—for the law is too slow for salvation—but the Son himself. For through him, as I said, we have obtained our access. And his purpose was to place Israel before the flock from among the nations. For Joseph set Manasseh at his father's right hand. But since they had impiously sinned against him beyond all reason, the Father has honored those who are second in time, that is, the nations. And the last have become first, and the first last. And Jacob blessed the young men, calling God the one who nourishes and the Angel the one who rescues him, joining the Son in all things to God the Father, who is also called through the voice of the prophets the Angel of great counsel. Therefore every grace, and every manner of blessing and assistance toward us, would come about in no other way except through the Son from the Father. And indeed the divine Paul says, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet the divine Joseph was distressed, seeing the firstborn placed as it were behind the younger. Then the father made clear the power of the mystery, saying: And this one shall become 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. Then after other things, he says, And he set Ephraim before Manasseh. For as far as it depended on what seemed good to Christ, Israel would not have slipped away from its own glory. And indeed he said plainly: I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

But since he has been hardened, according to what is written, and has remained disobedient, insulting the call of the one who calls to salvation, he has been placed on the left, having the lesser share in glory. And he too is blessed and exalted, as being at least on the side of the saved; and this is the remnant, according to the voice of the prophet. But the one from the Gentiles surpasses greatly, and is widened into gatherings of peoples, and is greater than Israel, making his preeminence by the immeasurable multitude of those who have believed. For we have been crowned with one and the same grace for sanctification, both those from Israel and indeed those from the Gentiles who have believed, and have been justified in Christ; through whom and with whom be the glory to God and the Father, with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.

BOOK 7 OF THE GLAPHYRA ON GENESIS.

Concerning the blessing of the twelve patriarchs. The aim of the discourse is that it must narrate each of the things said by the forefather Jacob concerning what would befall in due seasons upon the sons born from him. But he testifies beforehand, as it were, to that clearly, that the meaning of what is said is altogether difficult to attain and not accessible to the many, and is enigmatic and unclear in its manifestation. But mixed into the manner of the blessing is that which is not so, and that which is even more difficult to attain than these. For the divinely inspired Jacob promises to foretell to his children the things in the last times; yet he makes mention of things past, and measures out transgression—first that of Reuben, then immediately next and after that, that of Simeon and Levi.

Then who would dare to say that the recollection of those who have already stumbled before is a kind of blessing for some, and would not be considered false-speaking, and has fallen away from the fitting sense? Deep, then, and not very exposed to those who wish to grasp it, is the account concerning this. What then do we say is the possible meaning for the things set before us? Or, to speak comprehensively, of the whole race, or of the type of family belonging to each, what sort it will be at various times, and that it will be condemned in some respects, but how it will be approved, or even in what respects it will perhaps be, and to whatever end the matters concerning it will come; the narrative of the prophecy will in some way bring this in for us entirely. Observe how for some he depicts the things that will be in later times from things that have already happened, and for others again he makes the narration of the names, that is, the interpretation, a kind of indication of things to come, and a clear pre-declaration. It is written, then, as follows: And Jacob called his sons, and said: Gather together that I may announce to you what will happen to you at the last of the days. Assemble and hear, sons of Jacob; hear Israel your father. Concerning Reuben. Reuben my firstborn, you are my strength and the beginning of my children, hard to bear and harshly self-willed. You burst out like water, do not boil over. For you went up to your father's couch, then you defiled the bed where you went up. Reuben, then, stole his father's marriage; and he was caught not inconspicuously, having done what is not lawful, and as the matter was evil, it was condemned even by the very votes from Jacob. For it appeared evil, he says, before Jacob. But surely no one, I think, would suspect that what has already passed will be as in the last times.

For it is utterly foolish to understand it in this way. But reshaping, as it were, the figure of the transgression into one of the fitting things, we shall see the sin of the firstborn people—I mean Israel. For God, as it were, brought the congregation out of Egypt to himself as a kind of woman, through the intelligible fellowship according to the law. For he received her and deemed her worthy of kinship, and thus made her fruitful and a mother of children, with the all-wise Moses, so to speak, acting as her bridal escort and the angels mediating the manner of the union. But the Synagogue, brought in for this by God, grieved the law of legitimacy, being joined in a certain manner to the sons of her husband and playing the harlot under them, and no longer bearing fruit for the one who had lived with her through the law, but rather submitting her own mind to the seed of others—clearly, I mean, to intelligible seeds and those according to learning. For dishonoring as stale the things set before God, she turned to the commandments and teachings of men, and having disregarded the lessons from above, she held to what seemed simply

He was making a law. Therefore the prophet Isaiah also says, “How has the faithful city Zion become a harlot, full of judgment? In it righteousness slept, but now murderers. Your silver is rejected. Your merchants mix wine with water.” For righteousness—that is, God—slept and lodged with her. But she received murderers, adulterers, and corrupters, those who gave her rejected silver and mixed wine with water. Truly rejected is the word of those who persuade her to choose to honor teachings and commandments of men. And the account given by them is, as it were, adulterated and not unmixed with what is worse. For this, I think, is what it means to say that the wine was mixed with water. But that this matter grieved the God of all things, and that he reasonably accused Jerusalem as having played the harlot, hear him speaking clearly, at one time through the voice of Jeremiah: “Lift up your eye to the straight way, and see where you have been defiled. You sat upon those very roads like a deserted crow, and you defiled the land in your harlotries, and you took many shepherds as a stumbling block for yourself. The look of a harlot became yours; you were shameless toward all; you did not call me as a fellow dweller, and father and leader of your virginity.” And again at another time: “If a man sends away his wife, and she departs from him, and becomes another man’s, will she not return to him any more? Will that woman not be defiled when defiled? And you have played the harlot with many shepherds, and have you returned to me? says the Lord.” And the Savior himself clearly showed us the manner of the harlotry that followed this.

For the Pharisees, always fault-finding and senseless, came saying: "Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread." And Christ said to them: "Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God said: Honor your father and your mother, that it may go well with you; but you say," he says, "Whoever says to his father or his mother, 'Korban,' that is, a gift that you might have benefited from me—he shall not honor his father or his mother, and you have nullified the commandment of God because of your tradition." Do you hear how those who have come under other teachers, having chosen to think and do certain other things contrary to what the lawgiver approves, would be caught out, and that very easily? Therefore the Synagogue of the Jews has played the harlot, but the virgin, pure and spotless, she who is free from all stain and wrinkle—that is, the Church—promises that she will preserve for Christ the venerable and undefiled type of marriage, saying: "My beloved is mine, and I am his." Therefore, as an image of the Synagogue of the Jews, let us bring forward Jacob's concubine, I mean Bilhah, with whom Reuben had relations—that is, the firstborn people; especially since Bilhah is interpreted as "grown old," and Reuben as "son of profanation." For the Synagogue of the Jews has grown old and is indeed wrinkled; but the new people in faith has sprung up in its place. And let David sing for joy concerning it: "The people being created shall praise the Lord." For the things in Christ are a new creation, according to the Scriptures.

But Israel would be understood as profane and filthy, not having received the purification through Christ; and why do I say this? Because they even laid hands on the one who spoke to them for purification. Therefore it has also been said through the voice of the holy prophets themselves, at one time: "If the Ethiopian will change his skin, and the leopard its spots, then you also will be able to do good, having learned evil"; and at another time, as to a woman, Jerusalem: "Though you wash yourself with natron and multiply herbs for yourself, you are defiled before me in your lawless deeds, says the Lord." Therefore Reuben, says Jacob, is my firstborn; you are my strength and the beginning of my children. For upon the firstborn people from Egypt also there was a display of great strength from God. For the land of the Egyptians was punished in as many and not unremarkable ways: now waters transformed into blood, now gnats stirred up, a frog brought up, hail sent down, firstborn slain, and in addition to these, the redeemed passing through the middle of the sea as through dry land. Therefore Reuben is called the strength of this God; but he was hard to bear, and hard and self-willed, that is, unrepentant and inflexible, and wild, rushing upon. For the Jews are truly headstrong and very much unbridled. Therefore rightly they hear: "Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit." And Christ himself says somewhere: "Which of the prophets did your fathers not kill? And you have filled up the measure of your fathers.

Israel, then, is reckless and headlong into anger, and has an onset hard to bear, and runs riot like water—that is, he has an irresistible descent against whomever he may choose. For such, in a way, are the rushings of waters. But do not boil over, he says. And what is this? Boiling water is carried up somewhere on high, overflowing from the cauldrons, and it seems in a way to be abundant too. Since, then, he has attached to him the impulse of water, he abides by the metaphor of the word, and says: Do not boil over, that is, do not be lifted up beyond measure into a multitude, nor become many. For those of the blood of Israel who have been saved through faith in Christ are few in number compared with the multitude of the Greeks. Then he adds the cause of what would happen, and says: For you went up to your father's bed, then you defiled the couch where you went up. For, as I have already said, no longer searching out the things in the Law and the oracles from above and the commandments of men, they have in this way missed the knowledge that is in Christ. Therefore he himself also says: You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life. And those are they that testify concerning me, and you do not wish to come to me, that you may have life. And again: If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote concerning me. But he also reproached the teachers of the Jews very much, saying thus: Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut the kingdom of heaven before men. For you do not enter in, nor do you allow those who are entering to enter. And again:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you traverse sea and dry land to make one proselyte. And when he becomes one, you make him a son of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves. But he would not have become a son of Gehenna, had he not been added to the words of adulterers. The descendants of Israel by blood have therefore gone up to their father's bed, thrusting aside what seems good to the lawgiver as stale, and inserting their own words into those who are being instructed, and instilling in them seeds of impurity. Concerning Simeon and Levi. 1. Simeon and Levi, brothers, accomplished iniquity out of their own choosing. May my soul not come into their council, and may my liver not rest upon their assembly, for in their anger they killed men, and in their desire they hamstrung a bull. Cursed be their anger, for it was headstrong, and their wrath, for it was hardened. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. When Jerusalem had played the harlot, and had submitted her mind to the unholy deceits of those accustomed to teach otherwise, the God of all was rightly angered, and he spoke through the voice of Isaiah, very clearly: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. And since God and Father was planning to reform profane Jerusalem, which was, as it were, drunk with the impulses and heedlessness toward this, to the better, he sent from heaven his own Son, who became as we are, that is, a man.

so that, since the multitude of the holy prophets had worn themselves out over fruitless labors—for they said, "Lord, who has believed our report?"—they might at least then feel shame before the Son himself when he came. But they were brought to such a depth of perverse counsel as even to think they could seize the Lord's inheritance, and having killed the holy ones, and advancing to the utmost limit of impiety, they raged madly in an extraordinary way even against the Son himself. For they said among themselves, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and seize his inheritance." And their impiety did not stop at these, but they added to the holy prophets the second group—I mean the holy apostles—no longer sparing even their blood. Such, then, is the sense that the purpose of the prophecy set before us labors to bring forth. For the inspired Jacob seems to have remembered again the deeds done in Shechem. And in truth the purpose of the righteous man is as follows: for how could anyone accept what has already happened as though it were to happen in due time? Therefore, from what happened in Shechem, he refers to the equal manner of sin in the case of Christ, just as indeed also in the case of Reuben the firstborn. What then did Simeon and Levi do in Shechem? For Dinah, the sister of Levi and Simeon, went out from her father's tent to see the daughters of the local people; and Shechem the son of Emmor violated her. For he deflowered her. And they, being distressed at this and devising his murder by means of her deception, first persuaded them to agree to their father's circumcision, as though they would immediately become kindred by family, if they chose to do this.

