Commentaria in Exodum
An example of penance and mortification was St. Magdalene, who, as St. Gregory says, hom.
found in herself so many holocausts: she turned the number of her crimes into a number of virtues, so that whatever of herself had despised God in guilt might wholly serve God in penance.”
Hence, secondly, this altar was made of setim wood, that is, of the desire of a pure heart; it is covered with brass, because mortification is not golden and shining, but brazen, hard and clanging; for such persons are not yet fully dead, whence when struck they ring out and murmur.
Thirdly, the three cubits of height are faith, hope and charity; the five cubits of length are the extension of patience; the five cubits of breadth are the extension of charity to the restraining of the five senses, that they may serve patience and charity. The four horns are the four cardinal virtues.
Fourthly, it is hollow, that is, empty of earthly contagion, that it may receive the holy fire of God; but it rests upon stone, that is, constantly upon the hardness and austerity of life.
Fifthly, the little hearth is the inmost recess of the mind, fragrant with fire, that is, with charity; wood is laid upon the hearth when we conceive pious thoughts in the mind; fire is added when by the grace of the Holy Spirit we are stirred up by them and kindled. The grating, in the manner of a net, signifies that mortification ought to be continual, and woven and interlaced of various kinds. For this continual and all-embracing mortification makes great and heavenly men, heroes and leaders. The Gentiles praise Agesilaus, king of the Lacedemonians, because he ruled over food and sleep, had accustomed himself equally to cold and to heat, and had constantly on his lips the saying that “a leader ought to go before his subjects not in softness and luxury, but in endurance and fortitude.” Thus when someone asked what good the laws of Lycurgus had brought the Spartans, he answered: “Contempt of pleasures.” To one who marvelled at his frugality and that of the Spartans in dress and diet he said: “From this seed we reap liberty.” When he was urged to relax somewhat the severity of his diet, since perhaps he would not have another opportunity of living more softly, he answered: “I accustom myself so that in no change I may seek a change.” Even when grown old he kept the same manner of living, and being asked why he walked about in the cold without a tunic, he said: “That the young may imitate the example of their elders and rulers.” The Thasians offered him meal, geese, dainties, cakes, etc.; he took only the meal and distributed the rest among the slaves, and to those who asked the reason he said: “Those who cultivate virtue do not admit such delicacies of the palate; for those things by which the minds of slaves are enticed are foreign to freemen.” He used to say, too, that “he would rather conquer his desires than an army of enemies; for it is better to preserve liberty than to take it from others.” Plutarch is witness in his Life.
What then shall the Christian do? Let him say with St. Paul, 2 Cor. chap. 4: “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter,” or of the slaughtering, as Tertullian reads. Let him imitate the great Arsenius, who, being asked why he changed his water so seldom, when it filled the whole cell with a stench, answered: “Gladly I take this stench in place of the perfumes with which I was once delighted in the palaces of kings, that on the day of judgment the Lord may deliver me from that unspeakable stench of hell.” Let him hear St. Bernard, in a sermon: “What martyrdom,” he says, “is harder than to hunger amid feasts, to be cold amid many costly garments, to be pressed by poverty amid the riches which the world offers, which the malignant one displays, which our appetite desires? Therefore the kingdom of heaven is promised alike to the poor and to Martyrs, because it is purchased indeed by poverty, but received without delay through suffering for Christ.”
Sixthly, the caldrons for the ashes are the memory of the passion and death of Christ and of the Martyrs, who by their example went before us in this way of the cross and mortification; the flesh-hooks, tongs and receptacles for fire are the preachers and holy Doctors, who continually foster and kindle in us this sacred fire of mortification.
Seventhly, the rings and bars are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, by which all the labour and sorrow of penance is made sweet, so that by them we seem to be as it were carried and borne along to hard and arduous things.
Eighthly, the victims here sacrificed are the various concupiscences, to burn which it behoves us continually to keep the fire of charity alive in the heart. So Bede, book 2 On the Tabernacle, chap. 21.
