Commentaria in Genesim
WHO SHALL ROUSE HIM?—who would dare rouse him and provoke him to war? Whoever does so shall not go unpunished, he will receive ruin.
Allegorically, Christ, born of Juda, “went up to the prey,” because his name is: “Make haste to take away the spoils, hasten to the prey,” Isaias 8:3. Hence he rested, that is, died, as a lion: because in his death he moved the whole world, and by dying destroyed the devil and death. So St. Ambrose, in the book On the Blessings of the Patriarchs, on the blessing of Juda: “Who,” he says, “shall rouse him, that is, whom the Lord shall take up? Who is there else to raise him, unless he raise himself by his own and the Father’s power? I see him born by his own authority, I see him dead by his own will, I see him sleeping by his own power; he who did all things by his own choice, whose other helps will he need that he may rise again?
He himself, therefore, is the author of his own resurrection, who is the arbiter of death.”
The lion’s whelp sleeps three days, It is a fable that, when dead, it is raised by its father.
Eucherius here relates from the natural philosophers that a lion’s whelp, when born, sleeps three days; on the third day it is roused by the roar of its father shaking its lair: so Christ on the third day rose by his own and the Father’s power, by which he at the same time caused an earthquake. Epiphanius and Eucherius wrongly refer this to dead whelps of the lion, which the lion father rouses and brings to life by his roaring; for this is false and fabulous.
St. Epiphanius adds, heresy 78, which is that of the Antidicomarianites, that a lioness bears only one whelp in her whole life: in like manner the Blessed Virgin bore only one Son, namely Christ: “They say,” he says, “that the lioness does not bear except once, and one.” He subjoins the reason, that she carries the offspring in the womb for 26 months, and so the offspring with its claws “tears and cuts the womb,” and accordingly “together with the birth the womb and uterus is also cast out.” The lion therefore is Christ, the lioness the Virgin Mother. “To the lioness, however, a second birth does not happen; therefore Mary no longer knew childbirth, nor the holy Virgin any further union of bodies.” But this is fabulous. For, to omit other things, if the lioness bore only one whelp in her life, the lion species could not be multiplied, but would always consist in one head and whelp; and if this were a male, or were soon killed, the species must perish. Wherefore, since tender lion whelps have often been killed before they could breed, it would follow that the species of lions had long since perished. Add that the lioness has several whelps, as Ezechiel teaches, chapter 19, verse 9.
10. THE SCEPTRE SHALL NOT BE TAKEN AWAY FROM JUDA—the Septuagint: there shall not fail a prince from Juda, as if to say: Since the tribe of Juda received the kingdom in David, it will keep the sceptre this principality and leadership of its own, until the Messias or Christ come.
You will say: David and his posterity reigned only until the Babylonian captivity: for after the return from this captivity the leaders of the Jews were the Machabees, who sprang not from Juda but from Levi: for they were priests and pontiffs.
First, St. Justin, Eusebius, Athanasius, Augustine, Chrysostom, Theodoret and Rupert, whom Pererius cites and follows, answer that by Juda here is understood not the tribe of Juda alone but all the Jews, that is, all twelve tribes. But this exposition is obstructed by the fact that Jacob appropriates and assigns this blessing not to all the tribes but to the one tribe of Juda.
Secondly, Lyranus, Abulensis and Dionysius the Carthusian answer that the Machabees were sprung from Juda, because although by the paternal line they descended from Levi, by the maternal they descended from Juda: for Levites took wives from the tribe of Juda. But this about the Machabees is uncertain, and, if it were certain, it would not satisfy: for in this way he might have said of Levi as well as of Juda: The (ducal) sceptre shall not be taken away from Levi, until he come that is to be sent. As for what Genebrard answers, that the Machabees were sprung from Juda not only on the maternal but also on the paternal side, this is against other historians and almost all Interpreters.
Thirdly, Burgensis, Galatinus, John Annius and John Lucidus answer that, while the Machabees reigned, the supreme council, the Sanhedrin, of seventy men of the tribe of Juda, presided and governed, as a parliament, or the king’s council, now rules in a kingdom. But this too is false, namely that the Sanhedrin council was gathered from the tribe of Juda alone: for it was gathered from all the tribes.
