{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-5962","native_reference":{"book_number":10,"chapter_from":29,"chapter_to":29,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":11,"verse_to":11},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Caesarius of Arles</b>: We have frequently mentioned to your charity, dearly beloved, that blessed Jacob was a type and figure of our Lord and Savior. Moreover, how Christ was to come into the world to be joined to the church was prefigured also in blessed Jacob when he traveled into a distant country to choose a wife. Therefore blessed Jacob, as you have heard, went into Mesopotamia to take a wife. When he had come to a certain well, he saw Rachel coming with her father's sheep—after he recognized her as his cousin, he kissed her as soon as the flock was supplied with water. If you notice carefully, brothers, you can recognize that it was not without reason that the holy patriarchs found their wives at wells or fountains. If this had happened only once, someone might say it was accidental and not for some definite reason. Blessed Rebekah who was to be united to blessed Isaac was found at the well; Rachel whom blessed Jacob was to marry was recognized at the well; and Zipporah who was joined to Moses was found at the well. Doubtless then we ought to understand some mysteries in these facts. Since all three of those patriarchs typified our Lord and Savior, for this reason they found their wives at fountains or wells, because Christ was to find his church at the waters of baptism. Moreover, when Jacob came to the well, Rachel first watered the flock, and then he kissed her. It is true, dearly beloved, unless the Christian people are first washed from all evil by the waters of baptism, they do not deserve to possess the peace of Christ. Could not blessed Jacob have kissed his cousin upon seeing her, before the flock was watered? Doubtless he could have, but a mystery was involved: for it was necessary for the church to be freed from all iniquity and dissension by the grace of baptism and thus to merit peace with God.<br/><i>— SERMON 88.1</i></p><p><b>Cyril of Alexandria</b>: In addition Rachel is interpreted as a \"sheep of God.\" And some consider her to be with good reason a symbol of the church among the nations. She is also the sheep of Christ, mixed in the ancient folds, and finally received in the fold of the Savior. Therefore he said, \"And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.\" And the holy disciples acted as shepherds of the church of Christ, when they supported her as reasonable creatures and when they were her lovers and bridegrooms and presented her to God as a pure virgin without spots or wrinkles, or as something similar, \"holy and immaculate.\"<br/><i>— GLAPHYRA ON GENESIS, 4.4</i></p><p><b>Ephrem the Syrian</b>: Jacob continued on and turned aside to a well where he saw Rachel the shepherd girl, who, with her bare feet, her shabby clothing and her face burned from the sun, could not be distinguished from the charred brands that come out of the fire. Jacob knew at once that he who had provided the beautiful Rebekah at the spring now provided Rachel in her shabby clothing at the well. Then he performed a heroic deed in her presence, for, through the Son who was hidden in it, he rolled away the stone that even many could raise only with great difficulty. When he betrothed her to God through this marvelous deed, Jacob then returned and married himself to her with a kiss.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Genesis 27:1</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: ON THE KISS JACOB GIVES TO RACHEL. — Concerning the text that says: And Jacob kissed Rachel, and cried with a loud voice and wept. And he told Rachel that he was the near relative of her father, and the son of Rebecca . It was the custom, especially in the beautiful simplicity of ancient times, to kiss between parents and relatives, and even today this custom is practiced in many countries. But one can ask how Rachel accepts the kiss from a stranger, since Jacob revealed his kinship only after kissing her. One of these two assumptions must therefore be used: Thus, it is necessary to think that he, who had already heard who she was, rushed himself with all confidence to kiss her, or that the Scripture narrates later, as a recapitulation, what had happened before, that is, that Jacob had already said who he was. It is something similar to what happens with the story of Paradise. It tells how God, having already said before that He had planted it and had put in it the man who He had formed (Cf. Gen. 2:8). There are many other examples that must be interpreted as presented as a recapitulation. [<br/><i>— QUESTIONS ON GENESIS, Q. 86 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"c901ef4215f30e66aaa90b8a39c7fa70c9190e64520290edcb8645f5f7ef5fd1","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":5962,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"df4a3c8ff14903d29265ef87df254076214bd4a9f0b4a7a62f09cc0e5fb743fd","translator":null,"work":null}