Commentaria in Exodum
AND FINE LINEN.—Byssus, says Jerome Prado on Ezech. 16:10, p. 186, is a very white and very soft flax, or the down of a tree, which is something between wool and flax; for in origin it is flax, but in softness it is wool, and when woven it resembles flax, says Pollux: it is, I say, the down of a tree enclosed in a nut, which commonly is called gossypium or xylon, and the Flemings and French call cotton, of which was made cotton or byssine cloth in Egypt and Palestine, and still is in Crete, Sicily and Spain. So from Pollux and Pliny, book 10, chap. 1, Prado in the place just cited.
Whence Prado notes in the second place, in the same place, that this down, namely cotton, or byssus, was dyed sometimes a purple colour, and that this is here called purple; sometimes violet, and that this is here called hyacinth; sometimes scarlet, and that this is here called coccus; but that it is and is called byssus when it is dyed with no colour, but in its native state is very white and very soft. He proves this from Deut. 22:11, where it is forbidden that cloth be made of wool and linen; therefore here, in the curtains and vestments of the tabernacle, wool could not have been interwoven with linen, and consequently this byssus of the tabernacle was not linen, but wool or the cotton just spoken of. Secondly, if it was linen, the wool made from it would not have been clean and pure; for threads of linen do not so drink the juice of hyacinth or purple that they shine; but wool, or cotton, drinks it so, and being saturated with colour, shines.
But Pliny distinguishes byssus from cotton, book 19, chap. 1, where, having first spoken of cotton flax, he afterwards treats of byssine flax, as a different thing; therefore this byssus was not the down of cotton.
Again, byssus is here called linen, as appears chap. 39, verse 28, in the Hebrew: but coccus, hyacinth and purple were wool, as all interpreters teach; nay Scripture itself plainly distinguishes byssus from hyacinth, coccus and purple; therefore the material of byssus was one, and of the other three another: namely, the material of byssus was flax, but of the others wool (2).
I say, then, that byssus here is not silk, which is spun by worms, namely silkworms, and which the common people now call byssus and silk; nor is it cotton, as I have just shown; but is a kind of very white and very fine flax, and therefore the best flax is byssus; and the best flax is, says Pliny, that in which there is, first, an exceptional whiteness and splendour; secondly, wonderful fineness; thirdly, an even thread of dense and constant strength. Linen of this kind, from whatever province it comes, will be byssus, says Alcazar on Apoc. 1:13, note 11, for this is precious: hence Achaian byssus was sold for its weight in gold; and Jewish byssus was more excellent than the Achaian, says Pausanias. This byssus, then, was flax growing in Egypt and Palestine, in the pods of a certain plant (which are like the pods of poppies), and from it they say cloth is made which, like asbestos, is not consumed by fire but purified (whence Pliny compares this byssus to the stone asbestos, which burns and is not burnt), which is still known today to the Venetians, and is like in whiteness and fineness to our cloth of Cambrai. So Delrio on Gen. 41:42, and others.
Hence in Hebrew this byssus is called shesh, that is, most white: whence marble also is called shesh, Esther 1:6, because it is most white; but in Latin and Greek it is called byssus from the Hebrew buts. Hence also this byssus, because it was very fine, was twisted and doubled, as the Septuagint have here and the Hebrew, and our Interpreter in what follows.
