Commentaria in Exodum
Within, therefore, the old altar was full either of earth, as Abulensis will have it on Exodus 29, Question 6; Hugh and Richard, book On the Tabernacle, chap. 11; or (which is more likely) of unhewn stones; for in 1 Machab. 4:47, Judas Machabeus, rebuilding the altar destroyed by Antiochus as it had been before, is said to have set in it whole stones according to the law; and the law here commands unhewn stone to be taken, or untouched by the shears, as the Hebrew has it, that is unpolished, which the book of the Machabees calls whole. So also the Saints, who by God’s instinct erected altars elsewhere outside the order, made them of unpolished stone, as appears of the altar of Elias, 3 Kings chap. 18, verses 31 and 32, and of the altar of Manue, Judges chap. 13, verse 19: whence the same is to be understood of the rest. So Ribera, book 2 On the Temple, chap. 20.
FOR IF THOU LIFT UP A TOOL UPON IT (upon that), IT SHALL BE DEFILED.—By “tool” he understands a file, or any other instrument fit for cutting, hewing, polishing a stone: for the Hebrews use the word “knife” for any iron instrument, says Vatablus. “It shall be defiled,” that is, it shall be contaminated by reason of the precept, and for this cause shall be unfit for sacrifices.
26. THOU SHALT NOT GO UP BY STEPS UNTO MY ALTAR, LEST THY NAKEDNESS BE DISCOVERED,—that is, lest thy privy parts be seen, says Vatablus, or even thy linen drawers (for these only the priests wore, and they extended only to the knee (so the sacrificing priest was barefoot, as appears Exodus 28:42)), and the priest might be seen, that by this both the people and the priest might be admonished of chastity and most chaste reverence, which is to be used in sacred things. Therefore since common priests under the outer linen tunic, of which chap. 28, verse 39, were clothed only with linen drawers, in the ascent of steps their drawers, or even, these being opened or spread, the privy parts themselves, might easily have been seen; for this cause God here forbids these steps.
The contrary of this was done in the impure rites of Priapus, to which the Jews were very prone, as appears 3 Kings chap. 15, verses 12 and 13. Whence Lyranus and others think that steps on the altar are here forbidden, to exclude idolatry. For in the rites of Priapus, they say, the Gentiles uncovered their privy parts to the people. This cause Vilalpando pursues at length, book 4 On the Temple, chap. 79.
Nay, they even explain these words thus: “Thou shalt not go up by steps,” after the manner of the Gentiles, “lest,” that is, to the end and in the manner that from the high steps of the altar thou reveal and show thy shame, namely the genitals, as the incestuous and nefarious Ithyphalli did in the rites of Priapus, witness Athenaeus, book 14, chap. 8. But so, for “lest it be revealed,” one should have said “lest thou reveal.” For these two seem opposite: for this is affirmative, that negative. Moreover of this filthiness and worship of Priapus the Hebrews were in proximate danger at this time of Moses, and for that cause it is forbidden and guarded against by this sanction. For the Hebrews with Moses were about to pass through Moabitis, where Beelphegor, that is Priapus, was zealously worshipped, and they were to be solicited by the Moabites to his worship. For so we read Numbers 25 that the Hebrews, enticed by the girls of Moab to fornication, were initiated to Beelphegor, that is, worshipped Priapus: for which cause a plague raged among them, which Phinees stopped by slaying the prince of the tribe of Simeon, leader of this crime.
“He made also an altar of brass of ten cubits in height”: but to ascend to this height steps were necessary; therefore Solomon made these steps, which are here forbidden.
Abulensis and Ribera answer, book 2 On the Temple, chap. 20, at the end, that in Solomon’s altar there were no steps of wood or stone, but a continuous ascent from the ground, which was raised gradually and uniformly: so there were not there any steps in the ascent of which the priest’s shame could be bared and seen by the people. Cajetan however thinks that here not all steps whatever are forbidden on the altar, but many and high ones, by which the priest’s shame could be seen: a few are therefore permitted here, especially if they ascended gradually and moderately; and so God by forbidding steps on the altar forbade at the same time that they should make the altar too high and lofty; the altar ought nevertheless to have a moderate height, that the sacrifices offered on it might be seen by the people.