But they killed those who had been sold, unexpectedly, thinking it would suffice them for a defense to say, "Will they not use our sister as a harlot?" 2. One must therefore proceed to what closely resembles this, and we fashion the contemplation as well as possible, gathering from every side the things that contribute to clarification. So then, expanding the account concerning Jacob, we have narrated both how and in what manner he lived, and which women he took in. And of how many children he was shown to be the father. We were saying that he married Leah, the elder of Laban's daughters, and second after her, and not long after, the youngest, Rachel. And we were affirming that Leah would be for us a type of the Synagogue of the Jews, and Rachel of the Church from the Gentiles. For indeed Leah is interpreted as "laboring," and she used weaker and less beautiful eyes. The Synagogue of the Jews has labored greatly, being instructed by the law through Moses, and it does not see with strong eyes toward the mystery of our Savior. But Rachel was beautiful in appearance and very lovely. And the Church from the Gentiles is exceedingly distinguished. So then, the last daughter of Leah was Dinah. And she too would be a type of the multitude from the circumcision, which also came in the last times, in which the Only-Begotten became man. When, therefore, the last multitude of those from the circumcision, having gone a little outside the paternal tent—that is, the customs according to the law—attacked the natives; that is, mingled with them for learning, I mean the holy apostles, who no longer lived in a Jewish manner, but were as it were in the estimation of those of another race—

Then indeed, then in a spiritual sense she was kept a virgin, receiving from them the seeds of the citizenship in Christ and of the gospel. But some of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, were indignant at this—that is, those who were placed in the rank of subjects, and together with them the sacred and chosen race. For Simeon is interpreted as obedience, and Levi as taken in addition or chosen. But that those who had obtained the boasts of the priesthood according to the law grew fiercely against the holy apostles, with the peoples joining together with them, how can one doubt? And they gnashed their teeth, calling the conversion of those who had come under them a corruption, and bringing forward charges as though they were among the most outrageous things: "For behold," they said, "you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching." But since they reproached them as no longer living in a Jewish manner, they were learning that circumcision had been honored among them; but that which wholly divides into difference was nothing—if indeed they chose to understand the things of Moses in the manner in which they ought. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, it says, nor is circumcision outward in the flesh; but the Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in spirit, not in letter. Do you see how those who had a reputation were conforming themselves to those of foreign birth

to the Jews, carrying the circumcision in the spirit and the Jew in secret. But even so they have killed, having first slain prophets, and Emmanuel himself. They completed, then, he says, injustice—Simeon and Levi—out of their own choice; for Simeon and Levi, that is, peoples and priests, have agreed and conspired with one another for the injustice against the saints. And “out of their choice” is instead of “according to deliberation and will.” For the terrible deeds of those who suffered were not simply fabricated from what happened, nor were the audacious acts and the monstrous boldness unpremeditated; but from their councils they went forth to do things beyond every evil. Therefore the divine Jacob rejects the agreement upon this matter, the joint deliberations, the deliberation. For let not, he says, my soul enter into their council, and let not my liver be gathered upon their assembly. For it is like saying: may I never gaze upon such counsels with the eyes of my mind, nor ever at all receive into my heart these most grievous schemes of the impious. Thus also the prophet Isaiah laments the assemblies of the Jews, saying: Woe to their soul, because they have devised an evil counsel, saying against themselves, Let us bind the righteous man, because he is troublesome to us. And David also sings: Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and has not stood in the way of sinners. And again: I have hated the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the ungodly. The divine Jacob therefore departs from the Jewish schemes—

He states the reasons, and says, "Because in their anger they killed men, and in their desire they hamstrung a bull." For they killed saints, as I said, being commanded by an unholy anger toward cruelty and inhumanity, and the wretched men, having taken an utterly endless and reckless desire into their mind, hamstrung a bull, that is, Christ. And what the desire was, we have already said beforehand. For having recognized that he is the heir, they desired to have his inheritance. 3. And observe the carefulness of the account. For they killed the men, but they hamstrung the bull. For they have wrapped the saints in death, and they have remained dead, awaiting the time of resurrection. But as a calf is hamstrung by an eagle, so Christ somehow bowed down to the earth, willingly enduring the death of the flesh; yet he did not become subject to death; but even if he became dead as a man, he has remained alive by the nature of his divinity. And Christ is a bull; for the animal is especially strong, and clean and most sacred. And the Son is Lord of the powers, who did not commit sin, but rather offered himself for us as a sweet-smelling aroma to God and the Father. Let those, then, who hamstrung the bull so revered hear: "Cursed is their anger, because it is self-willed; and their wrath, because it was hardened." What then have they suffered? They departed from their own, and they have abandoned the land that bore them; and they have been scattered and have become strangers everywhere, and sojourners and full of fear.

For it is true that just as a bird, when it has flown out of its own nest, so too is a man when he has been torn away from his own places. But I think it fitting to add this as well: that for those who hamstrung the bull, the matter will be for a curse; but for those who have grieved and who shake off so dreadful a charge, it will be a ransom and a purification and a putting away of sins. And we shall find through the shadow in the Law what I said was written. For it stands thus in Deuteronomy: But if a slain man be found in the land which the Lord your God gives you to inherit, fallen in the field, and they do not know who struck him, your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure to the cities round about the slain man, and the city that is near the slain man shall be. And the elders of that city shall take a heifer from the herd, which has not been worked and which has not drawn a yoke; and the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer into a rough ravine, which has not been worked,

It is not sown, and they shall hamstring the heifer in the valley, and the priests, the Levites, shall come near, because the Lord your God has chosen them to stand before him and to bless in his name, and on their mouth shall be every dispute and every touch. And all the elders of that city, those who are near to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the head of the heifer that was hamstrung in the valley, and they shall answer and say: Our hands did not pour out this blood, and our eyes have not seen it. Be merciful, O Lord, to your people Israel, whom you redeemed out of the land of Egypt, so that innocent blood may not come to be among your people Israel, and the blood shall be atoned for them. But you shall remove the innocent blood from among yourselves. But these things will be said in due season in detail for each point; nevertheless, this is what we say. Understand how some clear themselves of the charges concerning blood, the heifer prefiguring for us in itself the Emmanuel. For I think it is necessary that those who clear themselves should say: Our hands did not pour out this blood. But the people of the Jews will not ever be caught crying out this. Rather, they have dared to say, hamstringing the calf: Our hands poured out this blood. For, I think, nothing other than this is it to say senselessly concerning Christ: His blood be upon us and upon our children. Concerning Judah. 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. A lion's cub is Judah.

From a shoot, my son, you went up; you lay down and slept like a lion, and like a cub. Who will rouse him? A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until what is stored up for him comes. And he is the expectation of the nations. Binding his foal to the vine, and the foal of his donkey to the tendril. He will wash his garment in wine, and his cloak in the blood of the grape. His eyes are cheerful from wine, and his teeth white rather than milk. Very clearly indeed does the manner of this blessing shine out to us here, since he has brought in for his hearers the foretelling of the dispensation of our Savior. And as it were he lays down beforehand, as a beginning for the blessings, both the meaning of the name and certainly the pre-eminence in glory of the tribe of Judah beyond the others. For if one should choose to make plain the word or name Judah, he would interpret it as praise, or hymn-singing, or one who is hymned. And the account has its reference to the Christ according to the flesh, who is from the tribe of Judah. For he appeared from Judah, and Jesse, and David, and the Virgin who was taken for the generation of the flesh. The prophet, then, having looked beforehand upon the one from the tribe of Judah, says, Your name is true, just as the very force of the things would also show. For you shall be hymned, and you shall carry off the glory that befits God. For it would fit no other to be deemed worthy of glorification, except only the God who truly is and is known. For even if you have appeared as man, and have emptied yourself, nevertheless you shall be known as august and celebrated in song.

But his brothers, because of human nature, will not cling to him as to a mere man, but when he is set among brothers they will strike him down as Master, they will hymn him as Creator, and though he lives with them among created things, they will recognize him as King and Lord of all, though he is overshadowed by the form of a slave. And that Emmanuel will prevail over all who oppose him and will easily overcome his enemies, he foretold, saying: Your hands shall be on the back of your enemies. Christ himself also prophesied this beforehand through the voice of David. For he said: For I will pursue my enemies and overtake them, and I will not turn back until they fail. I will crush them, and they shall not be able to stand; they shall fall under my feet. Therefore, he says, the hands shall be on the back of the enemies, as of one who pursues rather than flees; not as of one who is struck, but rather as of one who himself strikes down. For true is what is hymned in the book of Psalms, that an enemy shall not profit in him, and a son of lawlessness shall not add to harm him. For if he himself gives us to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all the power of the enemy, how is it not necessary to confess that before us he himself will have under his hands those who wish to oppose him and who rise up against him impiously? Therefore, since he does not know how to flee but rather to pursue, and to prevail over whomever he wishes, and this without toil—for he has conquered the world—the inspired Jacob foretold it beforehand, saying: Your hands shall be on the back of your enemies, and the sons of your father shall bow down to you.

And what again is to be understood as the difference between the brothers who praise and the sons of the father, who will be ranked with those who worship? How is it not necessary to say? Therefore Christ was registered under a father, although the blessed Joseph was not a father in truth. But he had sons and daughters from a first marriage. And since they were perhaps also at table with Christ, seeing him perform signs, and not very much yielding to the legal decrees because of his indifference in matters of food, and because he did not very much choose to honor the rest of the Sabbath—for he said, "Not what enters into the mouth defiles the man," and that "the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath"—they were divided in their opinion, and neither did they wish to honor him wholly, because he seemed to them not to be blameless in matters concerning the law, nor did they think it right to leave unadmired one so illustrious. And so they once came to him saying plainly, "If you do these things, show yourself to the world. For no one does anything in secret, and seeks himself to be in the open." And the evangelist added to these things: "For not even his brothers believed in him." But those who said these things at the beginning, as time went on, came to believe. For they were fully assured that he is God by nature, even if he became flesh and appeared as a man. This indeed the blessed prophet Jeremiah, having foreknown in the Spirit, says to Emmanuel himself: "For even your brothers, and the house of your father, even these have rejected you, and they themselves cried out from behind you. They were gathered together, do not believe in them, for they will speak evil against you.

For those who formerly cried out against him together with the others were brought together in faith and have spoken good things concerning him. At any rate, James the blessed writes to the twelve tribes, saying: "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." Therefore those who through faith and sanctification have been called through faith to brotherhood will also praise him as God; but the sons of the father will nonetheless worship him. And it is evident that those who worship will praise, and those who weave praise will nonetheless be worshippers. For Christ is a lion's cub from Judah, being the Son of God who is almighty, to whom belongs the power to conquer without battle and to strike down those who oppose him by his word alone; for as the prophet says: "A lion will roar, and who will not fear?" So Christ is a lion's cub, having sprung up as from a shoot and from a noble root, the holy Virgin. For he himself is the rod of power, which God sent to us from Zion, the staff that exhorts and sustains all, the staff of uprightness and of kingship, which rightly and gently shepherds the flocks of the saints, but shatters like a potter's vessel those who do not endure to be pastured under him. He himself is the rod of Aaron, which has its place in the divine tabernacle and was brought into the Holy of Holies, which blossomed with nuts; and this is a symbol of the resurrection. For the wood of the nut-tree is in some way productive of wakefulness. And the mystery of the resurrection has been honored in the churches of God. For this reason also the blessed Jacob, having named the shoot, immediately remembers the things at the end of the dispensation, and says:

You lay down and slept as a lion, that is, you did not undergo death unwillingly, but although you were able to seize and terrify all as a lion and to escape the hand of the hunters, you willingly reclined, and were not, as those who chose to crucify supposed, overcome by death, but as it were gave yourself to sleep, and closed your eyes for a little.