To Prado’s arguments I answer: Deut. 22 forbids only private persons to make a garment of wool and linen, not priests for the public worship of God. Again, it forbids that woollen and linen threads be mixed in the woof of cloth; but here they were not mixed in the woof: for the warp was byssine, but the woof was wool, namely hyacinth, scarlet and purple. You will ask, what do these four, namely byssus, scarlet, purple and hyacinth, of which the tabernacle was made, signify symbolically and mystically? I answer, they signify the four elements and the whole world; for the tabernacle was the type of this. For byssus signifies the earth, because it is produced from the earth; purple signifies the sea, because it is dyed from the shell-fish of the sea; hyacinth signifies the air, because it is of an airy colour; for the same reason scarlet signifies fire and the ether: for all these things represent the majesty of God, and warn with what reverence and purity the tabernacle and the temple are to be approached. Secondly, all these things signify that the priest is the minister of the Creator, and that in the tabernacle he makes supplication for the whole creation and the whole world. So St. Jerome to Fabiola, on the vestments of priests, Philo, Josephus, Theodoret and Bede. Tropologically, in our tabernacle, that is, the Church, some bring forward the twice-dyed scarlet, that is, fervent charity; others the purple, that is, mortification of the body; others the byssus, that is, chastity; others the hyacinth, that is, contemplation of heavenly things; others the goats’ hair, that is, the habit of penance and patience; others the violet skins, that is, hope of the things above; others the rams’ skins dyed red, that is, fortitude and martyrdom, as the Apostles and Martyrs showed; others the setim wood, that is, cleanness of heart; others the oil of mercy; others the incense of good and pious example. See Bede on chap. 27. Hear also Origen here, homily 9: Faith, he says, may be compared to gold, the word of preaching to silver, patience to brass, knowledge to the incorruptible wood, virginity to the byssus, the glory of confession to the scarlet, the vigour of charity to the purple, the hope of the kingdom of heaven to the hyacinth.
GOATS’ HAIR,—of which are made cloths, called camlets, fit for bearing rains; for they do not quickly soak up water. So Arias, treatise On the Ark of Noe. These cloths, because they were made of hair, were hence called cilician; yet they were beautifully and neatly wrought on the outside: whence also women skilled in spinning are said to have known how to spin this hair, chap. 35, verse 23. So Cajetan.
5. AND SKINS OF RAMS DYED RED, AND VIOLET SKINS.—For violet the Hebrew has vetachas, what this is, is uncertain; the Jews think it is the melim. The meles, which is also called the badger, is a rough and biting animal, fond of honey, the size of a fox, a pest to beehives. But who does not see that they make the Hebrew word tachas Latin, and guess only from the letters that it is a badger, since the skins of badgers or of meles are of a cat’s colour, not of hyacinth? Wherefore more credence is to be given to the Septuagint, who translate tachas as hyacinth-coloured; and to St. Jerome, who translates it violet, that is, violet-coloured; and to Josephus, who says that these skins, as well as the others, were not of badgers, but of rams and sheep, tinged partly with hyacinth, partly with red colour: for as the same wool was dyed with hyacinth colour and called hyacinth, or with purple and called purple, as I said on verse 4: so of the rams’ skins some were dyed red, others hyacinth, which in Hebrew were called techash (1).
AND SETIM WOOD.—Kimchi and other Rabbis understand by setim the cedar; but they err. For St. Jerome on Isaias chap. 41 says: “Setim is a kind of tree growing in the desert (of Arabia, and perhaps in the place which was called Setim, where the children of Israel fornicated with Beelphegor, Num. 25:1), having a likeness to the white thorn, of which all the woods of the ark and the instruments of the tabernacle were made;” and it is wood that does not rot, as the Septuagint render, and very light, and surpasses all other woods as well in strength and solidity as in brightness and beauty (2).
I said that setim wood is like the white thorn, namely as to leaves and colour; whence it came about that setim is called by the Latins and Greeks thorn. Hence also in another place setim is rendered thorn: for that setim otherwise differs from thorn in size appears from this, that setim trees are large trees, out of which broad boards are cut, as appears here in the making of the tabernacle; but the white thorn is only an inch in thickness, and two cubits in height, as experience shows and Dioscorides teaches, book 3. R. Solomon tells a fable, when he says, as quoted by Lyranus: “Jacob saw in the Holy Spirit that his sons would make a tabernacle in the desert, and carried with him into Egypt seeds and roots of setim trees, and planted them there and nourished them, charging his sons, when they went out of Egypt, to carry them with them.” For, as I said from St. Jerome, setim grows of itself in the desert.
Allegorically and anagogically, the tabernacle made of incorruptible setim wood signifies the Church, both militant and still more triumphant, which in every part of itself is incorruptible and eternal: so Bede. Augustus Caesar, when Piso built a house carefully from foundations to roof, said: “Thou gladdenest my mind, building as if Rome were to be everlasting.” Thus most truly God built the Church, which was to be eternal. The Septuagint add, or rather anticipate, sardius stones. But of these we shall hear below.