'By your sword shall you live, and you shall serve your brother'; for piety is the mistress of cruelty, and meekness prevails over harsh impulses. Everyone serves who has not the authority of a pure conscience; everyone serves who is either broken by fear, or ensnared by pleasure, or led by lusts, or exasperated by indignation, or cast down by grief. For every passion is servile, since 'he who commits sin is the servant of sin,' and what is worse, he who is subject to vices is the servant of many. He has handed himself over to many masters, so that he can scarcely be permitted to go out from such servitude.
But truly that man who is the arbiter of his own will, the judge of his own counsel, the interpreter of his own choice; who restrains the appetite of bodily passion; who does well the things he does — and doing well, he acts rightly, and he who acts rightly acts blamelessly and irreproachably, having power over his own acts — he assuredly is free. For he who does all things prudently and so as he wills, he alone is free. It is not chance condition that makes a slave, but shameful folly. Indeed, a prudent servant rules foolish masters, and 'their own servants shall lend to their masters.' What shall they lend? Not money, surely, but wisdom, just as the law also says: 'You shall lend to many nations, but you yourself shall not borrow.'
For the Jew lent to the proselyte the oracles of the divine law; but because he himself could not see the mysteries of the law and knew not the oracles he possessed — he who lent the letter to the nations — now from them he borrows the grace of spiritual doctrine, and deservedly has been made subject to servitude, since he who borrows is a servant, as one bound to the interest of his creditor; whereas he who imparts the interest of devout doctrine, he is the prince, just as the law says: 'You shall be prince of many nations, but princes from among them shall not be over you.' For he is a prince who rules and who has the principate of wisdom. This the people of the Jews had; but since it could not keep what it taught, it must learn what it knew not how to teach. This, then, is what the patriarch Isaac says:
'You shall serve your brother. But it shall come to pass when you shall lay down and loose his yoke from your neck' — signifying that there would be two peoples to come, the one the son of the bondwoman, the other of the free (for the letter serves, but grace is free), and that the people which attends to the letter would be a servant so long as it should follow the interpreter of spiritual doctrine. Then too there shall come to pass that which the Apostle says: 'That the remnant may be saved according to the election of grace.' You shall serve your brother, therefore; but then you shall feel the gain of servitude, when you shall have begun to obey your brother willingly rather than by compulsion. Hence arose envy, and Esau threatened that after his father's death he would kill his brother.
But if this should happen, let us learn from Rebecca how it must be provided against, lest envy stir up wrath and wrath break out into parricide. Let Rebecca come — that is, let one be clothed with patience, the good guardian of innocence — and let her counsel that we give place to anger. Let us withdraw somewhat further off, until indignation be softened with time and forgetfulness of the offense creep in. And so patience does not dread exile, but undertakes it readily, not so much to avoid peril to safety as to turn aside the incitement of crime. The devout mother too endures that her most beloved son be away from her, conferring the more upon him whom she has hurt, yet taking thought for both, that she might keep the one free from parricide and the other untouched by crime.
We have heard what intemperance, drunk with bodily lusts, has said; let us consider what true virtue does. It requires nothing save the grace of God; it follows that one and highest good alone; it is content with Him alone, from whom we receive all things, while to Him we ourselves confer nothing, since He has need of nothing. As David says: 'I said to my Lord, You are my Lord, since You have no need of my goods.' For of what has He need who abounds in all things and lavishes all upon us, and ministers everything without defect? 'And Jacob set forth and slept' — which is the token of a soul at quiet — 'and he saw the angels of God ascending and descending.'
This means that he foresaw Christ on earth, to whom a host of angels descended and ascended, to render service in dutiful ministry to their own Lord. And he came to the well, that he might drink of his own vessels and from the springs of his own wells, and that the waters might overflow for him from his own fountain; for 'the fountain of life is in the hands of the righteous.' And he came to Laban and pastured his sheep. Iniquity dwells unaccompanied; wisdom does not omit the office of ruling. It knows not to be idle even among things that are another's; it knows not to be an exile among strangers. For how should it be — wisdom, which everywhere preserves its own right and holds within itself what it possesses?
