Commentaria in Genesim
Prophecy and Blessing of Gad
Verse 19. Gad, Girded, Shall Fight Before Him, and
HE HIMSELF SHALL BE GIRDED BACKWARD.—“Before him,” namely before Israel, of whom he spoke in the preceding blessing, verse 16. In the Hebrew there is continual paronomasia and allusion to the etymology of the name Gad, for it is derived from gedud, that is, girded, as I said chap. 30, verse 11, as if to say: The tribe of Gad according to its name will be girded, armed and warlike, and this will appear both at other times (as is clear from 1 Paralipomenon 5, 18 and 19), and when, armed, it will go before Israel, namely the remaining tribes, as a leader, and lead them through the Jordan into Chanaan. Then it will “be girded backward,” when, its brethren, namely the other tribes, being duly settled in their lot and enjoying that quiet, it, after the fourteenth year of its leadership, and of the wars waged for its brethren, girded again and laden with spoils, will gloriously return home to its lot beyond the Jordan. See the history in the book of Josue, chap. 22. So the Chaldee, St. Jerome and Procopius (2).
Secondly, Cajetan thinks that the battles of Jephte are here described: who, he says, was sprung from Gad. But Pererius and others better hold that Jephte was born not of Gad, but of Manasses.
Allegorically, Gad girded is Christ, and the Church, as a battle-line of camps set in order, and any faithful man, above all the Martyr, says Rupert, who bravely contends against the world, flesh and devil, and therefore in heaven will be glorious and most happy. For Gad in Hebrew signifies both girded and happy. Such was St. Lawrence, who, roasted at
John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, condemned to death by Henry VIII because he would not acknowledge his ecclesiastical primacy, when he came to the place of execution, casting away the staff on which the old man leaned: “Come,” he said, “feet, do your duty, little of the journey now remains.” Sanders is witness.
she said, “cruel tyrant, to cut off in me the breasts which you sucked at your mother’s? But you accomplish nothing; I have those you cannot tear away, the inner breasts of faith and hope, by whose nourishment the strength of enduring is restored in me.”
St. Agnes to the executioner: “Why do you delay? Let
Macedonius and Theodosius, roasting, to the prefect Amachius: “Amachius, dost thou desire roast meat? turn us on the other sides, lest, half-roasted, we seem less savoury to thy palate.”
So girded were the African Martyrs, when, at the command of Hunneric, they were led into exile and the desert. Filled with the stench and filth of the prison, they sang joyfully: “This glory is to all his Saints.” An old woman ran up to them, leading a little child by the hand, whom she thus exhorted: “Come, hasten, child, see with what eagerness the whole army of the Saints hastens to receive the crowns of glory: let us too hasten to be joined with them.” Victor of Utica is witness, book II of the Vandal persecution.
So girded was St. Eulalia, a Lusitanian virgin, under the Emperor Maximian, first torn with claws, then burned with flames; for hearing that Christians were being tortured, running of her own accord a long way to the tribunal of Dacian, with these words, as Prudentius testifies, hymn 3, book On the Crowns, she provoked him:
Come then, torturer, burn, cut, divide limbs compacted of clay. To dissolve a fragile thing is easy:
The inner soul will not be pierced, though pain assail it.
Soon two executioners tear her breast, and with claws cut her side to the bone. She, however, counting the marks, said:
Behold, Lord, thou art written on me.
How it delights me to read these characters, which mark thy trophies, O Christ! The name, too, the very purple of the blood drawn forth speaks it, sacred.
Delivered to the fire by the command of Dacian, there the Virgin, desiring a swift death, seeks and drinks the pyre with her mouth.
Such too was St. Felicitas, Gad, that is, girded and happy, who under Antoninus Pius underwent martyrdom with her seven sons. For when the prefect Publius wished her to worship the gods, and added threats to entreaties, she answered: “I am neither moved by these blandishments, nor broken by terrors and threats. I have the Holy Spirit, who supplies me strength, that I may be willing to suffer anything for the faith.” And turning to her sons: “Dearest sons,” she said, “persist in the confession of the faith; Christ with his Saints now awaits you; fight for your souls, and show yourselves faithful to Christ.” So the sons were slain before their mother, and at last the mother was put to death, of whom St. Gregory says: “Happy she who, by an eightfold patience eight times a Martyr, ascended to heaven to be given eight crowns.”