life. But they also stand for the Synagogue and the Church. Leah, tender-eyed, i.e. blear-eyed, represents the former, unable to see the Antitype in the type. Rachel, according to the strange etymology ot Hildebert, signifies, that sees the Beginning: i.e. Christ: hence she is called seeing Rachel by our poet, and therefore typifies the Church, who sees her Lord in the mysteries of the Old Testament.
Tamar is the Gentile Church:—the garment in which she sat by the wayside, confession of sins; her becoming the mother of twins by Judah, while ignorant who she was, is explained of that text,—"a people whom I have not known shall serve Me."
Here, that is, here in the Church, those things really take place, which, in Scripture history are allegorically set forth. The Nile is the world, because it flows through Egypt, the land of darkness. Moses is the natural state of man; the Ark, his vain endeavour to work out a righteousness of his own:—Pharaoh's daughter, the Grace of God: which finally makes him by adoption a son of the True King. The three next allusions are perfectly clear.
Poderis. So Petrus de Rigâ:
Poderis est vestis quæ terræ continet orbem,
Et caput et corpus præsulis ilia tegit.
Sic mens pontificis toti supereminet orbi,
Moribus ac precibus se populumque regens.
Non aliud splendet nisi veste hyacinthus in istâ,
Signans quod totus præsul ad astra volet.
Paulus erat totus indutus podere, dicens:
"Dissolvi cupiens, opto videre Deum."