As a hireling the righteous man enters in and yet is a ruler, who was gathering for himself, by the ministry of evangelical preaching, a flock shining with the splendor of many surpassing virtues, so that he set before the sheep about to drink the rod of storax and of the nut tree and of the plane tree in the troughs, that, conceiving by the conception of a devout mind the prefigured mysteries of the most blessed Trinity, they might form by no means discolored offspring. Good sheep, which brought forth not degenerate offspring of good works of sacred faith. By the storax is signified the incense and the evening sacrifice which is offered to God the Father in the Psalm. By the rod of the nut tree the priestly office is offered to Christ;
for this is the rod of Aaron, which, having been laid up, blossomed, by which the priestly grace of sanctification shone forth. By the plane tree is signified the abundance of spiritual fruit, because to this tree the vine is joined, that by its joyful fellowship it may pour itself out into rich offspring, since indeed the grace of the Spirit, joined to it, is wont to cherish the gifts of the Lord's passion and the remission of all sins. By these things, then, as the Scripture says, 'he became exceedingly rich,' nourishing a good flock for Christ, which he ennobled with the badges of a glorious name by the title of faith and by the variety of virtues. And so he did not seem to himself straitened, being rich in faith, and by the sons of Laban he was called into envy as one most opulent, because he had heaped up his own flock by the accession of another's flock.
And God said to him: 'Return to the land of your father and to your kindred, and I will be with you' — showing that nothing was lacking to him whom the fullness of all things attended. To one made perfect this alone is to abound: that in him all things hold together, and that all things are referred back to him, and nothing is strange to him. Nothing superfluous is necessary to him for whom a faithful peace was at hand, through which he might reconcile the things that at first had been at variance. Nor is it any wonder if he possessed peace, who had set up and anointed unto God a pillar, which is the Church; for she has been called 'the pillar and ground of the truth.' He anoints her who pours out the ointment of faith upon Christ and of mercy upon the poor. Now let us consider what manner of man the just one ought to be, if envy has arisen against him. First, that he should turn aside from it;
For it is better to depart without strife than to sit down amid quarreling. Next, that he should possess such things as he can carry away with him, so that he may in no respect be held liable by his adversary, but may say: 'Examine, whether anything of yours is with me.' And Laban searched, and found nothing of his own with Jacob. A great man, and truly blessed, who could lose nothing of his own, and could hold nothing belonging to another — that is, who had nothing less and nothing superfluous. And so he is perfect who lacks nothing, and just who has nothing in excess; for this is to keep the measure of justice. How great a virtue, whose fellowship gave gain and inflicted no loss! This is what it is to be perfect: to give the greatest profit to those who cleave to one, and to bring no harm.
In short, he who desired to harm him could not send him away empty. For the wise man is never empty, always having about himself the garment of prudence, who can say: 'I put on justice and clothed myself with judgment,' as Job said. For these are the inner coverings of the mind, which no other can take away, except when one's own fault strips a man bare. Thus Adam, when stripped, was found naked; but Joseph, even when his outer garment had been cast off, was not naked, for he kept unharmed the garments of virtue. Never, then, is the wise man empty. For how should he be empty who has received of the fullness of Christ and keeps what he has received? How should he be empty whose soul is filled, which guards the garments of received grace?
This is what must be feared: that someone should lose the covering of innocence, that the impious, by the violent pressure of a sacrilegious persecution, overstepping the bounds of justice, should snatch away the garment of the soul and mind. This does not easily happen, unless first the utterance of his own iniquity has stripped a man. Whence David also says: 'If there is iniquity in my hands, let me deservedly fall before my enemies empty; let the enemy pursue my soul and seize it.' No one, then, of the enemies can seize your soul, unless it has first been made empty. Do not, therefore, fear those who can plunder treasures of gold and silver. These take nothing away from you.
For they take away what you did not have, they take away what you could not possess, they take away what did not adorn your soul but burdened it, they take away what did not enrich your heart but rather weighed it down; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also, as you have heard read today. Many shut up their gold behind the bolts of their doors, yet do not even trust to their bars and locks; many set watchmen, yet they themselves are wont to fear the guards more than the gold; many lie brooding over buried gold — their gold is under the earth, and their heart is under the earth. Beware, therefore, lest you too bury your heart, while still living, in the ground.
It is not, then, the thieves of that gold who are to be feared; it is that usurer you must beware of, who searches out the substance of your soul, to see whether you have contracted any debt of more grievous sin — who shuts up your heart in the soil, who buries your soul under that turf with which you have covered your gold, who bends down your mind under the usury of compound interest and buries it in a heavy sepulchre from which none rises again. Follow holy Jacob, who had nothing of others' vices, nor was he empty and void of his own virtues, for he was filled with the fruit of justice. But these things are moral; that other matter is mystical — that Laban came to him, that is, 'the whitened one' (since Satan too transforms himself into an angel of light), and began to demand his own from him. Jacob answered him:
'Examine whether anything of yours is with me' — that is: I have nothing of yours. Search, whether you recognize anything of your own vices and crimes. I have carried off nothing of your frauds; I have no share whatever in your deceit; I have fled all that is yours as a contagion. And Laban searched, and found nothing of his own. How blessed the man in whom the enemy found nothing that he could call his own, in whom the devil stumbled upon nothing that he could recognize as his! This seemed impossible in a man, but he bore the type of Him who said in the Gospel: 'The prince of this world will come, and in me he will find nothing.' For whatever is the devil's is nothing, since it can have no permanence and no substance.