Who then will raise him? he says. It is as if he were saying, He lay down willingly, but he will not need another's cooperation for resurrection. For he is all-powerful himself as the power of the Father; and he is not lacking in ability, as regards being able, and indeed very easily, to make his own temple alive. This indeed he also said when speaking to the Jews: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. That therefore no one would be a co-worker with him for this, but he alone will suffice as the strength of the one who begot him, the word will indicate not indistinctly. But what then will be the time of his coming? He makes clear, saying: There shall not fail a ruler from Judah, and a leader from his thighs, until he comes to whom it is reserved. And he is the expectation of the nations. For the Jews were ruled, and their leaders were from the blood of Israel, until Herod the son of Antipater, being a Palestinian, was named tetrarch, and laid claim to the rule; in his time Christ himself was born, the expectation of the nations. For that the multitude of the nations has been saved when he was born, there will be no need of long arguments for proof, since the fact itself cries out. But that the newly born and young people from the nations entered first through faith, and that Israel will be brought in after him, he taught, saying immediately:

Binding his foal to the vine. For the true vine, that is, Christ, bound to himself through faith, as it were, the people from the Gentiles, whom he likens to a foal. And he bound the foal of his donkey—I mean the people who have believed, sprung from the older mother of the Jews, that is, the Synagogue—to the tendril of the vine, that is, to the love that comes from him. How could anyone doubt this, when virtually all of divinely inspired Scripture speaks to us of the mystery? And that he was going to dye his own flesh crimson with his own blood, being nailed to the wood and pierced through with the spear, he made clear, saying: He will wash his garment in wine, and his cloak in the blood of the grape. And indeed the inspired Isaiah, recounting the ascent of Christ into the heavens, said that the holy angels, that is, the powers above, said: Who is this who has come from Edom? The redness of his garments is from Bozrah. And again: Why are your garments red, and your raiment as from a trodden winepress? And that, even if he has been among the dead, even if he endured the drunken outrages of the Jews, beatings and insults, he makes no great account of such things, having suffered them for our sake and having restored all that is under heaven—but rather he is in the ever most beloved and familiar cheerfulness of his own, he would show by saying: His eyes are cheerful from wine. For in these words one may understand, as I think, the smiling disposition, so to speak, and the ever in some way cheerful and gracious character of his divinity. For the mind is always in some way cheerful toward those who have drunk, and is above all a despiser of the things that are accustomed to be left behind.

Since the word comes forth as it were from teeth, he says that these also are white, as those who send forth from the tongue a word that is pure and thoroughly white. For Christ is in no way a sinner in speech, but rather one who speaks rightly and truthfully; and whatever he may utter, this is holy and worthy, and admired, and produces the greatest possible brightness in both soul and mind for those who listen. Concerning Zebulun. Zebulun shall dwell by the sea, and he himself by the harbor of ships, and shall extend as far as Sidon. We have already said beforehand, when examining the word of the prophecy set before us and striving to observe how it holds together and is carried through well, that we say this is done in part from the similarity of what has already been worked out, and in part also from the very interpretation of the names, as it were molded and fore-showing the form of things to come—this, I think, anyone with understanding would demonstrate. And this one may especially observe again in the case of Zebulun and those that follow. For it is interpreted as "good journey" and "blessing" by those who are well accustomed to clarify such things. We shall therefore find certain ones from Israel blessed, and

...having enriched themselves with the good success that comes from all things pleasing to God; except that those who have been justified through faith in Christ, and made radiant by the grace of the Holy Spirit, are such that they can now cry out without speaking falsely: "We are blessed by the Lord, who made heaven and earth." And I think the blessed prophet Isaiah could fittingly say also concerning them: "The way of the godly has become straight, and the way of the godly has been made ready. For the way of the Lord is judgment." God of all has commanded those who are here radiant and blessed to be called into the sacred and divine court, saying thus: "Open the gates; let the people enter who keep righteousness, and keep truth, who lay hold of truth, and keep peace." But so that, stumbling over the obstacles in between, they might not admit hesitation regarding good things, he commanded that there be, as it were, a good success, and that the entrance be smoothed over, saying thus to the holy priests: "Go through my gates, and cast away the stones of the way." Therefore those from Israel who have honored faith in Christ would be both blessed and prosperous. Indeed, he clearly affirmed that they would dwell—that is, Zebulun—in the land neighboring the sea. As if to say something like this: that Israel will henceforth be mingled with the nations, since the two peoples have been gathered into one flock, and have come under the hand of the one natural good Chief Shepherd, that is, Christ. And that the riddle is true, the word of divinely inspired Scripture will readily confirm, assigning to those from the nations the land adjacent to the sea.

For he said thus: "Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, and the rest who dwell along the coast, Galilee of the nations. The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light." You understand how he called the land of Zebulun the land of the nations, which also have beheld a great light—and it is clear that this was through Christ. Therefore Israel, which dwells alongside them, has been enlightened together with those who inhabit the coast. And this, I think, would be the prospering that comes from God. For that being enlightened in every way and altogether must be followed by prospering, we shall know again when the Savior says to the assemblies of the Jews: "While you have the light, walk in the light, lest darkness overtake you." The people of old, then, dwelling apart, refusing to be mingled with the nations, shall be a fellow-dweller with them, since nothing stands apart for difference—both because the middle wall of the partition has been loosed by Christ, and the law of commandments has been abolished in its precepts, and the two peoples have henceforth been brought forth into one new man in Christ through the Spirit. And there shall be, he says, "and a haven for ships"—that is, as in a harbor, perhaps safe and free from waves, and fastening the cables of hope to Christ. For as if having departed from a great storm, it shall henceforth be brought to anchor in the grace that is with him, just as indeed also the merchant ships in harbors.

But the fact that he says it extends even as far as Sidon itself seems to indicate that there will be such a great convergence of the two peoples toward spiritual unity that those of the blood of Israel will fill even those very cities, which had come into great blame and accusation before God, as once leading astray and in a certain manner plundering those who worship him. For he said somewhere through the voice of the prophets: "And what are you to me, Tyre and Sidon, and all Galilee of the foreigners? Will you also repay me a recompense, or do you also bear a grudge against me? Swiftly and quickly I will repay your recompense upon your heads, because you took my silver and my gold, and you brought my choice and beautiful things into your temples. And you sold the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel to the sons of the Greeks, so that you might drive them out from their borders." Consider, then, how those cities, once terrible and most hostile, and the cause of destruction for those of Israel, will receive those who have believed free from all fear, since our Savior Christ binds the two peoples together in peace toward unity of soul, and abolishes the

...hatred, while he settles Israel among the nations in love. I think, then, that it is in this way and no other that Zebulun will dwell by the sea. Concerning Issachar. Issachar desired what is good, resting among 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 husbandman. Now Issachar is again interpreted as "wage." And from its meaning it would be a type, as it were, and no obscure image of the things apportioned to Christ by God the Father as in the manner of a wage. For "Ask of me," says David, "and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession." And again he sings somewhere of those given, I think, to Emmanuel, almost pointing them out: "Behold, the inheritance of the Lord, sons; the wage of the fruit of the womb." For, he says, there have been given to Emmanuel as a wage, as it were, those who have believed, both from among those of the blood of Israel and from the other multitude, I mean that from the nations. And having named Jesus "Lord," he also said he became "fruit of the womb," because of his likeness to us. For he was born of a woman, and was shown to be the fruit of a virgin's womb. Therefore Christ has gained those who believe, and perhaps he says concerning them to the Father and God in the heavens: "Those whom you have given me out of the world were yours, and you have given them to me." These, then, desired what is good, that is, everything that could be called and truly is excellent, and is most dear to God.

They make this a matter of great importance and strive to achieve it, as if proclaiming from a good mind: The judgments of the Lord are true, justified together, desirable above gold and much precious stone. And good in addition to this is the desire to be under Christ himself. Indeed, the bride also says this in the Song of Songs: In his shadow I desired, and I sat down. The people, then, whose resolve has advanced to this point will carefully survey the allotments concerning God, that is, the good things promised in hope to the pious. Concerning which the divine David also said: In your hands are my lots. And it will settle as it were among them, and will rest altogether and in every way, because it will obtain what it hopes for. Having praised, then, his own counsel and judgment, and having deemed the rest in these things worthy of no ordinary wonder—that is, honor forever, life as in perfect sanctification, endless glory, unshakeable kingdom, and whatever is beyond mind and tongue—he will hereafter be patient of toil. For having seen that the land is rich, he says, he will put his shoulder to it and will love the labor. He takes the example from those accustomed to farm in the best way, who are most fond of work and lovers of the mattock, and indeed strive to sweat over plows, if they should obtain rich land, considering, I suppose, the abundant fruit and what will come from it. The wise Hosea also urges us to this in a way, saying: Sow for yourselves in righteousness, reap for the fruit of life; light for yourselves a light of knowledge. Seek the Lord until he comes, bringing forth fruits of righteousness for you.

And the blessed Paul also proclaimed, saying: He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed, and will increase the fruits of your righteousness, so that, always having all sufficiency, you may abound in every good work. Concerning Dan. Dan shall judge his people, as also one tribe in Israel; and let Dan become a serpent, lying in wait on the road, on the path, biting the horse's heel, and the rider shall fall backward, waiting for salvation from the Lord. The word again follows the etymology of the name. For Dan means judge or judgment. And this one too would indicate, as it were, in himself again the glorious and renowned choir of the holy apostles, who have been appointed as a beginning of those who have believed, and have received the lot of judging, Christ distributing the matter to them. And indeed the inspired Paul says: Do you not know that we shall judge angels, let alone matters of this life? Therefore one is judge and lawgiver according to the Scriptures, Christ. But if

The apostles act as ambassadors for Christ, and in them the word of reconciliation has been placed; it is nothing surprising if they are also understood as judges in likeness to Christ. And somewhere the great Isaiah among us has cried out, making clear both the God-befitting kingdom of Christ himself and the proclamation of the holy apostles themselves: Behold, a righteous king shall reign, and rulers shall rule with judgment. For long ago those from the tribe of Judah reigned over Jerusalem; and those who attended the holy tabernacle and obtained the lot of the priesthood were appointed to judge; for the lips of a priest shall guard judgment, and they shall seek the law from his mouth. But since the shadow in the law has, as it were, been drawn together, and the worship in spirit and truth has been brought in through Christ, the world needed more splendid judges; so the divinely inspired disciples have now been called in for this, and have entered into the lot of the teachers according to the law. Therefore to the mother of the Jews, I mean Jerusalem, it was said by God through the voice of the Psalmist: Instead of your fathers, your sons have been born to you—that is, those who are reckoned your sons have received the rank of fathers. And to our Lord Jesus Christ: You shall appoint them rulers over all the earth. One may see that this has indeed been brought to fulfillment. For we have been made rulers, and we have had judges for the whole world, the holy disciples, by whose instructions the very mystery of Christ is proclaimed, since they are themselves both stewards of the saving word and introducers of what must be done.

Rejecting as counterfeit whatever is unprofitable for those being instructed, they advise that what is naturally beneficial be adopted. Dan, he says—that is, whoever may be appointed from time to time to judge nations and peoples—will thus rule powerfully and with great glory, just as indeed one tribe of Israel did. He means, I think, the royal tribe of Judah, certainly, and no other. For how can one doubt that those appointed by the Savior as leaders under the sun are honored and have reached the height of glory among the worshipers of the Savior? Yet their rule will not be entirely free of toil, but they were to experience many and countless evils; and it is hinted that they will be tripped up, and that they will not find the course of their apostleship entirely free of dangers, as in the figure of an example, when he says, "Let Dan be"—instead of, Dan shall be the people of the persecutors, like a serpent sitting in the way, biting the horse's heel on the path—that is, giving terrible and inescapable teachings. Therefore the bites of vipers are somehow hard to escape, even if they reach the very heel. For he, it says, will watch your head, and you will watch his heel. Some plotted against the holy apostles in this way, so as even to bring about death in the flesh itself. And we say that they underwent something like what a horseman might suffer when his horse stumbles and, as it were, sinks backward. For the rider will be thrown on his back, and falling to the ground, I think, he will await the one who saves.

