Commentaria in Exodum
But I say: Properly and genuinely the ark, which was in the Holy of Holies, which represented heaven, signified the Blessed in heaven, among whom the Blessed Virgin stands pre-eminent: hence not unfittingly she is called by St. Bernard, serm. On the Blessed Mary, and by others, the ark of the testament. Hear the same in his Sentences: “God, the author of wonders, wrought three wonders in Mary. First, he wonderfully restored the integrity of cleanness, that the ark of the testament should be covered with the purest gold. Second, he made the virginal purity fruitful by power, that the burning bush should not be consumed. Third, he ineffably joined the lowest with the highest, that by the ladder of Jacob as mediator earthly things should be united to heavenly.” The length of the ark is the longanimity and wisdom of the Saints; the breadth, charity; the height, contemplation and desire of eternal goods. These have the measure of a cubit, which is perfect, because in the Blessed all things are whole and perfect in every direction.
Secondly, the ark was made of setim wood, because the Blessed after the resurrection shall have immortal bodies; it was covered with gold, because both the souls of the Saints shall shine with the ineffable brightness of the divine vision, and their bodies with wonderful splendour. In it are the tables of the law, because the Saints of old meditated on the law of God day and night, and now delight in it continually. Hear St. Jerome, to Eustochium, of the Virgin: “The spouse of Christ,” he says, “is the ark of the testament, gilt within and without, the keeper of the law of the Lord. As in that there was nothing else but the tables of the testament, so in thee let there be no thought from without. Upon this propitiatory, as upon the Cherubim, the Lord wishes to sit.” And St. Gregory, book 7 of the Register, epist. 30: “What is the priestly heart,” he says, “but the ark of the testament? in which, because spiritual doctrine flourishes, doubtless the tables of the law lie.”
Thirdly, the ark had above it the propitiatory, because the Saints have above them Christ the Redeemer.
Fourthly, the ark is guarded by Cherubim, because the Blessed are encompassed by holy angels.
Fifthly, the crown of the ark signified the crowns of the Saints, as being victors, triumphers, kings and priests of God: also the aureoles of Virgins, Martyrs and Doctors. The rings and staves of the ark signified the gifts of the Holy Ghost, by which the holy soul becomes mobile and active for every good: the four golden rings, then, are the four gifts which pertain to the intellect, namely wisdom, understanding, knowledge and counsel; the two staves are the remaining three, namely piety, fear and fortitude, which pertain to the will. The staves must be inserted in the rings, because unless the will is moved, the motion and illumination of the intellect profits little.
Finally, before the ark was the urn with manna, because the Blessed always remember the heavenly bread of the Eucharist, with which they were fed in the desert of this life. Before the ark was the rod of Aaron, which budding confirmed the priesthood to Aaron, because the Blessed always remember the priesthood of Christ, who by the sacrifice of His body took away the sins of the world, and for it continually praise Christ and God: these and more things Ribera, book 2 On the Temple, chap. 7.
Why then do we not long for this ark, for these crowns? “We reckon paradise our country,” says St. Cyprian, tract. On Mortality, “we have already begun to have the patriarchs as parents. A great number of dear ones there awaits us; a crowded multitude of parents, brothers, children longs for us, already secure of their own immortality and still anxious for our salvation. There is the glorious choir of the Apostles, there the number of the exulting Prophets, there the countless people of Martyrs crowned for victory in contest and passion; there the triumphant virgins, who have subdued the lust of the flesh by the strength of continence.”
And St. Bernard, On the Reward of the Heavenly Country: “The Blessed shall see God at will, shall have Him at pleasure, shall enjoy Him with gladness. In eternity he shall flourish, in truth he shall shine, in goodness he shall rejoice. As he shall have the eternity of abiding, so the ease of knowing, the happiness of resting. For he shall be a citizen of that holy city, whose citizen-angels are, God the Father is the temple, His Son the splendour, the Holy Ghost the charity.” The same in a sermon: “O blessed region of paradise, O blessed region of delights, for which I sigh from the valley of tears! where wisdom shall shine without ignorance, memory without forgetfulness, understanding without error, reason without obscurity. Blessed are they that dwell there! they shall praise God for ever and ever, amen. The kingdom of God is granted, promised, shown, received: it is granted in predestination, promised in vocation, shown in justification, received in glorification.” “There,” he says, “are the hymn-singing choirs of the angels, there the society of the citizens above, there the sweet festival of those returning from the sad labour of this pilgrimage, there a feast without end, eternity without stain, serenity without cloud.”