But he himself who was prefigured in Jacob is the Lord Jesus, a man of two marriages, that is, a partner as it were both of the Law and of grace, who first loved the virgin Rachel and, predestined to him in marriage, cherished her with pious affection. But since Leah, like the Law, came in by stealth and crept in, weaker in her eyes, like the Synagogue, which through blindness of mind could not see Christ, the grace of holy Rachel superabounded — she who was sought above that first marriage, who already then, by the interpretation of her name, signified the future primacy of the Church: blessed Rachel, who took away reproach by her childbearing; blessed Rachel, who hid the rites and errors of the Gentiles, who declared that their idols were full of uncleanness.
Let no one think that the reverence due to fatherly affection was violated, because she sat while her father stood, since it is written: 'He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.' Where the cause of religion was being pleaded, faith ought to hold the seat of judgment, and faithlessness to stand as if accused. These things were so far approved, that as holy Jacob set out, the angels of God met him. Indeed he saw the encampment of God drawing near and said: 'This is the camp of God'; for the divine protections are wont to be present to the perfect and the faithful. But the perfect man was pondering the reconciliation with his brother, in such a way that he might invite him by humility, win him by services, and think him to be won over even by gifts.
And so he went to meet his brother with his wives and his children, that even if he himself were the object of indignation, the brother might be bent by the dutiful homage shown to kinship. And he bowed himself seven times to the earth. What does this mean? The Law says: 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve' — and here he worships an intemperate, wrathful man, one threatening the outrage of fratricide. Or did he worship that earth congealed with human gore, drenched with the venoms of serpents, or wretched with barren gravel, or bristling with hard and rugged crags? And what does it mean that he worshiped seven times? The resolution would remain in doubt, were it not that this comes to mind, which the Lord Jesus answered to Peter, when he asked in the Gospel: 'If my brother sins against me, how often shall I forgive him? Up to seven times?'
'Not only seven times, but even seventy times seven.' This, then, the holy patriarch signifies by a prophetic spirit, looking toward Him who was to come, who would command pardon to be granted to a brother not only up to seven times, but even up to seventy times seven — so that by contemplation of Him, Esau, when he met him, might forgive his brother the injury he thought he had received, and, though wronged, might return into favor; because for this reason the Lord Jesus was to take up flesh and to come upon the earth, that he might grant us a multiplied pardon of our sins. Finally, about to seek concord from his brother, he slept in the camp. Perfect virtue has tranquility and the steadfastness of repose; therefore the Lord reserved his gift for the more perfect, saying:
'My peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.' For it belongs to the perfect not to be easily moved by worldly things, not to be troubled by fear, not to be agitated by suspicion, not to be shaken by terror, not to be vexed by grief, but as on a most safe shore, against the rising billows of the world's storms, to keep the mind unmoved, calming it in a faithful anchorage. This firm support Christ has brought into Christian minds, bringing inner peace to the souls of the approved, that our heart be not troubled, nor our mind agitated. The Apostle, our teacher, declared this peace to be above every mind, saying: 'And the peace of God, which surpasses every mind, shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.' The fruit of peace, therefore, is not to be disturbed in the breast. In short, the life of the just is tranquil.
But the unjust man is full of unrest and disturbance. And so the impious man is afflicted more by his own suspicions than most are by another's blows, and the welts of wounds are greater in his soul than in the bodies of those who are beaten by others. It is a great thing for one to be tranquil within himself and to be at agreement with himself. Outwardly, peace is sought either by the anxious foresight of a commander, or by the hand of soldiers, or it yields to the fortunate outcome of wars, or to some slaughter of the barbarians, if in a hostile movement they turn their own arms against themselves. In that peace there is no virtue of ours, but only an outcome. Surely the glory of that peace is referred to the commander; the fruit of this other peace is in us, which is in our minds and is held fast in the affections of each individual.
