St. Paul has taught us that Jacob and Esau were types of the elder and younger Churches; but Irenæus has much amplified the figure, and brought in other parallelisms. “And if any one would study the acts of Jacob, he will find them not empty, but full of providential arrangements(482): and first in his birth, as he caught hold of the heel of his brother, and was called Jacob, that is, the supplanter; holding and not holden; fettering but not fettered; struggling and conquering; holding in his hand the heel of his adversary, i. e. the victory: to this end was the Lord born, whose birth he typified, concerning whom John saith in the Revelation, _He went forth conquering, to conquer_. Moreover, in taking the birthright when his brother disdained it; as also the younger people accepted Christ the first‐born, when the elder people rejected him, saying, _We have no __ king but Cæsar_. And in Christ was the whole blessing; and for this reason the latter people stole from the Father the blessing of the former people, as Jacob took away the blessing from Esau. For which cause his brother suffered from the lying in wait and persecutions of a brother, as also the Church suffers from the Jews(483). The twelve tribes, the children of Israel, were born in a foreign country, as Christ began at a distance from his home to lay the twelve‐pillared foundation of the Church. The spotted sheep were the wages of Jacob; and Christ’s reward is the assemblage of men from differing nations into the one bond of the faith(484), as the Father promised him: ‘Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession.’ And as to Jacob, the Lord’s prophet, it consisted of a multitude of children, it was necessary that he should have children from two sisters; as also Christ from two laws of one and the same Father(485); and likewise of two maid‐servants, signifying that Christ should make sons of God out both of those who in the flesh were free and of slaves, granting to all alike the gift of the life‐giving Spirit(486). And he did all for the sake of the younger, Rachel, who typified the Church, for whose sake Christ endured(487).” Rahab the harlot, again, who was a heathen and a great sinner, and received the three spies, and by reliance upon the scarlet thread, (which meant the same thing as the passover,) was saved, whilst the city in which she lived was destroyed, is a type of sinners in all future ages, who, revering the Trinity, and by faith in Christ our passover, are saved, whilst the world of those who rejected him are lost(488).