Symbolically, St. Thomas, 3, Quest. 102, art. 4, ad 6: The three things, he says, which were in the ark, or beside the ark, signified three attributes of God: namely, the tables of the law His wisdom, the rod His power, the manna the goodness of God. Again, let the ark, that is, the Church and the commonwealth and its ruler, have the tables of the law, the rod of discipline and correction, and the manna of sweetness in government: so St. Gregory, epist. 25, book 1. Hence the Samaritan, he says, pours oil and wine on the wounded man, “that by the wine the wounds may be bitten, by the oil soothed. Let there be love, but not softening; let there be vigour, but not exasperating.” See the same, Pastoral, part 2, chap. 6, and Moral. book 20, chap. 8. Bees have honey, and they have also a sting, with which they defend their hives. So let him who rules a commonwealth have honey, that is, the sweetness of clemency; and let him have also the sting of justice, wherewith against the wicked he may defend the commonwealth. That most prudent king showed this, who wished for his device the pomegranate of government, which has sweetness mixed with tartness. “In government,” says St. Gregory, “gentleness must be mixed with severity, so that smiling he may be feared, and angry loved, lest too much gladness render him cheap, or immoderate severity make him odious.” Now let us return to the text.
THE LENGTH THEREOF SHALL BE OF TWO CUBITS AND A HALF.—The cubit here is to be taken not as the greater, or royal, which contains 27 fingers, as Herodotus witnesses, book 1; much less the greatest, that is the geometrical, which contains six common cubits, as St. Augustine teaches from Origen, book 15 On the City of God, chap. 27; but the common, which is that length which is stretched from the bend of the elbow to the end of the finger called the index, and contains twenty-four fingers, or two spans; a span is the space which lies between the thumb and the forefinger when the hand is stretched, and contains twelve finger-breadths. This is plain from Josephus, book 3 Antiq. chap. 6, and Bede, book 1 On the Tabernacle, chap. 4. “The length of the ark,” says Josephus, “was five palms, but the height and breadth three palms;” for palm the Greek has spithame, which I said contains twelve fingers. So that two cubits and a half make five palms, or spans (1).
11. AND THOU SHALT OVERLAY IT WITH THE PUREST GOLD,—with plates of gold, not with leaves of gold; this is plain enough from the fact that in the Hebrew, for overlay, it is hide, cover and clothe it with gold: and this within and without, that it may tropologically signify that the soul of the just man must be holy as well within as without, and everywhere encircled with the gold of charity. St. Jerome objects to Rufinus that “within he is Nero, without Cato,” that in private he lives in delights, but in public ostentatiously displays severity in dress and gait: this is hypocrisy, displeasing to God and men. Let the holy man, within as without, be not Cato, but Paul, but John, but an angel.
AND OVER IT THOU SHALT MAKE A GOLDEN CROWN ROUND ABOUT.—This crown of the ark was not round, but square; for the ark itself was square, and this crown surrounded it on every side like a border. So Hugo. This was therefore an outer border, and rose and stood up above the ark. The Septuagint render, thou shalt make golden moulded cymatia, or rather twisted ones; at which I wonder that the Complutensian translator renders, thou shalt make golden little waves: for cymatia signify not only little waves and billows, but also, by a metaphor drawn from waves, according to Vitruvius, the uppermost part of the architrave or capital in columns; which meaning the Septuagint appositely imitated here, calling the projecting border of the ark cymatia, and twisted ones, that is, fixed indeed, but wrought in twisted work, like twisted collars. So St. Augustine, Quest. 104, and perhaps the Complutensian translator meant this, affecting by a new Latin metaphor of little waves the Greek usage in cymatia.
12. AND FOUR GOLDEN RINGS.—These rings were at the four corners of the ark, and the staves were inserted in them, that by them the ark might be carried on the shoulders of four priests with magnificence: for it was not fitting that the ark be drawn or carried on a wagon. Further, that the staves were stretched along the length of the ark, and not along the breadth, and that the ark was carried lengthwise and not broadwise or crosswise, as Cajetan will have it, Josephus sufficiently indicates when he says: “On each of the longer sides there enter rings,” through which, namely, the staves were put in to bear the ark. God took care, verse 15, that the staves should never be drawn out of these rings, lest the priests should ever think themselves freed from the care and burden of bearing the ark, says Arias.