Caught by horns

The ram caught by its horns in a bush beside the altar of Isaac is a clear type of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus. Church fathers pushed the analogy, partly based on the use of cornua to describe the extreme edges of the transverse of a cross. Justin combined this typology with the promise that Joseph would be like an ox pushing around his enemies with his horns to describe the victory of the cross: “No one can say or prove that the horns of a unicorn belong to any other figure than the type which represents the cross; for the one post is upright from which the topmost part is lifted up like a horn, when the other is fitted to it, and when the ends appear on each side as horns coupled on to that one horn; and that which is fixed in the middle, upon which those who are crucified are mounted, also protects like a horn and it too looks like one, when put into shape and fixed with the other horns. And the words [from Deuteronomy 33:16-17] ‘he shall push the nations together from the ends of the earth’ are plainly descriptive of what is done now among the nations; for the men from all nations were pushed by the horns, that is were pricked through this mystery, and turned from their vain idols and devils to the worship of God.”