The wondrous disciples will await the time of their own glory and salvation, at which they will be called into a kingdom unshaken and eternal, when Christ cries out to them: Come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For they have finished the course, and they have kept the faith. Therefore they will carry off the unfading crown of glory. But if someone should wish to hold that it is not that certain ones will be to Dan as serpents lying in wait on the road, but that Dan himself will plot against others, we will say this: that the Scribes and Pharisees, who have the task of judging and leading the peoples, sprang up like the bitterest serpents against Christ, and, as it were, stinging a horseman as he sped along a bare and smooth path, they were wickedly smitten and caught. But even if the horseman has fallen, having willingly endured the death of the flesh, yet he will also come back to life, making the Father his helper and defender. For being the Power of God and the Father, the Son gave life to his own temple. In this way indeed he is said to have been saved by the Father, having come into danger as a man, although by nature he is God, and himself holds together the whole visible and invisible creation into well-being. Understanding this in some such way, the wondrous Paul also says concerning him: For even if he was crucified from weakness, yet he lives from the power of God. Concerning Gad. Gad, a pirate-band, shall pirate him; but he himself shall pirate him at the heels. He interpreted again what Gad might wish to signify: for it is temptation, or a pirate-band.

It would be fitting, I think, that through this the God-hating and boastful swarm of the Scribes and Pharisees also be understood—those who, thrusting aside the divine and evangelical proclamation, and honoring none of the things necessary for benefit, gnashed their teeth at Christ, who was teaching things beyond shadow and law, and who was greatly esteemed and marveled at, and who astonished no less all throughout Judea by the excess of his wondrous works, and who by his teachings contributed marvels to everything whatsoever that is pleasing to God. And indeed, when, according to the voice of the prophet, leaving Bethany, he entered Jerusalem, himself gentle, mounted on a beast of burden and a new colt, the children who went before were saying in praise: Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And some of those who were running together were spreading their garments on the roads, and were making the entry not without wonder; but they were bursting apart, and struck by the sharper goads of envy, they were speaking to one another, and almost accusing those who were still about to be, concerning the necessity of killing. For they were saying, "You see that you profit nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after him." But since they feared the multitude of those who had already believed, for a time they refrained from hands and from open assault. But in order to make him clash with the Roman governors, they send some of their own disciples with those called Herodians, saying: "Teacher, we know that you are true, and that you care about no one; for you do not look at the face of men. Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?

But they were immediately refuted, when Christ said to them, after the showing of the denarii: Render the things of Caesar to Caesar, and the things of God to God. Yet they, who ought to have blushed at this and thereafter to have refrained from testing him, let loose upon him yet another trial. For having made something like a whip out of cords, he drove all those who were selling the sheep and the oxen out of the temple, saying: Take these things from here; do not make the house of my Father a house of trade. And they, being indignant, come: By what authority do you do these things, and who gave you this authority? What then does Christ say to this? I also, he says, will ask you a question, and tell me: The baptism of John, from where was it? From heaven, or from men? But they reasoned, he says, among themselves, that If we say, From heaven, he will say to us: Why then did you not believe him? If we say, From men, we fear the crowd. For all held John as a prophet. And they say, he says: We do not know. What then does Christ say to these things? Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things. Therefore Gad is a place of testing, that is, the Pharisees who always test. Nevertheless they were tested in turn close behind, that is, immediately. For Christ was the one who, according to the voice of the prophet, catches the wise in their wisdom, and cleverly circumvented the counsels of the wily into a counter-questioning. Concerning Asher. Asher, his bread is rich, and he himself will give food to rulers. Asher, then, is wealth again. For here is the declaration of the meaning.

Here too, I think, he may be understood as the one in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden—that is, Christ, the treasure hidden in a field, the pearl of great price, who also says most clearly in the person of Wisdom: Riches and glory are mine, and the possession of many things, and righteousness. He it is who visited the earth, as David says: You have multiplied to enrich it. And the most wise Paul also writes somewhere concerning him: I give thanks to my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in him, in every word and all knowledge. For he became poor with us, though God was rich, so that we might become rich by his poverty. To him surely belongs also the rich bread—that is, exceedingly fat and most nourishing. For our Lord Jesus Christ feeds us, not by sending down the perceptible manna as of old to the people of Israel, but by dwelling himself in the souls of believers through the Holy Spirit. Therefore he also said to the crowds of the Jews: Amen, amen, I say to you, Moses did not give you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. And again: I am the bread of life. Bread is also understood in another way as life-giving, according to one of the more secret meanings. And he gives food to the rulers. For I would say that Thrones and Authorities, Principalities and Powers, angels and archangels, and every holy and rational creation, make Christ their food. And so the matter may be understood as is fitting.

But he also distributes food to the leaders of the flocks on earth—clearly spiritual food, the revelation of the divine mysteries, the knowledge of every virtue—so that they too may feed the peoples subject to them with teachings that lead to life. Therefore he also says to them, "Freely you received, freely give." And indeed elsewhere: "Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord will set over his household, to give them their measure of grain in due season? Truly I say to you, blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he comes, will find doing so. Truly I say to you, that he will set him over all his possessions." We will find the teachers of the Churches doing this, and before them especially the holy apostles. At any rate, blessed Paul writes to certain people: "For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established." And they themselves say that they have been called by God, who clearly fills them with good things from above and richly fattens them with the provisions given through the Spirit. Asher, then, is Christ, or those who have been enriched by Christ, of whom the bread would also be understood as rich. Concerning Naphtali. Naphtali is a spreading stem, giving beauty to its offspring. This too, I think, would fit—and not beside the mark—both Emmanuel himself, perhaps, and, if he so wished, also those who have been justified in faith and sanctified in spirit. For it was said to the mother of the Jews—I mean Jerusalem—through the voice of Jeremiah: "The Lord called your name a beautiful olive tree, well-shaded in appearance.

At the voice of her circumcision fire was kindled against her. Great is the affliction upon you. Her branches have become useless, and the Lord of hosts who planted you has spoken evils against you. For when she ought to have obtained the care that was due to her (for this, I think, and nothing else, is what circumcision signifies), then he says that she became useless and was set on fire, because she did not wish to acknowledge the husbandman who was present—the one who, as with some sharpest pruning-knife, by the operation of the Spirit, rids us of what is useless, that is, of the more earthly and fleshly things, so that we may bring forth the impulse and eagerness toward everything that is admirable. At any rate, one may hear our Savior Christ plainly saying: I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes it away; and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it, so that it may bear more fruit. For as it were a root, and the stem of a vine firmly rooted, is our Lord Jesus Christ, for those who have been brought into newness of life. And in the manner of branches, we, through the union that is in the Spirit, have grown upon him and are attached to him spiritually, being bound together by love for him, and luxuriating in the richness that comes from him, and being nourished by the divine grace for

the fruitfulness of virtue. But the Father himself, together with the Son, visits our affairs. Yet it is clear somewhere that even if Christ is understood as a vine, and the Father as a vinedresser, in Christ surely he cuts off what is useless, and takes thought for what is able to be in the best condition and to bear fruit in him. When, then, it was fitting that the mother of the Jews be seen to have become better, the well-shaded and beautiful olive tree, as the prophet says, then she both perished and fire was kindled in her. Therefore also the wise John says, But already the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. And that the renowned city was going to fall into misfortunes, having come to the lot of evil, the prophet Zechariah foretold in an oracle, saying: And the lamentation of Jerusalem shall be as the lamentation of a pomegranate tree in a field being cut down. And again, as to her: Open, O Lebanon, your doors, and let fire devour your cedars. Let the pine wail, because the cedar has fallen. For the great ones have suffered greatly. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, because the dense forest has been torn down. For Lebanon is a mountain luxuriant with cedar. The plant is fragrant, and among those most admired for beauty. He likens Jerusalem, then, to Lebanon, as having a multitude of priests not to be despised, at least, I say, with respect to the honors from the law. For rulers had been appointed, and like stout and very tall trees in forests, they bore the measure of all the others, and stood far above the peoples under their hand.

But Jerusalem, that is, Lebanon, has been burned up. And those in her who were illustrious and most conspicuous, and who had their height in glories, have lamented one another, falling and perishing, and as if they had fallen in with certain most vigorous woodcutters, the generals of the Romans. But our Lord Jesus Christ, through those things by which those men wretchedly perished wretchedly, has become a shoot sent up. For he ever delights in unceasing upward motions, and, so to speak, is widened over the whole earth under heaven. And God himself clearly proclaimed this very thing beforehand through the voice of Ezekiel, saying: And I will take from the choice parts of the cedar, from the top of their heart I will pluck off, and I will plant it myself on a high mountain, and I will hang it on a lofty mountain of Israel. And I will plant it, and it shall bring forth a shoot, and it shall make fruit, and it shall become a great cedar, and every beast shall rest under it, and every bird shall rest under its shadow. And its branches shall be restored, and all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord, who brings low a high tree, and exalts a low tree, and dries up a green tree, and makes a dry tree flourish again. I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it. You understand, then, that God and the Father, having taken the choice parts of the cedar, has planted for us the tree of life, that is, Christ. And he calls the choice parts of the cedar the tribe of Judah, which rules always and is more glorious than the others; from which Jesse also sprang up, and David, and the holy Virgin, who brought forth Jesus.

And how can one doubt that what was taken from the choice cedar has been hung on wood for our sake, and that it is a plant both beautiful and most fair-flowering? But we too have sprouted forth through the will of the Father—we who were formerly dry wood and had no fruit—since those who were, so to speak, in the moisture and life of the Law, that is, those from Israel, have become dry and withered. And they were lofty, but we were lowly and cast down. But we have been exalted in Christ through faith. And they have slipped down from their ancient glory and have become lowly. God, then, is the Lord of all, who by his own nod humbles the lofty and raises up the lowly, and dries up the green wood and makes the dry wood flourish again. For that those from the ancient Synagogue, differing in nothing from thorns and thistles, are all but cut off from the holy land, while the multitude of those in faith has sprung up in their place and is likened to the most fragrant of trees, you will learn, as God says: And I will make the desert into marshes, and the land into watercourses. I will set in the waterless land the cedar, and the box-tree, and the myrtle, and the cypress, and the white poplar. And after other things: And it shall be that instead of the broom the cypress shall come up, and instead of the fleawort the myrtle shall come up. For by the cedar you will understand the hope of incorruption of those who have believed; for the cedar does not know how to rot. And by the box-tree, that those in Christ are to be understood as neither in lightness of mind nor indeed in levity of thought. For all are prudent, since they have Christ as their mind. And the wood of the box-tree is compact, and has in itself much density.

And through the myrtle is signified the fragrant in sanctification, and the ever-green in grace. And through the cypress, that which is lofty and sweet-smelling. And I mean lofty in respect of virtue, and that which is conspicuous, as it were, in doctrines. And through the white poplar, that which is, so to speak, bright and glistening white unto righteousness. For those in Christ are bright, being made radiant by the grace that comes from him. A shoot, then, sent forth is Naphtali, either Christ himself, or those who are known of Christ. And since he says, "Giving beauty to the offspring," he would indicate, as I think, something of this sort again. For in the beginning Christ, seen in the form that is among us, was not believed to be God by nature, even if he became flesh. And indeed the Jews dared to attempt to stone him, casting upon him the charge and accusation, "Because you, being a man, make yourself God." But we shall find that even the holy apostles themselves were amazed as at a wonder-worker, yet did not as yet clearly understand the mystery concerning him. Therefore the sea was being calmed, and the rush of wild winds was being checked, when Christ commanded it to be. And they, he says, reasoned among themselves, saying, "What sort of man is this, that even the sea and the winds obey him?" Do you see how that which he was by nature, that is, God, even if he became flesh, was not as yet made known to those according to the world, and was among glories not as yet bright? But since the knowledge concerning him has advanced among us unto increase, he was thereafter believed to be God by nature, and every knee shall bow to him, when all that is under heaven worships him.

