{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/102/1020490.htm","path":"chr/ecf/102/1020490.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/102/1020490.htm","text":"Chapter 41.\u2014Of the Blessing Which Jacob Promised in Judah His Son.\nIf, on account of the Christian people in whom the city of God sojourns in the earth, we look for the flesh of Christ in the seed of Abraham, setting aside the sons of the concubines, we have Isaac; if in the seed of Isaac, setting aside Esau, who is also Edom, we have Jacob, who also is Israel; if in the seed of Israel himself, setting aside the rest, we have Judah, because Christ sprang of the tribe of Judah. Let us hear, then, how Israel, when dying in Egypt, in blessing his sons, prophetically blessed Judah. He says: \u201cJudah, thy brethren shall praise thee: thy hands shall be on the back of thine enemies; thy father\u2019s children shall adore thee. Judah is a lion\u2019s whelp: from the sprouting, my son, thou art gone up: lying down, thou hast slept as a lion, and as a lion\u2019s whelp; who shall awake him? A prince shall not be lacking out of Judah, and a leader from his thighs, until the things come that are laid up for him; and He shall be the expectation of the nations. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass\u2019s foal to the choice vine; he shall wash his robe in wine, and his clothes in the blood of the grape: his eyes are red with wine, and his teeth are whiter than milk.\u201d 971 I have expounded these words in disputing against Faustus the Manich\u00e6an; and I think it is enough to make the truth of this prophecy shine, to remark that the death of Christ is predicted by the word about his lying down, and not the necessity, but the voluntary character of His death, in the title of lion. That power He Himself proclaims in the gospel, p. 335 saying, \u201cI have the power of laying down my life, and I have the power of taking it again. No man taketh it from me; but I lay it down of myself, and take it again.\u201d 972 So the lion roared, so He fulfilled what He said. For to this power what is added about the resurrection refers, \u201cWho shall awake him?\u201d This means that no man but Himself has raised Him, who also said of His own body, \u201cDestroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.\u201d 973 And the very nature of His death, that is, the height of the cross, is understood by the single words \u201cThou are gone up.\u201d The evangelist explains what is added, \u201cLying down, thou hast slept,\u201d when he says, \u201cHe bowed His head, and gave up the ghost.\u201d 974 Or at least His burial is to be understood, in which He lay down sleeping, and whence no man raised Him, as the prophets did some, and as He Himself did others; but He Himself rose up as if from sleep. As for His robe which He washes in wine, that is, cleanses from sin in His own blood, of which blood those who are baptized know the mystery, so that he adds, \u201cAnd his clothes in the blood of the grape,\u201d what is it but the Church? \u201cAnd his eyes are red with wine,\u201d [these are] His spiritual people drunken with His cup, of which the psalm sings, \u201cAnd thy cup that makes drunken, how excellent it is!\u201d \u201cAnd his teeth are whiter than milk,\u201d 975 \u2014that is, the nutritive words which, according to the apostle, the babes drink, being as yet unfit for solid food. 976 And it is He in whom the promises of Judah were laid up, so that until they come, princes, that is, the kings of Israel, shall never be lacking out of Judah. \u201cAnd He is the expectation of the nations.\u201d This is too plain to need exposition.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II: City of God: Cha...","type":"page"}