Of this peace the fruit is greater, by which the temptations of spiritual wickedness are repelled, than that by which hostile arms are driven back. This peace is loftier, which shuts out the enticements of bodily passions and mitigates their disturbances, than that which quiets barbarian incursions; for it is more to resist an enemy shut up within you than one removed afar. And so Jacob, who had cleansed his heart from all rancor and bore a peaceable affection, after he had set aside all that was his, remained alone and wrestled with God. For whoever despises worldly things draws nearer to the image and likeness of God. For what is it to wrestle with God but to take up the contest of virtue and to engage with One who is higher, and to become an imitator of God superior to the rest?
And because his faith and devotion were insuperable, the Lord revealed hidden mysteries to him, touching the breadth of his thigh, for the reason that from his lineage the Lord Jesus was to arise, sprung from the Virgin, who would be neither unequal nor unlike to God. The breadth of the thigh, growing numb, signified His cross, for the reason that by remission of sin diffused throughout the whole world He would be salvific to all — He who by the numbness and sleep of His body would grant the resurrection of the dead. Whence not without merit the sun rose upon holy Jacob, upon whose lineage the saving cross of the Lord shone forth; and likewise because the sun of justice rises for him who beholds God, since He Himself is the eternal light. But Jacob limped from his thigh.
For this reason the children of Israel to this day do not eat the sinew. Would that they had eaten and had believed! But because they were not going to do the will of God, therefore they did not eat. There are also those who take it in this way, that Jacob limped on one thigh for the reason that, since two peoples were to flow forth from his lineage, the numbness of one was even then being declared as about to come concerning the grace of faith. That, then, is the people which limped through the numbness of faithlessness.
In short, not long after a revelation of this kind, when Dinah, Jacob's daughter, had been deflowered and her virgin modesty defiled by the son of a foreigner, his sons, who did not understand the mystery, slew the foreigners — who were offering fellowship of faith through the joining of their stock — out of zeal for vengeance. But Jacob, who in his moral gentleness loved clemency, or who by the mystic spirit foresaw the sacrament of the Church to be gathered from the Gentiles, received unwillingly and with grief that scene of vengeance exacted. Whence to him, prophesying the coming of the Lord Jesus, a divine answer was given: 'Arise and go up to the place of Bethel' — that is, into the house of bread, where Christ was born, as the prophet Micah testifies, saying:
'And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephratah, are not the least, that you should be among the princes of Judah. For out of you shall come forth a prince in Israel, and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.' Truly the house of bread, which is the house of Christ, who came to us as the saving bread from heaven, that now no one might hunger, since he gains for himself the food of immortality. There the patriarch is bidden to dwell, there to make an altar to God who appeared to him. There he received the strange gods and hid them under the terebinth; there too Rachel was buried 'on the way,' it says, 'to Ephratah; this is Bethlehem.' There also Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. How great the mysteries, since there is the Church of God, in which God appears and speaks with his little servants!
There the idols of the Gentiles are snatched away and hidden; for the faith of the Church has abolished every observance of heathenism. But I ask why he hid them under the terebinth. Surely that kind of tree is unfruitful. There, then, are the gods of the Gentiles, where there is no fruit. There the earrings of the Gentiles are buried, which they gave to Jacob, that they might now grow accustomed to hear a new tongue, might know nothing of the old sleep of faithlessness, that their ears might become deaf to sacrilege and be cleansed unto grace. Not without merit did holy Daniel there detect the false testimony against Susanna. For there faithlessness still wished to set down its roots, but it could not lie hidden, because it was detected by a prophetic spirit.
And the error of the elder was fitting to the true confession, in that he there declared chastity to be defiled, where the idols of the Gentiles were buried; but the truth of the Church did not cover faithlessness, but hid it away and stopped the ears of heathenism. Fittingly too, holy Rachel was buried there, because all who are baptized into Christ are buried together with him. For thus we are taught, the Apostle saying: 'For we were buried together with him through baptism into death, that as he rose from death, raised by his own power, so we too by his grace may rise again.' Then, therefore, every error of the Gentiles is truly hidden away, when one has been washed from his vices, because, our old man being nailed to the cross, he no longer knows how to serve the old sin.
Fittingly too a pillar is set up over the tomb of Rachel, because the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Now Jacob grew old, and he had already long since grown old in character; but in him there strove the brisk vigor of youth and the tranquility of old age. For there is also an old age that is green with grace, and a youth that is gray with counsels, of which Scripture says: 'For venerable old age is, and the age of old age is an unspotted life.' Of this life was Jacob, who by good works anticipated the time of long-lived old age, so that he both plucked its fruit before the time and did not fear its end at the proper time. Blessed indeed is the young man who lives well, but blessed too is the old man who has lived well.