Therefore, as the knowledge of him advances into perfection within us, he who is beautiful in beauty beyond the sons of men is then, precisely then, distinctly recognized. And if the saying, "Adding beauty to the offspring," should perhaps be understood also in our case, the account is not unclear. For always advancing in virtue and attaining to better things—that is, stretching forward to the things before, according to the voice of the blessed Paul—we ever leap up to the more conspicuous beauty; and I mean the spiritual beauty, so that it may now be said also to us: "The King has desired your beauty." Concerning Joseph. Joseph is a son increased; a son increased, a jealous son, my youngest; return to me. Against whom, deliberating, they reviled, and masters of arrows pressed hard upon him, and their bows were shattered with might, and the sinews of the arms of their hands were loosened through the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob. From there, the one who prevailed, Israel, from God your father; and my God helped you, and blessed you with the blessing of heaven above, and the blessing of the earth possessing all things, for the sake of the blessing of breasts and womb, the blessing of your father and your mother. You prevailed over the blessings of everlasting mountains, and over the blessings of eternal dunes, which shall be upon the head of Joseph, and upon the crown of those whom he led, his brothers. Again the word of the prophecy creeps over to Emmanuel himself for us. And the meaning indicated by it would be, I think, nothing other than what I just said: "Adding beauty to the offspring.

For saying that he was increased signifies altogether the advancement and the onward course of the glory naturally inherent in him from the beginning, in accordance with what has been rightly supposed. For since the only-begotten Word of God, being God and from God, emptied himself, according to the Scriptures, willingly descending into what he was not, and put on this most inglorious flesh, and appeared in the form of a servant, having become obedient to God and the Father unto death—for this reason he is now said to be highly exalted, and, as though because of his humanity he had, so to speak, no share in grace to receive the name that is above every name, according to the voice of the blessed Paul. But the reality was, in truth, not a gift, as though at the beginning, of things not naturally in him—far from it. Rather, it should be understood as a return and a running back to what was in the beginning, and which exists in him essentially and without possibility of loss. Therefore he also said, having submitted in economy to the lowliness of humanity: Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was. For he was always in God-befitting glory, coexisting with his own Begetter before every age and time and the foundation of the world. Therefore, increase must be understood of Christ as the advancement of his glory, which God always in some way has as broader and more manifest, because by nature he is understood by those in the world, and as Lord of all, being glorified together and worshiped together with God and the Father. Yet he himself, being the maker of the ages, would reasonably be understood as having also become the youngest.

For he appeared in the last times of the age, after the glorious and admirable choir of the holy prophets, and simply after all those before his coming who were reckoned, as it were, in the rank of sons by reason of virtue. But that Emmanuel has become an object of zeal, how can one doubt? He is an object of zeal to the saints, who strive to follow in his footsteps and are formed to his divine beauty, making him the pattern of what must be done, and they carry off the glory that is best of all. He may be understood as an object of zeal in another way as well by those who have chosen not to love, I mean the teachers of the Jews, that is, the Scribes and Pharisees, who, harboring a bitter zeal within themselves and making his incomparable glory the occasion of envy, were caught in many ways. For Christ would raise up the dead who were already stinking and corrupted, and he showed himself stronger than death itself. But they, when they ought to have been amazed and to have hastened to believe, no longer doubting at all, did not do this, but were bitten by envy and received bitter griefs into their mind. He healed the man blind from birth, and they called him a sinner. Companies of unclean demons were driven out, and they falsely claimed Beelzebub as the giver of his power. They threw stones, saying most impiously: "For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God." They were sawn apart, saying: "This is the heir; come, let us kill him." So then he is an object of zeal even to those who have chosen to hate, except that he is not to be caught by them altogether.

For even if he endured the cross, yet as God he came back to life, having trampled death, and God the Father all but cried out and said: Return to me. For he has ascended into the heavens, so that he might also hear him saying: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. For that they have been brought into subjection, though they travailed with the greatest madness against him, he taught when he said: Against whom, deliberating, they reviled, and the lords of arrows pressed hard upon him. For gathering councils, the lords of bitter arrows took counsel—that is, the leaders of the peoples, who sharpened against him those who, as it were, wound, and who were all but fixed in the manner of barbs, because they dared to do what is not lawful, and to leap upon him like wild beasts. Nevertheless their bows were shattered, and the sinews of their arms were loosed by the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob, that is, of God the Father, who is Lord of the powers, who also prepared his Son to be blessed both in heaven and on the earth. For the divine Paul writes: But when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says: And let all the angels of God worship him. And somewhere the great David also says: Let all the earth worship you, and sing psalms to you. This, we say, is the blessing from above, and that below on the earth which has all things—that is, in which, through Christ, all virtue henceforth, and exceedingly

The fruits of piety toward God are abundant. For it has been said somewhere to the Son: You visited the earth, and having made it drunk you multiplied it, to enrich it. That the blessing from above was given to him, and indeed also the blessing from the earth, he clearly confirmed: For the sake of the blessing of breasts and womb, the blessing of father and mother. Through this both the generation of the Only-Begotten from God the Father and his birth through the holy Virgin are signified clearly and vividly, insofar as he is understood and has appeared as man. For being Son by nature and truly of God the Father, for our sake he endured birth through a woman and a womb, and he nursed at breasts. For he did not, as some think, become man in appearance only, but as he has truly appeared as that which we ourselves are, following the laws of nature, he also submitted to nourishment, though he himself gives life to the world. For this reason also the blessed Isaiah made, as it were, a certain indication of the Lord's true becoming man, namely his need of food befitting an infant, saying: He will eat butter and honey. He has been blessed, therefore, for the sake of breasts and womb. For as I said earlier, since he became man and was obedient to the Father, he has inherited the name that is above every name, and every knee will bow to him, of those in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Yet even if he has appeared as one of us, nevertheless he will be exalted above every saint, and he will stand pre-eminently in a manner befitting God above the fathers who are still renowned from of old. For what does the Psalmist say? For who in the clouds shall be equal to the Lord? Or who shall be likened to him among the sons of God?

The blessed Jacob teaches this, saying: "Because you have prevailed over the blessings of the everlasting mountains and the eternal sands." For he calls the saints "everlasting and most steadfast mountains," and indeed "eternal sands," because they have been lifted up from the earth and think nothing of the things cast down, but seek the things above, and dart exceedingly well toward the heights of the virtues. Therefore, after the glory of Christ, the most distinguished of the Fathers also come, having arrived at the inheritance of virtue. For they were servants, even if they had already been placed among the children; but the Lord, as a Son, has supplied to them the things through which those men became illustrious. Therefore they also say, "From his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace." So the crown of glory will rest by nature on the head of our Savior; but it will nonetheless pass over and be a gift given, even to the holy ones themselves who have become subject to him, who will wear the unfading crown of glory; and having become partakers of his sufferings, they will share in his good fame. For it is fitting that those who have suffered with him will also reign with him. Concerning Benjamin. "Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he will still devour, and in the evening he will distribute food." Rachel first bore the wondrous Joseph, and after him Benjamin; but Joseph was called by his father the youngest son. And we will grant that the matter stands thus. But we say that Benjamin became younger than the younger. But Benjamin is the youngest son; and so he might reasonably be understood as a kind of image and type of the youngest people.

He who was also called through the holy disciples, after Christ had risen from the dead and returned to the Father and God in the heavens. And he is likened to a ravening wolf, because of the fervor, I think, for the desires that lead to discipleship, and for always leaping upon, and very eagerly, as upon certain hunts for anything whatsoever that nourishes toward good health—clearly, that is, spiritual health. For they are formidable at seeing what contributes to benefit, and indeed at snatching what is useful; sharp at running away from those accustomed to doing injustice. And they are not at all easy to intimidate with fears, not even if those who have chosen to drive off good works and words should pour around them like dogs, and they grow numb at the attack. For they have learned, and very vigorously: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or famine, or persecution, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? But not even would the false shepherds drive them at all from the path they love, casting

into the kidneys [trenches?] without sparing, according to what is written. For such people are exceedingly patient in suffering, and consider it life to suffer; at any rate they have cried out: For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Therefore, even if they were likened to ravening wolves, in the ways just now set before us, they would, it seems, in no respect be wronged in not having it rightly, since indeed the Savior himself calls himself a lion and a leopard, that is, a panther, saying: For I am like a panther to Ephraim, and like a lion to the house of Judah.

And I will come, and I will go, and I will take, and there will be none to deliver.—And the beasts of the field, he also calls those who believe in him, speaking thus through the voice of Isaiah: The beasts of the field will bless me, the sirens and the daughters of sparrows. For I have given water in the wilderness, and rivers in a dry land, to give drink to my chosen race, my people whom I have acquired to declare my virtues. You understand, then, how he named the chosen race beasts of the field and sirens, that is, those most eloquent of the sparrows. And beasts, because they do not endure perhaps Satan taming them and striving to bring them under his own hand, but rather leap upon him, and all but tear to pieces those who have chosen to stir up things that are not lawful; and sirens, because they speak exceedingly well of the achievements of Christ, and hymn the honors due to him. Therefore Benjamin is a wolf, the new and faithful people, whose readiness to understand what contributes to benefit, and indeed whose strength to help others also, he indicates, saying: In the morning it will still eat, and in the evening it will distribute food. He who learns is somehow always like him who is fed. For lessons settle into the mind, just as food certainly does into the belly. And the teacher falls no short of the one who feeds. At any rate, the divine Paul likens the manner of teaching to food; for he said that solid food is for the perfect, for those who through habit have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. Therefore Benjamin is a ravening wolf.

He will eat it in the morning, and in the evening he will give food. It is as if he were saying: While still a disciple and not yet advanced to the present state, he would benefit others, and a very short time will show those who have just believed to be fit for teaching. For it was said of those from Israel, because of their great ignorance, I think, and the thickness within their mind: Behold, a foolish people and without heart. They have eyes, and they do not see; they have ears, and they do not hear. And again: Those who are carried from the womb, and trained until old age. But the wise John writes to those in faith and in Christ, saying: You have no need that anyone teach you, but as his anointing teaches you concerning all things. For they have the mind of Christ, who knows all things, and they are not insufficiently equipped for teaching and encouraging one another. But if it is fitting to say that the prophecy concerning Benjamin has been fulfilled also in the blessed Paul himself, it would in this way be both fine and true. For he who persecuted the Church and, like a wolf, ran against those who love Christ, was transformed in a very short time to the exact opposite. For he proclaimed the faith which he once ravaged, and he brings thank-offerings, having been appointed to apostleship, although previously he was a blasphemer and a persecutor and an insolent man. For so he says somewhere himself. And he was also from the tribe of Benjamin. And I say that the inspired David himself clearly remembered the history concerning him, saying in the sixty-seventh psalm: There is Benjamin, the younger, in ecstasy. The rulers of Judah, their leaders, the rulers of Zebulun, the rulers of Naphtali.

