Commentaria in Exodum
Again, the tabernacle on the north side was distant from the pillars and circuit of the court twenty cubits, and as many on the south; add to these 40 cubits of the court, which on each side make up twenty, the 10 cubits of breadth of the tabernacle itself, and you will complete 50 cubits, which was the breadth of the whole court.
Note: Each pillar of the court with its hanging was five cubits high, as is plain from verse 18; but the tabernacle was twice as high: for it was ten cubits high, and that so that it might be conspicuous, and be seen from afar outside the court.
Tropologically Rupert: The sixty pillars of the court, he says, twenty on the south, twenty on the north, ten on the east, and ten on the west, signify assiduous and constant labour in the observance of God’s precepts, by which we tend to heaven. For six signifies the time of the present life, ten the Decalogue (six times ten make 60, which is the number of the pillars of the court), by whose perfect observance through our whole life we shall come to the perfection of the future glory in heaven.
He, therefore, who strives toward this and toward the summit of virtue, let him labour and be constant as a pillar, according to that of Horace, book 3 of the Odes:
The just man, tenacious of his purpose, neither the rage of citizens commanding what is wrong, nor the face of a threatening tyrant, shakes from his steadfast mind, nor the mighty hand of thundering Jove. For constancy is needed to overcome, first, the softness of mind innate in us and our proneness to pleasures; secondly, to surmount the hard things, the difficulties and temptations, which occur in works of virtue, especially heroic ones; thirdly, constancy is required for perseverance. For many begin well, but gradually grow weak.
Diogenes, as Laertius testifies, book 6, to one who advised him in his old age to rest from his labours: “What,” he said, “if I were running in the stadium, ought I, when near the goal, to slacken my course, or rather to press on?” as if to say: I ought not to grow cold as I approach the end of life and of the contest, but rather to be kindled the more.
A mirror of constancy was Cato of Utica, who, when in a desperate state of affairs his friends urged him to take refuge in the clemency of Caesar, answered: “It is for those who are conquered, and who have done wrong, to supplicate; Cato is neither conquered nor captured, who has shown himself unconquered throughout his whole life, and has far surpassed Caesar in honour and justice.”
Turning to the judges, Socrates said: “I must obey the immortal God rather than you. Therefore as long as I breathe I shall not cease from philosophizing and admonishing you.” His maxim was: “As a statue or column on its base, so a good man, resting on honourable principle, ought in no way to be moved.” Whence Xantippe, the wife of Socrates, used to declare of him that she had always seen him return home with the same countenance with which he went out.
Theodorus, to Lysimachus threatening him with a most cruel death: “Threaten these things to your courtiers; it matters nothing to Theodorus whether he rot on the ground or on a cross.”
Seneca: “A good man,” he says, “is one who brings his mind to such a state of feeling that he not only does not wish to sin, but even cannot.”
Anaxarchus, when Nicocreon, tyrant of Cyprus, was pounding him in a hollow stone, with unbroken spirit said: “Pound, pound the vessel of Anaxarchus; the constancy of Anaxarchus you shall not bruise.”
Zeno used to say, “that it is easier to plunge an inflated bladder under water than to force any upright man against his will to do anything. For an unconquered mind, confirmed by the precepts of right reason, yields to no one.”
When Rome was taken by Alaric, a Goth invited a very beautiful woman to his service and love. But when he saw that she, out of zeal for chastity, resisted his lust, he drew his sword and threatened her throat, and at last even struck her. When the maiden, covered all over with blood, did not even so depart from her resolve, he, admiring her constancy, led her to the basilica of St. Peter, and giving six gold pieces for her sustenance, committed her to the keepers of the church. So Sigonius, book 10, Of the Western Empire.
Well known is the constancy of the Saints Vincent, Laurence, Ambrose, Athanasius, Antony, Hilarion, Lucy, Agnes, Mathathias, the Machabees, etc.
St. Chrysostom, homil. 77 on Matthew: “Always to stand,” he says, “and never to have fallen, is divine and wonderful.”
St. Nazianzen, oration On Himself: “I,” he says, “am the same man, and am not changed, like the polypi from the rocks to which they cling.”
