Commentaria in Genesim
So St. Romuald, as is related in his Life, by the sight of a ladder reaching from the lowest earth to heaven at its top, on which he beheld monks in white garb ascending and descending, wonderfully recognised the perfection of the religious life and its habit signified. Wherefore he asked and obtained that same place from the noble man, its lord, whose name was Maldulus, and there built the chief monastery of his Order, in the year of the Lord 1009, which from that was called Camaldoli, as if Campus Maldoli; it is situated near Florence on the Apennine mountain, already for six hundred years flourishing with a multitude of holy Hermits, angels, I say, of the earth.
So St. Antoninus, treating of the death of St. Dominic: The Prior of Brescia, he says, in the same hour in which St. Dominic died, saw a gap in heaven, through which two most white ladders were let down: one the Blessed Virgin held, the other Christ; and angels ascended and descended; and at the end of each ladder a seat was placed, and one sitting on it like a Friar Preacher (this was St. Dominic), having his face veiled, as going towards heaven; and Christ and His mother drew the ladders upward, with the seat and him that sat, and then the gap was closed. By this vision was signified the way by which St. Dominic passed to the heavenly ones; certainly a sure sign of predestination, and a sure way to heaven is both the religious rule and life, which St. Dominic and other founders of Orders instituted by God’s impulse; and the root and mother of this life, namely earnest imitation and worship, and consequently the help and patronage of the Blessed Virgin. Hence the Blessed Virgin is called by the Fathers, and in the Litany of Loreto, gate and ladder of heaven.
You will ask fifthly, what does this ladder signify anagogically?
I answer: This ladder is the various seats, steps and choirs of the Saints and angels in heaven. The angels descend when they are sent to the guardianship of men; they ascend when they return, and place the souls of the just in the various steps of this ladder, that is in the seats of the angels who fell and became demons. To this also the Wise Man alludes, chap. x, verse 10, as I said above.
Hence more than once to Saints contending in this life their place in heaven, their crown, has been shown, as to St. Stephen, the Forty Martyrs whose memory is recalled on March 9, St. Nicholas of Tolentino, St. Francis, St. Vitalis. For Vitalis, when forced by his persecutors to deny Christ, confessed Him more boldly; wherefore he was tortured with every kind of torment, so that there was no place in his body without a wound. But the Martyr, bearing the torments with a brave mind, pouring forth most ardent prayers, said: “Lord Jesus Christ, my Saviour and my God, command my spirit to be received; for now I desire to receive the crown which thy holy angel hath shown me.” Having said this, he flew away to heaven; witnesses are St. Ambrose and St. Jerome, Exhortation to Virgins. Rightly therefore the same Jerome, epistle to Julian, vol. 1: “Jacob saw, he says, a ladder, and the Lord leaning above it, to stretch out a hand to the weary, to rouse those ascending to labour by His aspect.”
13. THE LAND WHEREIN THOU SLEEPEST—the whole of Chanaan.
I WILL GIVE TO THEE AND TO THY SEED.—“To thee,” that is, to thy seed: for “and” here is exegetical, or a mark of explanation, and signifies “that is.”
parent; but “in thy seed,” namely through Christ to be born of thee, shall most nearly and immediately be blessed, that is, shall be endowed with justice, grace and salvation, all the tribes of the earth, which namely shall receive Christ, believe in Him and obey.
Verse 15. UNTIL I HAVE FULFILLED—until I fulfil.
Note here the six great blessings which God promises to His servant Jacob, sorrowful and afflicted. The first is, “The land whereon thou sleepest, to thee will I give it”; the second, “Thy seed shall be as innumerable as the dust of the earth”; the third, “In thee shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed”; the fourth, “I will be thy keeper whithersoever thou goest”; the fifth, “I will bring thee back into this land”; the sixth, “Neither will I leave thee, till I have accomplished all that I have said.”
Verse 17. AND BEING AFRAID—filled with holy fear, dread and reverence.
HOW DREADFUL!—how worthy of religious awe, of what great reverence, trembling and humility, is this place to be honoured, on account of the presence of God and of the angels ascending and descending by the ladder!
THIS IS NONE OTHER BUT THE HOUSE OF GOD—namely, where God, leaning upon the ladder, dwells with His angels ascending and descending. The Chaldee renders it: How dreadful is this place! It is not a common place, but a place in which there is good pleasure before God, and over against this place is the gate of heaven.
Note here how, from the time of Jacob and Abraham, God has made certain places illustrious in various parts by His appearing, His benefits and His miracles, and has willed that He be worshipped and invoked there. Why then do the Innovators clamour against the blessed Virgin of Loreto, of Halle, of Aspericollis?
Tertullian, in his book On Flight, thinks that in this vision Jacob saw Christ, who is the house of God and at the same time the gate through which we enter into heaven, and that he understands and signifies this by these words.
AND THE GATE OF HEAVEN—because from there he saw angels going out, when they descend by the ladder, and coming in, when they ascend by it to God.
Allegorically, the Church is Bethel, that is, the house of God and the gate of heaven: because God dwells in it as in His own house by His presence, both spiritual and real and bodily in the Eucharist; and because in the Church are the merits of Christ (of whom Jacob was the parent and type), by which the gate of heaven has been opened to us. So Rupert. See Cajetan. If, then, this place and this stone were so august and dreadful, what must the Church of Christians be, in which is kept not a shadow, that is, the ark of the testament, as was done in the tabernacle of Moses, but the almighty Maker of all things Himself, truly dwelling beneath the white veil of the most august Sacrament, as in a cloud?
“The Church,” he says, “is the place of Angels, the place of Archangels, the kingdom of God, heaven itself; and if thou believest not, look upon this table,” that is, the altar.
Verse 18. HE SET IT UP FOR A TITLE—Jacob raised up that stone, or rock, on which he had slept, and set it upright, to be a memorial of the vision and apparition granted to him.
Note: a title is spoken of in four ways, according to the four things it signifies. First, a title is an inscription upon a thing, as the title of a book, the title of the cross; second, a title is a column or pyramid erected as a trophy to a conqueror, or in honour of a notable deed; third, a title is a statue, image or idol erected for worship and adoration, such as is forbidden in Leviticus 26:1; fourth, a title is a piece of wood, a stone, or some other thing set up or erected in memory and as a sign of some matter, for example of the angelic vision granted here to Jacob. For Jacob set up this stone as a title, so that on his return from Haran to his own country he might recall and venerate this benefit of God in the same place, as he is known to have done in chapter 35, verse 5.
Hence he also consecrated the same stone as an altar, as will appear in the last verse; so that this title is not only a monument but also signifies an altar. And hence the first Christians, after the example of Jacob, called their churches titles, from title, that is, the sign of the cross, and from title, that is, the name of some Saint, in whose honour churches were entitled, that is, named, consecrated and distinguished; thus the title of St. Praxedes is the church of St. Praxedes; the title of St. Lawrence is the church of St. Lawrence. This expression is frequent in the Lives of the first Pontiffs. So James Gretser, book 2 On the Cross, chapter 7. And from these titles the Cardinals have taken their titles and surnames, as Jerome Plati teaches, in his book On the Dignity of Cardinals, chapter 2.