For the blessed disciples, being Jews and from the blood of Israel, became teachers of those justified in Christ through faith, with whom also he himself, from the tribe of Benjamin, writes and says: For whether we were beside ourselves, it was for God; whether we are sober-minded, it is for you. For he was proclaiming the gospel to both Gentiles and Jews, our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom and with whom be glory to God and the Father with the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Of our father among the saints Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria, the first discourse of the Glaphyra on Exodus. Concerning the birth of Moses. 1. Having now and scarcely passed through the book of Genesis, with as much economy of narrative as possible, from strength to strength, as it is hymned in the Psalms, and not having, so to speak, breathed even a little, we persuade ourselves that the pen, worn smooth by noble labors, must proceed. For we take up, with God willing and granting wisdom, the chapters in Exodus which seem to have been passed over when we composed the ethical exhortation, at the time when it seemed right to decline lengthy discourses, since we wished to demonstrate what manner of worship in spirit and in truth might be understood by us. For having divided each of the chapters contained in the five books of Moses, and having well beforehand observed the aim of the contemplation in them, we have composed at the appropriate time those things which were in some way necessary and most especially useful for ethical instructions, and, as I may say, in the order most fitting for each; but those things through which it was likely that the mystery of Christ should be prefigured, as far as possible, as still in shadows according to the law, we have reserved for the writing that follows.

For this, if you now choose to labor, beloved Palladius, I know that you will strive alongside me through prayer. The matter is by no means easy for those of our time, but it could become at least in some measure well-trodden, since Christ again widens the path for this very thing. For he himself is the way, and he himself is the door, and in him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. We will make the composition of the book not by omitting nothing and going through every chapter in sequence (for very many things, as I said just now, we have inserted selectively, which we will find clearly in the other arrangement); but whatever may appear useful for the proposed aim, examining these accurately and polished as far as possible, we will come straight to the truth. Since the aim of the book leads to the redemption that is through Christ, it is altogether necessary first to set forth the human race as having been greatly endangered, and already brought to the lot of the utmost misery. For the account would proceed in this way and not otherwise in the fitting order of the help; For my power, he says, is perfected in weakness. And I think it is necessary also for those skilled in the art of physicians and most approved, if ever they are to be admired somewhere for the things in which they are wise, that the sick person be set before them, concerning whom there would also be the demonstration of the skill that is in them. 2. Therefore, let us now say that when a famine once rushed down and fell upon and pressed upon the sons of Israel unbearably, they settled from the land of Canaan into Egypt, some seventy-five souls, as it is written.

As time passed, their race spread out into a multitude beyond counting. For it is written: But the sons of Israel increased and multiplied and became numerous, and they grew very strong; and the land multiplied them greatly. And when the one who had obtained the leadership of the land of the Egyptians saw the growth of the Hebrews into a multitude, he did not regard it without suspicion, but plotted against them and set overseers of works over them, so that they might afflict them in their works. Now the manner of their affliction was sweat over mattocks, long brickmaking without pay, and indeed the rebuilding of strong cities for Pharaoh—that is, towered cities, or else so broad and long as to seem altogether [ruinous] to others, evidently because of the multitude of those dwelling in them. And they were Pithom and Rameses, and other cities. But the tyrant's plan turned out contrary to his expectations. For, he says, in the humbling of those punished, the demonstration was in greater things, and they became more numerous—God, who is accustomed to benefit through affliction, willing to help those impiously outraged. Understanding this, the tyrant added another plot to their labors. For he commanded the midwives of the Jews, if they were midwifing women already in labor and childbirth, to smother the race that was under suspicion among them—that is, the male—but to keep the female alive. For he seemed to regard as worthy of no account the weak and unwarlike, prone to cowardice, and enfeebled by the law of nature. But the midwives did not do the impious deed, and for this they were pleasing to God. What then did the sinner do?

He clothes himself with anger, and persuades the ways of impiety to be shameless. For Pharaoh gave orders to all his people, saying: Every male that is born to the Hebrews, cast into the river, and every female, keep it alive. 3. But let the word of the history stand at this point. Let us now declare, applying our mind to the innermost contemplations, that since the thought of man lies diligently upon evil from his youth, through lack of the good things from above, the whole race, so to speak, upon the earth was being destroyed, and a famine, as it were, of the heavenly teachings was feeding upon us, just as indeed we would observe also the prodigal son written as in a type of parable, who devoured his father's substance in a foreign land, and desired to be filled with the carob pods [which] the swine were eating. It is for this reason that we have run to the more earthly things, abandoning the better and the need to strive for the more profitable things, through which it was likely not to miss the benevolence from above, and to be seen enriching our kinship toward God. Having slipped away, then, from all that is able to hold fast to being well and being with God, we no longer made the one who is by nature and truly Master the steward of our affairs.

But since we have departed, as it were, from a holy land—the life that loves God—and have all but rushed down into the more shameful and more unlovely life that lies under the devil, we have become like those from Canaan who went down into Egypt and came under the hand of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. These, being extraordinarily devoted to the worship of demons and holding no form of wickedness unpracticed, would display in themselves, as in an image, Satan himself and those under him, whom they also considered gods—men struck from the best understanding and afflicted with the mist and darkness that comes from ignorance. And since we have come under a harsh and accursed master—I mean Satan—we are worn out with clay and brickmaking, I mean with earthly pursuits and the most abominable enterprises in it, which are not accomplished without sweat. For the distraction of this life is not free from toil, even if it happens to be of little account. And Satan appointed the unclean demons, that is, the powers under him, as overseers, as it were, of the works most dear to him, over those who are wronged; and they burden down the mind of each person on earth with the manifold greed of the passions, fearing, I think, lest perhaps relaxing the eye of the mind at leisure toward God, they might loose their neck from slavery under him. For the nature of man is very fond of freedom.

That glory and wealth are reckoned to be, and are, for the unclean demons and Satan himself, and that our random distraction, and the labors of the flesh, and zeal that looks to the more earthly things, is theirs—the raising of cities for Pharaoh by the Israelites, who were worn out with clay and brickmaking, would hint at this enigmatically; and it is loathed that he makes the male, that is, what inclines toward manliness—clearly, that is, manliness in virtues. And he all but strangles the warlike element by casting it into the marshes of pleasures, while he receives what is not strong, and as useless, without a fight, he brings it under his own yokes. He would show not indistinctly that the male must be cast into the waters, but the female kept alive. For these things, as they are in sight and vividness, would become a type of the less visible things. Therefore, since we have been sick with sin from the beginning and from our fathers, and are pressed by the lack of good things, perhaps even unwillingly we wretches have been yoked to Satan, the leader of evil, and have been brought under the overseers of wickedness—I mean the unclean demons—and our affairs were already at the last of every evil, with nothing of misery and wretchedness left out, except that God had mercy, and delivered and saved us. And in what manner, we shall know through what follows and is joined to it. For we shall bring forward, as an image and pattern of the salvation through Christ, what is written concerning the divine Moses. 4. Now there was a certain man from the tribe of Levi, who took one of the daughters of Levi and had her, and she conceived in the womb and bore a male. And seeing that he was beautiful, they hid him three months.

But when they could no longer hide it, his mother took a basket and coated it with asphalt and pitch, and put the child into it, and set it in the marsh by the river. And his sister watched from a distance, to learn what would become of him. And the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe at the river, and her maidservants walked along by the river. And seeing a basket in the marsh, she sent her maidservant and took it up. And opening it, she sees a child weeping in the basket, and the daughter of Pharaoh spared him, and said, "This is one of the children of the Hebrews." And his sister said to the daughter of Pharaoh, "Do you wish me to call for you a woman who nurses from among the Hebrews, and she will nurse the child for you?" And she said, "Go." And the young woman went and called the mother of the child. And the daughter of Pharaoh said to her, "Keep this child for me, and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wage." And the woman took the child and nursed him. And when the child had already grown, she brought him to the daughter of Pharaoh, and he became her son. And she named him Moses, saying, "From the water I took him up." For since God and the Father was now having mercy on what is under heaven, which was enslaved to an unholy tyrant and a most savage robber, he did not spare his own Son, as it is written, but delivered him up for us all. For existing in the form and equality that is toward him, the Son who is from him and in him by nature, having brought himself down into emptying, became as we are, as the wise evangelist John says, "He came to his own.

For he was sent, as he himself says somewhere, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; but his own did not receive him. Therefore he also reproached them exceedingly through the voice of Isaiah, saying: Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they have rejected me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey the manger of its lord, but Israel did not know me, and the people did not understand me. Since, then, those of the blood of Israel had stumbled and had not recognized the Master who is so by nature and truly, the worshippers of idols have been called in through faith, and the unholy and most abominable multitude of the godless has recognized the Redeemer. And this, then, was what was foretold to those of Israel through the voice of the prophets: I have set watchmen over you. Hear the voice of the trumpet; and they said: We will not hear. Therefore the nations heard, and those who shepherd their flocks. Hear, O earth: Behold, I am bringing evil upon this people, the fruit of their turning away, because they did not attend to my word, and they thrust away my law. Observe, then, observe clearly the mystery, and how it is in the things according to Moses, just as I said a moment ago. The inspired Moses was of the tribe and blood of Levi. But Emmanuel himself also has been designated, holy and guileless, being wholly a sacred high priest; even if he is understood to be of the tribe of Judah, so that he may be believed to be both praised and king, and because his priesthood is not according to the flesh, as indeed was the case with the leaders of the Jews, but as God and king of all things in holiness and glory.

The type, then, is in fleshly things, so that the truth may be beyond the flesh—that is, Christ, who is conceived as a newborn child because of the guilelessness of his divinity, that is, because he has become a new creation. For having put off the oldness that is in corruption, we have passed over into newness of life in him. And the infant is, as it were, a new creation. That the newborn child is a symbol of guilelessness is easy to see, if one wishes, even from the words of the Savior themselves. For women once brought infants to him, and they were bringing children so that he might lay his hands on them, as it is written. But the disciples, thinking it was a crowd, were rebuking them. And he said to them: Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. And since at some point a dispute also arose among them as to who was greater in the kingdom of heaven—for thus the wise evangelist said to us: taking a child, he said, he stood it in their midst and said: Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like these children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. And what it means to turn and to love to be made like children, the blessed Paul made clear when he wrote: Brothers, do not become children in your minds, but be infants in evil; but in your minds be mature. So it is clear that because of the guilelessness of his divinity Christ is signified as in an infant. And in the sacred Scriptures the father of Moses has been passed over in silence by the divine plan. For though it was possible to say: Such-and-such a one, perhaps, took one of the daughters of Levi—

But the phrase "There was a certain man," he says, indirectly intimating that Christ was without a father according to the flesh, except that he came to be a father in suspicion; for he was thought to be the son of Joseph. But the child, he says, was beautiful. For he has been named, and is, Christ, fair in beauty beyond the sons of men. And elsewhere again the inspired David cried out to him: Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one, in your beauty and your comeliness. But one must understand that the beauty which is, I mean, in the glory and nature of the divinity beyond all things, no one would doubt; for surely no one would put around Christ the boasts of the flesh, and reckon them to his glory—far from it. For his emptying and humiliation in the economy with the flesh is the whole mystery. And the prophet Isaiah also writes somewhere about him: And we saw him, and he had no form nor beauty, but his form was dishonored, failing beyond all the sons of men. And we surely do not say that the prophet's word accuses the boasts of his divinity, but rather it persuades us to understand that the things of the flesh, compared with the glory of the divinity, will appear worthy of no account. For the Son appeared in form to the most uncomely. For being God by nature, he became as we are. But the interval is immeasurable, and human nature is surpassed by God with incomparable differences. 5.

