death on the Cross. For it was when the spear pierced His Side that the Sacraments of the Church first flowed forth.
Hildebert, in one of his poems, thus expands the type:—the verses lose nothing by being put into prose. The ark of Noah was narrow at the top, broad at the bottom, and finished about in a cubit. The beasts were placed lowest; then the men; and the birds above them. The Ark figures the Church. Many there are in this who seem irrational as beasts;—and thence the width of the lower stage.—There are fewer in it who may properly be called men, as knowing the things that belong to their peace, and avoiding sin; hence the comparative narrowness of the upper stage. There are fewer still who, like birds, contemn earthly things; and rise to heaven: whence they are fitly represented as at the top. And they are finished about in a cubit: for Christ is set forth by the Cubit; and beyond Him the Church seeks and finds nothing.
According to the mediæval allegory,—Isaac is Christ: Rebecca, the Gentile Church: Eliezer, the Apostles and Doctors, whom he sent to betroth that Church to Himself. The servant's thirst, their ardour for souls, satisfied by the obedience of the Gentile converts, as Eliezer by the pitcher of Rebecca.
Esau going away to hunt, here represents the Jew, who while wandering in seeking for the letter of the Scriptures, and careless about the spirit, lost the blessing which Jacob obtained.
Leah and Rachel, as we have already seen, are usually taken as types of the active and contemplative