St. Cyprian, book 4, epist. 3: “It becomes grave men, once founded on a strong rock with solid stability, not to be moved, I do not say by a light breeze, but not by wind nor whirlwind.”
St. Anselm, in the Similitudes, chap. 173: “A squared stone,” he says, “has six equal sides; on whichever of them it falls, it will stand firm. So the just man must provide that he persist in his purpose. Now the six sides of this are these: prosperity, adversity, liberty, subjection, being in secret, and in public; in each of which, if he is assailed by the devil, let him stand, and not be moved from his purpose.” Now let us return to the pillars of the court.
The 50 cubits of the breadth of the court signify the same as the pillars: for the number fifty signifies the beginnings of believers, who are celebrated in the remission of sins and the hope of future beatitude. The 100 cubits of the length of the court signify the same: for the hundred, which arises from ten multiplied by itself (ten times ten make a hundred), and which is double of 50, has the figure of the heavenly life: whence Noe finished the ark in his hundredth year; at a hundred years of Abraham is born the son of promise, Isaac; Abraham, a hundred years old, sojourns in the land of promise; The hundred is a symbol of the heavenly life, Isaac received a hundredfold of the seed sown in Gerara, that is, in a sojourning: so Christ promised to those who leave temporal things a hundredfold, that is, ample joy now from fraternal fellowship and from the hope of the heavenly life, and then, namely in heaven, immense joy from the possession of the heavenly kingdom. The court, therefore, has a hundred cubits, because those who are children of the Church must, for the eternal life in heaven, take upon themselves the labour of patience and of temporal continence. So Bede.
So St. Francis, being asked how in so thin a garment he bore the cold and frost of winter, answered: “If we were covered by desire with the flame of our heavenly country, we should easily defend ourselves from this cold.” And St. Dorothea, tortured by the prefect Fabricius, as she was being led to capital punishment, said: “I rejoice to go to my Spouse, whose paradise, fruitful of all flowers, is in bloom more sweetly than can be told.” Whence also from this paradise, after her death, she sent roses in February to Theophilus, who asked for them, and so converted him to Christ. Would you be perfect? Would you be heavenly? Think on heavenly things, mind the things that are above, fulfil the will of God. Moreover, “the will of God, which Christ both did and taught, is humility in conversation, steadfastness in faith, modesty in words, justice in deeds, mercy in works, discipline in manners, not to know how to do an injury, and to be able to bear one done, to keep peace with brethren, to love God with the whole heart; to love in Him that He is a Father, to fear that He is Lord; to prefer nothing whatever to Christ, because He preferred nothing to us,” says St. Cyprian, tract. On the Lord’s Prayer.
13. IN THE BREADTH OF THE COURT ALSO, WHICH LOOKETH TOWARDS THE EAST, THERE SHALL BE FIFTY CUBITS.—The sense of this verse and the following up to the 17th is this: As the length of the court shall be a hundred, so the breadth shall be 50 cubits, and that on every side, as well toward the west, as I said in the preceding verse, as toward the east, as I say here. These 50 cubits of breadth in the court before the tabernacle, namely in the eastern part of the court, by their pillars and the hangings which enclose, surround and bound it, shall be so distributed that in the middle 20 cubits the entrance and access to the court and tabernacle lie open; the remaining thirty shall be so divided on each side that 15 are left toward the south and as many toward the north, with three pillars and bases on each side. Hence it follows that between the several pillars 5 cubits, or a hanging of 5 cubits, were interposed. For there were ten pillars in the breadth of the court; and five times ten make fifty, which was the breadth of the court.
16. AND AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE COURT THERE SHALL BE MADE A HANGING OF TWENTY CUBITS OF BLUE, AND PURPLE, AND TWICE-DYED SCARLET, AND TWISTED LINEN: IT SHALL HAVE FOUR PILLARS.—Here is described the entrance and as it were the gate of the court, which was therefore more splendid. For it had a veil embroidered of fine linen, purple, scarlet and blue, whereas the other hangings of the court were of plain fine linen. This entrance had four pillars on which this veil was hung, and so was 20 cubits wide: for each pillar was distant from the next by 5 cubits, as I have said; between these four pillars, as is plain, three ways were left, by which, the veil being drawn back or lifted, entrance into the court lay open.