Hear St. Gregory, hom. 22 on Ezechiel: “What is the altar,” he says, “but the mind of those who live well, who, mindful of their sins, wash themselves with tears and wear down the flesh by abstinence; where from the sorrow of compunction a fire burns, and the flesh is consumed, according to that of the Apostle, Rom. 12: That you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God; a living sacrifice is a body afflicted for the Lord: a sacrifice, because it is now dead to this world; living, because it does all the good it can; but one compunction is that which is born of fear, another that which is born of love.”
Then, applying these things to both altars, namely that of holocausts and that of incense, he proceeds thus: “Whence in the tabernacle two altars are commanded to be made, one outside, the other within; one in the court, the other before the ark; one covered with brass, the other with gold; on the brazen one flesh is burned, on the golden one spices are kindled. For many bewail the evils which they have done, and burn up their vices with the fire of compunction, while yet they suffer the suggestions of them in the heart; what are these but the brazen altar? on which flesh burns, because they still lament the works of the flesh. But others, free from carnal vices, burn in the flame of love with tears of compunction, already long to be among the citizens above, desire to see the King in His beauty, and cease not daily to weep for love of Him; what are these but the golden altar? in whose heart spices are kindled, because their virtues burn; but this golden altar is before the veil, because the hearts of the Saints through holy desire burn toward Him whom as yet they cannot see with unveiled face.”
So St. Francis, being asked “which prayers were most acceptable to God?” answered: “Those which are accompanied by the mortification of the flesh.” Billius says beautifully in his Emblems:
Lest your vows follow with halting foot and bear no fruit, bring it about that your flesh dies, together with its vices, in death.
The twofold altar of the temple once taught this without a voice: the one had incense, the other slain sheep.
He offered slain beasts here who put his own limbs to death; he who makes pious vows has given incense to God.
OF SETIM WOOD, as to the surrounding boards. For within, at the bottom, this altar up to its middle was full of unhewn stone; but above, throughout, it was covered by the brazen grating. Wherefore this altar of setim wood was like a square chest lacking bottom and lid, and empty within.
Moreover, these setim boards were covered with thick plates of brass, lest they should be injured by the neighbouring fire; nay, Lipomanus thinks, not improbably, that both the boards were preserved unhurt from the fire, and the sacrifices from flies, by miracle. Whence the idolaters also, who were troubled by flies in their sacrifices, worshipped the god Beelzebub to drive them away. St. Jerome on Ezech. 41, and others in Bede, hold that this setim wood was brought from the earthly paradise, and was like the amiantus stone, which is not harmed by fire but comes out the purer, of which I spoke above.
2. AND THE HORNS SHALL COME OUT OF IT AT THE FOUR CORNERS.—“Horns,” that is, corners projecting like horns, for the adornment of the altar, were not added from elsewhere, but were drawn out of the brass of the altar itself in one continuous piece.
3. AND SHALT PREPARE, etc. FLESH-HOOKS.—In Hebrew iaim; the Septuagint, coverings; others render it brooms; the root taa signifies to remove: whence iaim are instruments with which we take up or remove something, such as tongs and fire-shovels, that is, shovels, as our Interpreter renders it, Num. 4:14. Pagninus supposes that our Interpreter, namely St. Jerome, renders this word iaim in the books of Kings and Paralipomenon now as dishes, now as ladles, now as flesh-hooks, now as tridents.
But he did not sufficiently perceive the mind and custom of St. Jerome and of Holy Scripture, which neither here nor elsewhere enumerates all the vessels of the tabernacle or temple together and distinctly; whence it everywhere omits the lids of the pots and caldrons, but sets down now these, now those. St. Jerome, seeing this, did not in his version render word for word, nor bind himself to the Hebrew enumeration of the vessels in the present passage, especially if it were mentioned in another place; but indifferently expressed some vessels which he knew belonged to the tabernacle, and embraced the rest in a general clause, saying: “And the other vessels.”