Observe how, when Pharaoh had ordered every male to be plotted against, the woman who had given birth hid the infant, and after that, having lowered him down and enclosed him in the basket—that is, the closed vessel—she cast him into the marshes; but the daughter of the persecutor, finding him at once among those very waters, took him up, and opened the basket, and then found the infant weeping. She understands precisely that he is a Hebrew, and gives him back to the woman who bore him to be nursed, she again promising wages for the nursing. What meaning, then, should we apply to such words? Or what mystery is it necessary to examine closely? For before the coming of our Savior, the male was not unplotted-against upon the earth. And we understand "male" as that which is in spiritual manliness, and whose fruits are the things pleasing to God. Therefore the male is in danger, since Satan, so to speak, lowers him into worldly pleasures as into mire or marshes, and suffocates those who reject the weak and womanish—I mean in character and manners. Wherefore also the Spirit-bearers, marveling, I suppose, at the turning aside of all to what is not right, said: All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one. For already the good was in a manner wholly unpracticed by all men, since he did not permit them to act manfully

of the inventor of sin. But since Emmanuel has come to be with us, and was counted among those plotted against—the child that is by nature and truly male, that is, the one who does not know how to be pampered; for he has not been softened toward sin—he escaped the notice of the ruler of this age in the beginning; for the child was hidden, that is, Moses; but when he came to maturity, the Synagogue that gave him birth, sharpened by the devil's stratagems for murder—for the Christ according to the flesh appeared from the Jews—shut him up in a tomb. And a clear type of this too would be Moses, lowered as if by his own mother's hand into the so-called basket, and besides this, exposed. For the Synagogue of the Jews alienated Emmanuel from herself. But Pharaoh's daughter—that is, the Church from the Gentiles—though she once had Satan as a father, finds him by the waters, of which the holy baptism would be understood as the type, through which and in which Christ is found, and she opens the basket. For that he did not remain among the dead, but rather came back to life after trampling death, and came out of the tomb, those who through faith have truly found the one who for our sake came to death, so that he might also for our sake come to life, have believed. And she finds the child weeping. And we too shall encounter Christ recounting the impiety of the Jews and the things done against him, and, so to speak, even weeping. For he says with distress: They dug my hands and my feet, they counted all my bones. But they looked and stared at me; they divided my garments among themselves, and cast lots for my clothing. And indeed also somewhere else:

They gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. And that Christ appeared from the Jews, the Church from the Gentiles has both recognized and believed. For, it says, Pharaoh's daughter said: "This is one of the Hebrew children." Moreover, that in due time the Synagogue of the Jews will receive Christ from the Church of the Gentiles—being initiated, clearly, into the mystery concerning him—the daughter of Pharaoh would demonstrate very effortlessly, in that she received the child from the one who bore him. For just as the Synagogue of the Jews exposed Jesus and cast him off through their disobedience, so in the last times it will receive him, being initiated by the voices of the Church. And that this matter is not without profit, but involves great hopes, she is now fully persuaded. For see how Pharaoh's daughter promised wages to Moses' mother, when she chose to nurse the child born of her. Therefore the birth of Moses and the events concerning him would signify the mystery of Christ very clearly to those of sound mind, through whom and with whom be glory to God and the Father with the Holy Spirit, now and always and unto the endless ages. Amen. Still concerning Moses. 10. Inquiring diligently into the birth of Moses, we demonstrated, as far as possible, the mystery of Christ, the subtlety of the meanings delineating him economically in a newborn infant, because of the guilelessness of the divinity, and his complete freedom from craft, and his simplicity in all things—that is, that he appeared as a new creation. But come, let us again, in another way as well, observe Emmanuel being formed in him. For Christ is the end of the law and the prophets.

It came to pass, then, he says, in those many days, when Moses had grown great, that he went out to his brothers, the sons of Israel. And having considered their distress, he sees an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew, one of his own brothers. And having struck the Egyptian, he hid him in the sand. And going out on the second day, he sees two Hebrew men quarreling, and he says to the one doing wrong: Why do you strike your neighbor? But he said: Who appointed you a ruler and judge over us? Or do you wish to kill me in the manner you killed the Egyptian yesterday? But Moses was afraid, and said: Has this matter become so evident? But Pharaoh heard this matter, and sought to kill Moses. But Moses withdrew from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian. And having come into the land of Midian, he sat upon the well. But the priest of Midian had seven daughters, shepherding the sheep of their father Jothor. And having come, they drew water until they filled the troughs, to water the sheep of their father Jothor. But the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses rose up and rescued them, and drew water for them, and watered their sheep. And they came to Rhaguel their father. But he said to them: Why is it that you have hurried to come today? But they said: An Egyptian man rescued us from the shepherds, and drew water for us, and watered our sheep. But he said to his daughters: And where is he? And why have you thus left the man behind? Call him, then, so that he may eat bread.

And Moses settled with the man, and he gave Sepphora his daughter to Moses as wife. And his wife conceived in the womb and bore a son, and Moses named his name Gersam, saying, "I am a stranger in a foreign land." So much, then, for the things of Moses. But our discourse will again compose for us the contemplation of the innermost things, assigning to the history as much as is most fitting to it; but whatever would appear especially able to serve the spiritual narrations, this it turns into the economy that is in Christ. 7. But you have learned that Moses, having become great, went out to his brothers. For the inspired Paul is true when he writes: "But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law." What manner, then, of the sending forth indicated here would one reasonably understand, or what shall we say the going out is? It is necessary to consider. For shall we not grant that the Word from God the Father, having become in our condition—that is, man—has, so to speak, gone out, and shall we say that he has come to be outside the glory befitting God, if indeed it is true that being rich he became poor, and emptied himself into kenosis? At any rate, when the economy had now been completed, when he was about to return to the Father to sit with him and to mount the highest thrones, he says: "Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was." But the Lord of heaven and earth, as God, having essentially the dominion of all things, would not in some way depart from his own proper state, having become in the form of a servant.

But he in whom we live and move and have our being—if he were seen with us naked and among tombs, even if he had come to life again as life, it would not seem to him that he had fallen even a little short of what is most fitting for him. Then how could anyone doubt? He has gone out, therefore, to his brothers, that is, to the sons of Israel. For theirs are the promises, theirs the fathers, to whom the things promised were given. Therefore he said: "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But those who were truly enduring a terrible and unbearable greed—for Satan was leaping upon them as if crushing them—he intended to set free, and to show them released from every toil. And having killed in a certain manner the one who had chosen to do injustice, he hid him in the earth, that is, he placed him in the regions beneath the earth, shutting him up in Hades. This, I say, is the hiding in the sand of the dead Egyptian. That the god-hating and unclean swarms of the demons were driven together into Hades by the ineffable power of our Savior, and were condemned to dwell in the abyss, one may learn very easily from the Gospel readings. For the demons, it says, were begging him not to command them to go away into the abyss. For since a great multitude had already been sent ahead, those still remaining came and begged that being condemned together with the others be for the time being remitted to them. That they were paying the penalty for their cruelty toward us, anyone may observe, if he wishes, even without toil, hearing them cry out: "Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus the Nazarene? Have you come here before the time to torment us?

Therefore, since Christ had seen the Egyptian pressing unbearably upon those on earth, he hid him in Hades. This, then, Jesus again accomplished as in shadows and types—he who led the sons of Israel across the Jordan and served as commander after Moses. For he bound in a cave the five kings of the Amorites, the type obliquely foreshowing to us that after the polity under the law, Emmanuel, having been revealed as king over us, will seal up the rulers of the demons as in a deep cave, in the subterranean recesses. So then, when the one who pressed and afflicted had been put away, on the second day, it says, while two Hebrews were quarreling, Moses would be an arbiter in their midst and a reconciler to peace for those who stood at variance without love for one another. He appeared for enmity, saying to the one who wished to do violence to his brother: Why do you strike your neighbor? But he said to him: Who appointed you as ruler and judge over us? Or do you wish to kill me in the manner you killed the Egyptian yesterday? For Emmanuel, having first shut up Satan, as it were, in Hades, was appearing as an arbiter of righteousness to those of Israel and a teacher of mutual love, commanding them to cultivate love for brothers and to consider nothing better than peace and unity of soul. And so he also said: My peace I give to you. But they, when they ought to have praised the instruction and marveled at the reconciler, the provider of peace, the champion of love, the leader of the best lessons for them, have impiously erred not moderately. For they did not make him their teacher. But although through the voice of the Psalmist he says clearly—

But I was established as king by him on Zion, his holy mountain, going beyond all shamelessness, they opposed him harshly and without love for God, saying at one time, "Who gave you this authority?" and at another time again: "We know that God has spoken to Moses, but this man—we do not know where he is from"; and they wrote down the very things by which they were being saved as grounds for accusation, and most foolishly mocked the manner of their assistance. For the inspired Moses was accused of having killed the Egyptian, although he was oppressing and pressing upon them and loading down the flocks of the Hebrews with unbearable greed. But as Christ buries the wicked demons as it were in the abyss, and removes from us their tyranny against us even against their will, because he sends them out from those they possess—although for this he ought to have been marveled at, he did not escape the words of those accustomed to fault-finding. For they have dared to say, making the miracle an accusation: "This man does not cast out demons except by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons." Observe that Moses, looking around this way and that, and having seen no one, hid the dead Egyptian in the sand. Then, having passed by, he advises his brothers by blood concerning matters of peace. For the Lord wages war against Amalek, but with a hidden hand, as it is written, and with no one on earth seeing, the more secret affairs of things were being administered through Christ. For how or when the swarms of demons were condemned and ordered to dwell in the abyss, who among those on earth could know?

Having thus driven Satan down into Hades and first removed from the earth those who belonged to his greed, he then called them to the knowledge of virtue. Christ himself also says this somewhere not obscurely: "Or how can anyone enter the house of the strong man and plunder his goods, unless he first bind the strong man, and then plunder his house?" For having first bound, as it were, the strong man—that is, Satan—he transfers to himself through faith his goods, that is, those who once acted under him and were reckoned among worthless vessels. But in those very respects in which it was fitting for him to be marveled at, he was impiously mocked and has necessarily departed, leaving Judea, in which he was also born according to the flesh—although in truth he was not a Jew as the Word, but from above and from heaven, and from the Father, just as indeed the inspired Moses also was born in Egypt and was a Hebrew from Hebrews, having a noble and holy root in his father. But when those from blood reproached him and held him in the utmost slander, the

Since these things were being done on their own behalf, he was then transferred to Midian and was moving to the country of the heterogenes. Then, having sat down by the well, he came to the aid of Jothor's daughters. For they, being seven in number and shepherding their own father's flocks, were bringing the thirsty animals to the troughs. But after they had already drawn water and with much sweat, some of the goatherds took advantage of them. But Moses prevailed, and drawing water with his own hands, he watered their sheep, as it is written. In the order of the world, then, let us understand Jothor, who was priest of the Midianites, not rendering service to God by nature and truly, but to created things instead of the Creator and Maker, or to things made of stones, and to the craftsmen's artistic works. The world also had gone astray, worshiping demons and not God. And Jothor is interpreted as "excess," or "excessive." Such also is the world, being entirely excess; because of this, those who choose to mind its affairs do nothing of what is necessary, but as it were become drunk on vain distractions, and are in a manner scattered toward useless pleasures. It would not be ambiguous that, for those who wish to live rightly, the things of the flesh are excess, and to mind the things in the world has missed the pursuit of what is useful and necessary, if indeed it is true that the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God; and the one who minds the things of the world becomes an enemy of God. Truly, then, excess is to choose to mind the things in the world, and the world itself is so. For Christ said somewhere: What will a man be profited if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?

