If therefore His own precepts and those of the prophets disquiet you, it is better for you to follow God rather than your unintelligent and blind teachers, for they still permit you to have four and even five wives apiece, and if a man see a woman of fair countenance he may lust after her — relating the practice of Jacob, who was also Israel, and the other patriarchs, and affirming that they who practise suchlike things do no evil, such poor and senseless creatures are they!
For, as I have already said, dispensations of great mysteries were performed in each action of that nature. For in the marriages of Jacob a kind of dispensation and prediction was performed, I would say, in order that you might recognize even in them that your teachers have always looked not at all unto the more divine purpose for which each action took place, but rather unto what lies grovelling on the very ground, and to the natural passions of corruption. Attend therefore to what I say.
The marriages of Jacob were types of the act that was to be completed by Christ. For it was not right that Jacob should marry two sisters at the same time. So he serves Laban for his daughters, and when he was deceived about the younger he served another seven years. Now Leah is your people and the Synagogue; but Rachel is our Church. And Christ still serves for these, and for His servants that are in both.
For since Noah gave to his two sons the seed of the third for bondage to them, Christ has now come to restore again the two free children, and also the bondservants who are among them, deeming all who keep His commandments worthy of the same blessing even as all who were born to Jacob from the free and from the bondservants became his sons, and received equal honour. Yet a prediction was made of what each would be in rank, and in God’s foreknowledge.
Jacob served Laban for his spotted and speckled sheep. Christ served His service even as far as the cross, for men of various colours and looks out of every nation, purchasing them by blood and the mystery of the cross. Leach’s eyes were weak, and, in truth, very weak are the eyes of your souls. Rachel stole the gods of Laban, and hid them until this present day, and similarly for us have our ancestral and material gods perished.
All the time was Jacob hated by his brother. And now are we, and the Lord Himself, hated by you and by all others whatsoever, though by nature all are brethren. Jacob was surnamed Israel; and it has been proved that Israel is also Christ, who is Jesus and rightly holds that name.