But I answer that this precept was temporary, and lasted only for the time of the Mosaic tabernacle, when namely God dwelt with the Hebrews in tents, that is before the stable temple was built by Solomon, in a place chosen for ever. For since Moses with the Hebrews was to journey continually through the desert for forty years until Chanaan, and therefore was to build for God not a solid temple but a movable and as it were camp tabernacle, God likewise willed the altar to be movable, and therefore small, three cubits in height, so that there might be no need of step and ascent to it. But Solomon, in the utmost peace of the republic, building a magnificent temple to God, as he built it far greater and more magnificent than Moses the tabernacle, so likewise he built a greater and more magnificent altar, ten cubits high, to which therefore one had to ascend by steps. That this is so is plain from Ezechiel 40:17, where of the temple of Ezechiel, which is expressed after the likeness of Solomon’s, it is said: “The steps of it (the altar) were turned to the east,” where although R. David and R. Solomon answer that these steps were level, namely an acclivity ascending plainly and evenly after the likeness of a bridge; and others say that these steps were outside the court, and were the very steps of the court, by which it was ascended: yet others commonly think that these were true and magnificent steps, not of the court, but of the magnificent altar ten cubits high; and this is clear from the text. They may be seen excellently expressed in a figure in Vilalpando, p. 388. As therefore Solomon’s temple differed from the tabernacle in Cherubim, porches, courts, columns, the brazen sea, tables, candlesticks and many other things: so also in the altar, and its steps, it was different from the tabernacle and the Mosaic altar, and far more excellent, though Solomon built his temple, altar, etc., after the likeness of the Mosaic, as far as could be, the due proportion of the structure being preserved.
Similar temporary precepts Christ gave to the primitive Church, that is to the Apostles, when he first sent them to evangelize through Judea, namely that they should go two by two, that they should go to the Jews, not to the Gentiles, nor to the Samaritans, that they should not carry a staff, etc., Matth. chap. 10, verses 5 ff.: which after Christ’s death it is clear they did not observe, nor could observe, when they were sent to evangelize all nations through the whole world.
Moreover it is quite likely that Solomon made these steps of the altar so broad, close and adjacent, that the priest had no danger of falling in them, and if by some chance he had fallen, yet his privy parts would not have been revealed nor could be seen by the people, the breadth of the steps covering him, and shutting out the sight of the people. Finally some reconcile these places by saying that Solomon’s altar, taken precisely, was of three cubits only in height, as the Mosaic was, and therefore had no steps by which it was ascended. It is said however in Paralipomenon to have been of eight cubits in height, namely if you take the altar with its substructions, on which as bases it rested, and above which it magnificently rose. Wherefore to the substructions themselves one had to ascend by steps, but from the substructions to the altar itself, precisely taken, steps were not needed. But to grant this to be true…
Hence the altar is named from its height, says Festus, Altare, as it were alta ara. For the ancients made sacrifices to the gods above in buildings raised from the ground, but to the earthly gods they sacrificed on the ground, and finally to the infernal gods they sacrificed in dug-out earth.
Allegorically, in the Most Holy Trinity no steps of inequality are to be set up, as Arius did, teaching that the Son is less than the Father, and Macedonius, denying the divinity of the Holy Ghost: these therefore went up by steps to the altar, that is, to God, and therefore were rejected and reprobated by God.
Tropologically: “On the altar of thy heart make no steps, that is, be not lifted up by thy progress, otherwise thy shame will be revealed, because with pride of mind attends the contumely of the flesh,” says Rupert. For God is wont to punish pride by falls of the flesh and of lust, that by this so shameful and disgraceful thing they who thought too highly of themselves may recognize themselves and their infirmity, and be humbled. This answer does not avoid the difficulty of the cause.
For on the steps of the substructure the priest’s privy parts could have been seen just as on the steps of the altar.