This too does not satisfy: for the individual members of this council were not kings or princes, but only counsellors of the king or prince. Add that a parliament is not a ruler, nor does it hold the sceptre of the kingdom.
Fourthly, Melchior Cano, book XI, De Locis, answers that the Maccabees held a leadership not their own but in trust, that is, they were to keep it faithfully as a deposit until a faithful Prophet should arise to instruct the Jews about God’s will concerning king and government, or the true and proper leader whom they awaited from the tribe of Judah. But from this opinion it follows that before the Messiah, or Christ, the sceptre of Judah truly failed for 165 years; for that many years the Maccabees reigned. Moreover, a deposit is not usually, nor can it be, held for so many years. Thirdly, the Jews held the Maccabees as true and proper princes, not as trustees. Finally, if this opinion is true, then from this passage it cannot be proved against the Jews that the Messiah has already come: for the Jews will answer in the same way that Herod and any other were not the Jews’ own king but a trustee, until their own king the Messiah should come.
The fifth answer is that the tribe of Judah had the kingdom and principate, and in fact held it until the Messiah, namely Christ, on a twofold ground and title. First, because the tribe of Judah alone held the kingdom from David to Zedekiah, for 470 years, and that in great glory, wealth and strength, until the Babylonian captivity. Moreover, because the tribe of Judah alone returned from this captivity, together with a few others sprung from the tribes of Benjamin, Levi and others. Hence the whole Jewish people thereafter took its name from Judah, and all, although descended from other tribes, were reckoned to be of the tribe of Judah, because they were mingled with Judah and had been grafted and co-opted into the tribe and commonwealth of Judah. In this way, then, and for this reason, the Maccabees, although they were Levites, are reckoned to have reigned in the tribe of Judah, because, co-opted into the tribe of Judah and chosen by the tribe of Judah, they reigned in it; and in this sense it is true that the tribe of Judah here includes any from other tribes grafted into and mingled with the tribe of Judah, and excludes only foreigners, namely Gentiles, as the authors of the first opinion said. Thus Judah is taken for all the Jews dwelling in all Judea, Malachi 1, 4, and 1 Machabees 1, 5. In like manner the Romans are said to have ruled; and those are called Roman Emperors who held the Roman Empire at Rome, even though they were sprung from Thrace, Spain or elsewhere, because all these had coalesced with the Romans into one commonwealth and one empire. And this, not another, the Fathers cited in the first opinion seem to have meant; these all therefore are for us. So Francis Suarez, part III, disp. 4, sect. 1.
Secondly, and better, the sceptre did not fail from Judah precisely until Christ, because the crown, that is the right and power of kingship, always properly belonged to the tribe of Judah: both because this right of kingdom was assigned by God to David and his family sprung from Judah, that David’s descendants should always succeed to it in continuous series by hereditary right; and because the seat, dominion and capital of the kingdom, namely Jerusalem, belonged to the tribe of Judah; and because after the schism of the ten tribes the tribe of Judah, adhering to the house of David and to his grandson Roboam, constituted him its own king and Judah its own kingdom: for although the tribe of Benjamin joined itself to the tribe of Judah, yet this, being smaller, submitted itself to the tribe of Judah and yielded to it the ancestral kingdom and sceptre; and thus thereafter always, even after the return from the Babylonian captivity, the crown, or right of kingdom, and the election of kings and princes belonged to the tribe of Judah. Although therefore Levites, namely the Maccabees, reigned among the Jews, yet the crown of the kingdom always remained with Judah: for the tribe of Judah, on account of their zeal and courage, chose the Maccabees as leaders and set them over itself: just as the kingdom of Poland always remains, so long as the crown and the right of electing and governing a king remains with the Poles, even if a foreigner reigns, as lately the king of Poland was Henry of Valois, a Frenchman, and after him Stephen Báthory, prince of Transylvania: for these the Poles chose as their kings; but the crown and sceptre of Poland would fail if the Turk should subdue it and set himself up as king over the Poles by force and tyranny: as the sceptre of Judah failed when Herod forced himself into it. So Pererius.