Hippolytus of Rome

By saying "lion" and "lion's whelp," he has clearly pointed toward the two persons: that of the Father and that of the Son. He said, "From a shoot, my son, you have gone up" in order to show the generation of Christ according to the flesh. Christ, after his incarnation, being conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin, sprouted in her, and like a flower and a pleasant perfume, once he went out of that womb into the world, he appeared visibly. On the other hand, by saying "whelp of the lion" he indicates Christ's generation according to spirit, through which he appears to come directly from God, as he has shown him like a king born of a king. However, he has not remained silent about his generation according to the flesh but says clearly, "From a shoot, my son, you have gone up." Isaiah says, "And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a blossom shall come up from it." The root of Jesse was the stump of the patriarchs, like a root planted in the ground, and the rod coming out of it was Mary, because she was from the house and the family of David. The blossom that had come up from the rod was Christ, the one that Jacob had prophesied by saying, "From a shoot, my son, you have gone up."

He says the words "After stooping down, you slept like a lion and a whelp" in order to show Christ sleeping during the three days of his burial, when he rests in the heart of the earth. And also the Lord himself has testified such when he said, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." And David by announcing him in advance said, "I lay down and slept; I awoke for the Lord will help me." Jacob also said, "Who will wake him?" He did not say "Nobody will wake him" but "Who?" in order that we may understand that the Father woke the Son from the dead, as the apostle confirms: "and through God the Father who woke him from the dead." And Peter said, "But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it."