For what the young man hopes for, the older man has attained; what the old man was, he who is young desires to be. Surely the young man, while a longer course of the restless sea still remains before him, is tossed by the waves; but the old man, as if in harbor, is at his station in old age. Such, then, was Jacob, who already held, with the key of grace closed and sealed safe and sound, goods scarcely to be hoped for by the young. But what you possess is more excellent than what you still hope for. Jacob, then, was an old man, to whom the young, stricken by some adverse storm of the times, betook themselves as into a harbor; while he himself, set as on a watchtower of this life, looked out with anxious affection and, far in advance, foresaw remedies for doubtful affairs.
In short, there was famine in all the land: the old man, laid aside, was the first to hear what the lively young men were ignorant of... I shall see. Meanwhile he was the first to warn his sons that grain was abundant in Egypt; that thither they must journey, to buy what was needful for their use. Gladly too he himself acquiesced in the young men's counsels, so as even to send the younger son along with them. And when they reported back that his son Joseph was alive, though his body was broken yet with a lively strength of mind he did not wait for the son to come to him, but rather himself went on to the son; for the measure of order does not outweigh affection. And so he felt no hindrances of weary old age as he went on; for affection lightened the labor.
But when he had gained the fruit of his recovered son, and some time had passed — namely seventeen years, which, according to that patriarch's long life, is the time of a small portion — and he recognized that the end of his life was drawing near to him, he called Joseph his son and, through the future heir of his generation, bound him by oath not to be buried in Egypt; and the pledge having been received, when a little after he fell ill and his son Joseph came to him, as if his strength had been recovered, he sat up upon his bed and blessed the twelve patriarchs and prophesied. Now let some say:
that Jacob was not blessed, when he was in the very days of death — he who mingled almost more discourse with God than with men; that he was not blessed, when his eyes were heavy in old age and he could not see; for to some it seems that blindness is a grievous hardship of calamity. But then too Jacob was blessed, because he discerned by the spirit those whom he could not discern by the eyes and by sight. He saw things to come, who was reckoned not to see things present.
In short, Joseph himself erred, when, having placed his elder son at Jacob's right hand and his younger son at his left, that the order of age might preserve the order of blessing, Jacob stretched out his right hand over the younger grandson and his left over the elder grandson; and when his son wished to turn the father's right hand over Manasseh the elder, Jacob answered: 'I know, my son, I know: this one too shall become a people, and this one shall be exalted; but his younger brother shall be greater than he.' And he added the cause of the preference, saying: 'His seed shall become a multitude of nations.' So much better did he see, though hindered in bodily sight, that he taught the seeing man to have erred. For who sees better than he who sees Christ?
Or who can say that he was hindered in his eyes, who saw the Church shining forth in Christ? Is it not, then, clear that weakness cannot hinder blessedness? He, hindered in the function of his eyes, he, with the powers of his body worn out, leaving his body on the bed as in a sepulchre, rose up into himself, and gathering himself far from others and within his very self, had withdrawn himself from present things and was mingled with the future age of the last days. For thus it is written: 'I will announce,' he says, 'to you what shall befall you in the last days.' What, then, was lacking to him to whom God was present, who had said to him as he set out: 'I will go down with you into Egypt, and I will lead you back forever'?
Nor was He lacking, since the Holy Spirit spoke in him. Who is so mighty in his own home as this man in a stranger's? Who so abounding in plenty as this man in famine? Who so strong in youth as this man in old age? Who so active in business as this man in leisure? Who so swift in the racecourse as this man on his little couch? Who so joyful in the flower of adolescence as this man on the threshold of death? Who so rich in a kingdom as this man in a foreign place? In short, he blessed kings. And not without merit was he not poor, who lacked nothing. He was not poor, who did not think himself poor. And who would call him poor, of whose company the whole world was not worthy, and whose conversation was therefore in heaven?
This man, indeed, was exceedingly rich in the riches of simplicity and sincerity, comely with a beauty of soul greater than of body — a beauty that does not know how to wither — vigorous in age, to whom it was permitted, whenever he wished, to go out from this bodily hovel and to penetrate, by the heavenly vigor of his mind, the upper regions of paradise, exulting in spirit as he gave commands about his last burial-place. For he presumed that he was not to be shut up in an earthly tomb, but to be received into a heavenly dwelling. And therefore he gave commands about the sepulchre as if for another, while, secure about himself, he reckoned that death of his to be immortality. He seemed entangled by the hindrance of the body, yet with a watchful affection he ran ahead into future times, saying concerning the persecutors of the Lord — those of the tribe of Simeon and Levi who were to become authors of wickedness: