Jerome : [Daniel 2:48] "Then the king elevated Daniel to a high position, and gave him many great gifts and set him up as governor over all the provinces of Babylon..." In this matter also the slanderous critic of the Church has ventured to castigate the prophet because he did not reject the gifts and because he willingly accepted honor of the Babylonians. He fails to consider the fact that it was for this very purpose that the king had beheld the dream and that the secrets of its interpretation were revealed by a mere lad, that Daniel might increase in importance and that in the place of captivity he might become ruler over all the Chaldeans, to the end that the omnipotence of God might be made known. We read that this same thing happened in the case of Joseph at the court of Pharaoh and in Egypt (Genesis 41:38-43), and also in the case of Mordecai at the court of Ahasuerus (Esther 8:1-2). The purpose was that the Jews, as captives and sojourners in each of these nations, might receive encouragement as they beheld men of their own nation constituted as governors over the Egyptians or the Chaldeans, as the case might be. — St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, CHAPTER TWO Rabanus Maurus : The fact that King Ahasuerus gave Queen Esther the house of Haman, the enemy of the Jews, clearly signifies that the true king who is our Lord transferred to the holy church all the dignity and honor which the people previously possessed because of their knowledge of the law and the prophets and because of their holy and religious worship. This happened because they despised the advent in flesh of the Mediator between God and humanity and because they had no desire to receive his gospel. And so the church was able to possess all the spiritual riches and become the sincere guardian of all virtue. Therefore it is written in the book of Proverbs, "The sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous." And the Lord says to the Jews themselves in the gospel, "The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom." And again it is said through Solomon, "The good obtain favor from the Lord." — EXPLANATION ON THE BOOK OF Esther 11 Rabanus Maurus : When King Ahasuerus gives Queen Esther the house of Haman the enemy of the Jews, this must refer to the fact that after the people spurned the arrival of the incarnate intermediary between God and man and refused to accept his evangel, the true king and our Lord put at the disposal of the holy Church all the dignity and honor which in the past they had gotten from their knowledge of the Law and the prophets and from their practice of righteous faith, so that the Church would possess spiritual wealth and become the most respected guardian of all the virtues. Hence it is written in Proverbs: "The wealth of the sinner is guarded by the righteous" (Proverbs 13). And in the Gospel, the Lord says to the Jews themselves: "The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation that produces its fruits" (Matthew 21). This is also the reason for what Solomon says: "He who is good receives favor from the Lord" (Proverbs 12). We are next told about Mordecai that he went in before the face of the king, meaning that because the Church praises and proclaims the dedication of its leaders, these sacred teachers discover—in exchange for the effort they have exerted in nurturing the faithful—abundant grace in the sight of the creator of all things. We might also apply this principle to the characterization of all the persecutors of the Church more generally, because whatever the latter produced in their eagerness to acquire wisdom or useful disciplines; or sought out by investigating the respectability of the virtues; or whatever sorts of punishments they devised to torment the martyrs, it was all subverted by the faithful so as to magnify the honor and the glory of Christ. Nor did the wicked possessors of these things retain any of the good rewards that they earned for their labors, but everything was transferred to the righteous to consummate their perfection. And what follows this, where the king took the ring he had gotten from Haman and gave it to Mordecai, is an allegorical expression of the fact that the seal of faith, which the faithless Jews and all the persecutors of the name of Christ did not want to accept when it was offered to them through the preaching of the Gospel, was transferred to the nations by the apostles of Christ for the sake of their salvation. So Esther holds onto the house of Haman the enemy of the Jews, just as the Church of Christ possesses the world which was once the enemy of Christianity. And Mordecai goes in before the face of the king because the souls of the saints are taken every day from their homes in this life to contemplate the visage of the supreme Judge; there is no limit to the measure of their happiness—each day they experience ever more glory in the joy of eternal exultation. — Commentary on Esther