Or what will a man give as an exchange for his soul? 9. Moses, then, has departed from the land of the Egyptians into Midian, and in equal manner Christ also from Judea into Galilee. But observe that one is the daughter of Levi, she who bore the sacred Moses. Yet more numerous, and seven in number, are the daughters of Jothor the Midianite. For one also is the multitude of the Jews, from which Christ was also born according to the flesh, as in the type according to Moses. But very many are the daughters, so to speak, of the world—that is, the herds, perhaps, of the nations dwelling in it. Christ, therefore, having left the Synagogue from which he sprang according to the flesh, has turned aside to the many herds of the nations, which evil shepherds were violently oppressing—that is, the world-rulers of this world. He saved them. But come, let us speak of the manner of the covetousness, adding the manner of the aid. It is the custom of the divine Scripture to liken to a cistern the innate knowledge of God within us, and that by which we are guided in each of the things to be done. For as from a spring, the knowledge of every good bubbles up in us, as it were from the mind, and the knowledge of the glory concerning God as in a mirror and riddle. At any rate, those who have made light of the love toward God, but have wickedly turned aside to the need of kindling worship to demons, he accused, saying through the voice of Jeremiah: The heaven was astonished at this, and the earth shuddered exceedingly, says the Lord, because my people did two evil things: they abandoned me, a fountain of living water, and dug for themselves broken cisterns, which will not be able to hold water. For the falsely named worship is, as it were, a broken cistern.

For no one could draw from there the word that is able to give life; but truly the fountain of life is the blameless knowledge of God. Therefore the cistern would henceforth be for us an image of innate knowledge. But as long as we apply our understanding rightly and without constraint to the knowledge of God, we shall come straight to the truth. But if someone, being overreached by the deceits of the demons, turns aside to what seems right to himself, he will spend his own efforts on them. This, I think, is what is darkly hinted at by Jothor's daughters drawing the water, but the overreaching ones seizing it by force. We say that those who have gone astray are in such weaknesses, their innate knowledge being turned aside by them to what is unseemly, that is, to error, and to what is useful to the demons. But Christ came to their aid. For he drove off the accursed false shepherds, and gave them the living water to drink, that is, his divine and heavenly proclamation. Therefore he also said: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Therefore we shall take Jothor as the figure of the world, filled with superfluity and decay. And we say that the seven are the daughters, the flocks of the nations everywhere, since in each of Jothor's daughters a multitude is signified. And the wicked and most violent shepherds would reasonably be understood as the bands of the demons. And Christ is the one who comes to the aid, who also makes us drunk with divine streams. But since the maidens escaped the overreaching of the unholy shepherds, they withdraw to Raguel their father, I mean Jothor.

When they were asked the reason for their unusual speed, they immediately reported the help of Moses. And he at once settled the man in his household and gave him Sephora to marry, the most distinguished and most beautiful of his own daughters; and she bore Gersam. For since Christ had benefited the assemblies of the nations in the world, it was made known to him by those who had been saved through him and who were being initiated into the mysteries, that he was able both to defend and easily to rescue from the hand of those who had chosen to do injustice. And so thereafter he gladly received the most holy Moses, just as Raguel did. And it happens, as it were, that he presents to him as a bride, in a relation of kinship with himself, the Church from the nations, as something altogether most beautiful, which is understood through Sephora. For her name is interpreted as visitation or beautiful, and indeed also grace of breath. For the East from on high visited the truly distinguished and beautiful one—I mean the Church—and as her gift and guest-gift from heaven he has graciously bestowed the imparting of his own breath, I mean the participation of the Holy Spirit. And she bore to him Gersam, I mean truly the sojourning people. For those who have been sealed by the divine Spirit, and deemed worthy of the visitation from above, and fashioned into beauty in relation to the Son, are, in truth, sojourners in this world. And it would be most fitting for them to cry out and say: We have no city here that remains, but we seek the one to come, whose craftsman and creator is God. For while walking on earth, they conduct their citizenship in heaven, and they in no way crave the things in this world.

But they are exceedingly devoted to the things that pertain to the age to come. For they have resolved to follow, through the truly refined and well-fashioned life, the Christ who for our sake became as we are and sojourned in this world. For he did not disdain the things of this world—far from it; rather, he has shown himself to us as a type of the life that is above the world and most perfectly ordered by law. Observe also how the sacred Scripture, in a very deliberate economy, named the father of the seven maidens Jothor before the assistance through Moses came to them, and afterward Raguel. And Jothor is interpreted as "excess," that is, "abundant," as I have already said, while Raguel means "shepherding of God." For I will use the term because of its usefulness. And we were saying, when we assigned to him the person of the world, that the distraction in the world is truly excessive and vain. But he was among these things before the chorus of maidens was benefited by Christ. But since they have been delivered from greed and placed outside the hand of the unholy shepherds, then indeed, then he was renamed Raguel, which is "God's flock," that is, "shepherding," according to the force of the interpretation. For he has run under the hand of the chief shepherd of all, I mean Christ; through whom and with whom be glory to God and the Father together with the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen. Concerning the vision of Moses in the bush.

The blessed prophets, having concerned themselves not moderately with the things that pertain to us, inasmuch as they were bearers of the Spirit and made an exact investigation of matters, kept entreating that the Word of God be shown forth as a helper and succorer to those on the earth, while ascribing to him alone, as to God, the power to save those who had come into the lot of evils. For they became introducers of the best things, and in pointing out the way of salvation they were wise and

shrewd. And what of the things that are praised did they not obtain, so as to be justly admired? But they were not able to drive off Satan's tyranny against us, nor yet to rout the profane bands of the demons, which plundered us wretches in many ways, almost placing us in the rank of captives, and loading us with the yoke of slavery, they compelled us to think and do wickedly the things that seemed right to them; and like dread and inexorable tax-gatherers they kept ordering us to bring them the dues of worship, and, as it were in the rank of a debt, that we ought to be defiled with earthly pursuits, and for this reason to choose to think only fleshly things. This, then, was a brilliant achievement of the ineffable nature: to shake off the boastful and profane greed of the devil, and to release those on the earth from the most harmful and most abominable slavery, and thenceforth to show them forth as workers of virtue. And that this so great and much-prayed-for good was going to belong to those on the earth at the appointed times, when the Only-Begotten lowered himself into emptying and humanity, we shall know no less through the sacred Scriptures. And it is as follows:

And after those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the sons of Israel groaned because of the works, and they cried out, and their voice went up to God from the works, and God heard their groanings, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. And God looked upon the sons of Israel, and he was made known to them. For the Egyptians were oppressing those of Israel, casting upon them the yoke of compulsory servitude, and setting over them bitter and merciless taskmasters, who made their life grievous, as it is written. But those pressed by excessive greed, weeping and lamenting, thereafter the wretched ones kept entreating to be deemed worthy of the kindness from above. But God visited, and looked upon, it says, the sons of Israel, and he was made known to them. Whenever, then, we are in ignorance of God, then we shall also be subject to those who do wrong, and we are rolled about in the mire of sin, having bitter and savage overseers of such things, the unclean demons. But surely the grace of freedom will also attain to the knowledge of God. But those things were done typically; and it was written for our admonition, as it is written. And the type was in the case of one nation of those from the blood of Israel. But it will teach well and clearly that it is the aim of the unclean spirits and of the devil to press on to thrust together those on earth into random pursuits, and to fulfill the works of the flesh; so that, having a mind at leisure and opening up to things above, they might know the God of all.

Thus thereafter they were directed even to what seemed good to him, and they turn away from the yoke of slavery to him. But since the love of freedom is innate in human nature, we do not always praise the passions; but often, coming to our senses a little, we loathe the unpleasantness of the pleasures of the flesh, and we thirst for the help from above and from God, and we make no small outcry against involuntary slavery. This, I think, is what it means that the sons of Israel groaned to God. And since he is good, he sent us from heaven the Son as Savior and Redeemer, who became according to us, that is, man. And the sacred Scripture again foretold this matter to us in a riddling way. For it said thus: And Moses was shepherding the sheep of Jothor his father-in-law, the priest of Madiam; and he led the sheep into the wilderness, and he came to the mountain of God, Choreb. And an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the bush. And he sees that the bush is burned with fire, but the bush was not being burned up. And Moses said: Going over, I will see this great sight, that the bush is not burned up. And when the Lord saw that he was drawing near to see, the Lord called to him from the bush, saying: Moses, Moses. And he said: What is it? And he said: Do not come near here. Loose the sandal from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground. And he said to him: I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the

God of Jacob. But Moses turned away his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. For God gave the Law as a help, according to the voice of the prophet (for he had beforehand revealed Moses as a pedagogue by way of economy), and, as it were, he made the shadow for the demonstration of the more perfect things; except that in due seasons the truth was going to look up again. And the end of the pedagogy was the mystery of Christ, which he was very well instructed in through the vision. For the bush is a shrub-like and fruitless plant, yielding a little to thorns. But a great flame surrounded it. For in the form of fire a holy angel filled the thing; and the flame rose up, and very high, yet it did no injury at all to the bush in which it appeared. Truly the thing done was impious and beyond all reason. Fire coming together with thorns and cherishing it with the gentlest assaults, as it were having neglected its innate power, and altogether sluggish, settling upon things able to be destroyed. Therefore the divine Moses was astonished at the sight. What then is the reason? The sacred Scripture likens the divine nature to fire, because of its all-powerfulness, and its ability to easily subdue the man from the earth with woods and grasses in the field. Therefore it says at one time: Our God is a consuming fire; and at another: Man is like grass; his days, like a flower of the field, so shall he flourish. But just as fire is not bearable to thorns, so also is divinity to humanity. Except in Christ it came together and became bearable. For in him all the fullness of divinity dwelt bodily, as also the wise Paul has testified.

And he who dwells in unapproachable light, that is, God, took up his lodging in the temple born of the virgin, lowering himself into wondrous gentleness, and as it were wrapping around himself the unmixed assault of his own nature, so that he might become containable, just as indeed fire also did with the thorns. And that he was making the flesh, which is by nature subject to corruption, better than corruption, the fire upon the bush would hint at darkly, having kept the wood entirely unharmed. That he was giving life to his own temple, and making it incorruptible and stronger than death, since the Word from God is life by nature—how could anyone doubt it? The fire, then, spared the thorn, and the flame became bearable to a small and very weak wood. For divinity has been contained by humanity, as I said. And this mystery came to pass in Christ. And the Word of God has also dwelt in us, not demanding penalties, not exacting punishments, but shining around us with kind and most gentle assaults. For as he himself says somewhere, God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. The bush, then, was not burned up, since the flame was contained within it. For we have not been called to account for our sins, as I said just now; rather, Christ shines around us through the Holy Spirit, and is in us through him, and in him we shall cry out, Abba, Father. And the blessed Moses, marveling at the sight, then added this, saying: I will go aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned up. But the blessed angel immediately checks him, speaking as from the person of God: Do not come near here; loose the sandal from your feet.

For the place on which you stand is holy ground. The desert, the waterless land, the thorn-bearing land in which the bush also was, he calls holy ground. And every place is holy in which Christ may be. And very rightly indeed does it appear also in the desert, which holds the figure of the Church from the Gentiles, to which the sacred word also says: Rejoice, thirsty desert; let the desert exult, and let it bloom as a lily. And God somewhere also promised to make the desert into marshes, and the thirsty land into watercourses. For the grace of the Savior has overflowed upon us who are called from the Gentiles, and like some river flooding with streams from above it makes us richly drunk. This indeed is what the inspired David also says to us: He made rivers into a desert, and a fruitful land into salt, because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it. In the desert, then, is the bush, and henceforth the land that contains it is holy, and sacred to God. And Moses, as he approaches, is checked, and is commanded to loose the sandal from his foot. And the thing is a sign of deadness and corruption, since every sandal is the remnant of an animal already dead and corrupted. Inaccessible, then, is Christ to those under the law and under the pedagogical worship. For it is necessary first to wash away the defilement, and first to wipe off the filth from sin. And it is impossible for the blood of bulls to take away sin. For no one is justified in the law. And since sin has not yet been abolished, corruption must prevail, and death must hold sway over those still defiled. It is necessary, then, for those who wish to see the mystery of Christ to first set aside the worship that is in types and shadows, which is superior neither to corruption nor to sin.