To Whom the Scepter Belongs

I have finished my fourth research paper! 5,432 words on the Early Church fathers and Judah's blessing.
For Christianity in Late Antiquity, I chose to write my paper on what eleven different Early Church fathers had to say about Genesis 49:8-12, in which Jacob blesses his fourth-born (fourth-borns are always the best) by giving his lineage the promise of the Messiah. Several Early Church fathers had a great deal to say about this short but meaningful text, which is what I spent my paper discussing.
The church fathers who commentated or preached on this passage, in chronological order, were Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Origen, Novatian, Ephrem the Syrian, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom, Rufinus, and Cyril of Alexandria. Justin Martyr (the earliest) was born around 100AD, and Cyril of Alexandria lived in the early 400's.
Some of these men were from the Alexandrian school of biblical interpretation, and others were from the Antiochene school. Alexandrian theologians tended to interpret the Bible allegorically, and thought that Scripture had many layers of meaning. Most conservative Christians today differ from this tradition, because we believe that a given text has just one meaning, but many different modes of application. Antiochene theologians, on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, took Scripture literally wherever they could. One downfall to their interpretive approach (or "exegesis") is that they often came to moralistic conclusions, seeing the Bible as a Book that tells us how to live, and not foremost how we are saved.
With the many differences and controversies surrounding the two traditions in Late Antiquity, I was interested to see what they all had to say about Genesis 49:8-12.
Verse 10 of this passage says that the scepter will not depart from Judah until the one comes to whom the scepter belongs. Most of the church fathers, regardless of their tradition, recognized this to be a messianic prophecy. It proclaims that Judah's descendants will rule God's people until the Messiah, the one to whom the ruler's scepter truly belongs, takes on flesh to be our Savior. This is truly a great blessing for Judah, someone who is a true failure. If you are unfamiliar with Judah's story, I encourage you to read Genesis 38, one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. But after his many trespasses, Judah repents, and even though he is a wretched sinner, God chooses to use his bloodline from which to carry on the genealogy of Christ.
There are many disagreements regarding the interpretation of certain symbols in these five verses. For example, the lion's whelp, the foal, the colt, the choice vine, and the blood of grapes are symbols about which the church fathers had very different views. But one thing I noticed, which became the thesis for my paper, is that they were all looking for Christ in this passage. Jesus is on every page of the Old Testament, and while the Early Church fathers came to slightly different conclusions about what these verses tell us about Jesus, they all recognized that this passage... that this entire Book... is about Jesus Christ. And that is a mighty fine way to read the Holy Bible.