Commentaria in Exodum
Where note: The whole world is as a certain most holy temple, worthy of God, as Diogenes said, and Philo, book 2 On Monarchy, and Lactantius, book On the Anger of God, chap. 14.
Hence Baruch also says, chap. 3, verse 24: “O Israel, how great is the house of God!” namely this world, in which, as priest of the divine temple, about to discharge the priesthood for all creatures, man is placed: and therefore the high priest of the Hebrews in his garment represented the whole world.
But let us return to the bells: these allegorically signified the preaching of Christ, but the pomegranates signified His miracles. So Rupert, whom see applying all the rest to Christ.
Prosper attributes these to Pentecost, in which there were bells (which Prosper numbers as 50 in this tunic of Aaron) and pomegranates, that is, fiery tongues, of the Apostles sounding forth the great things of God.
Tropologically St. Jerome: “So great,” he says, “ought to be the knowledge and learning of the High Priest of God, that both his steps and motions, and all of him, may be as bells. Let him conceive the truth in his mind, and sound it forth with his whole habit and ornament; so that whatever he does, whatever he says, may be the doctrine of the peoples: for without bells, and diverse colours, and gems, and the flowers of virtues, he can neither enter the holy places, nor possess the name of prelate.”
says, a man wherever he is excels the other animals: so it becomes the teacher, whether he speak or be silent, whether at banquets or elsewhere, to excel other men; so that in gait, look, dress, and simply in all other things he may seem more excellent.” For, as the same says, hom. 3 on 1 Corinthians: “This is the reasoning which cannot be contradicted, which is made by deeds.”
more ought the teacher to be one of life than of speech.” And St. Augustine, book 4 On Christian Doctrine, chap. 27: “That the preacher,” he says, “may be obediently heard, whatever the grandeur of his speech, the life of the speaker has greater weight.”
Again, the bells are golden, to signify that every discourse of the high priest ought to be golden; about charity, holiness and divine things.
In the same way these things are understood not only of the High Priest but of any priest of ours (who ought to be holier than the Jewish high priest, since he handles and consecrates holier mysteries) by St. Augustine, Question 119, and St. Gregory, book 1 of the Register, epist. 24: “Therefore,” he says, “the priest has bells in his going, that the way of life with the sound of the tongue, the good works also of the priest himself may cry out; and it is said: Join the pomegranates, as if to say: In all that you say, hold the unity of the faith.” For the pomegranate, which within one rind contains many grains, designates the unity of the faith; or, as Bede says, the manifold working of virtues covered by one safeguard of charity. See Bede adapting all these things in like manner.
Such a bell, such grace and efficacy of speech resounded in St. Antony; for, as St. Athanasius testifies: “His speech, seasoned with salt, consoled the sorrowing, taught the ignorant, reconciled the angry, persuading all to put nothing before the love of Christ; and he set before their eyes the greatness of the goods to come, and the clemency of God, and recounted the benefits bestowed.” Afterwards, declaring the effects that followed: “Who,” he says, “did not change sadness into joy with Antony? who did not turn anger into peace? who did not find the grief of bereavement tempered at his sight? who, having cast off the sorrow of poverty by which he was oppressed, did not at once despise the riches of the wealthy, and was happy in his own poverty? what monk after weariness was not helped by his exhortation? what youth, inflamed with the heats of age, did not by his admonition become a lover of chastity? who, harassed by the devil, returned without cure? who, distracted by the thoughts of the enemy, with the blind tempest lulled, did not go back with a serene mind?”—Nor was St. Martin inferior to Antony. Of this, among other things, Sulpicius wrote in general, in the Life of St. Martin, chap. 26: “And now in his words and in his conversation, what gravity, what dignity was there? how ready, how effective, and how prompt and easy in solving the questions of the Scriptures? And since I know many who are incredulous on this point, for I have seen them, even when I myself brought it, not believing, I call Jesus to witness, and our common hope, that I never heard from the mouth of anyone so much knowledge, so much genius, such pure and good speech. Yet in the virtues of Martin, how small is this praise? except that it is wonderful that to an unlettered man not even this grace was lacking.” So Sulpicius.
This same gift shone in St. John Chrysostom, the chief preacher, who moved souls even by private conversation. Hear in his Life George of Alexandria: “Often,” he says, “he recalled the lives of the holy Fathers and Anchorites, and their conversation and virtue; so that not a few were pricked with compunction by such discourses, and tears were drawn forth and flowed abundantly from their eyes, and they were seized with a great desire to practise the solitary life.”
The same grace was not wanting to St. Fulgentius, of whom his disciple, the writer of his Life, chap. 9, 17, 21, has handed down these things: “And truly he laudably fulfilled the priest’s office even then, not only by reconciling some, but by inviting all whom he could reach to reconciliation by salutary admonitions: whose speech was sweet and upright, because it softened even hard hearts.” And afterwards: “When, reason sometimes urging, he wished to say something by word, all the crowd hung on his mouth, perceiving from his familiar speech what would be the doctrine of the spiritual master.” A little after: “So great was the sweetness of the eloquent speech of Blessed Fulgentius, so great the cheerfulness that shone in his countenance, that holy charity drew all the faithful in rivalry, either to question the most learned man, or to hear him as often as he answered the questions.” So he. Whence you may gather that Blessed Fulgentius had the talent of conversing complete, when with the grace of private speech he joined cheerfulness of countenance, abundance of doctrines, sweetness of manners, and the power of drawing.
In later ages we have had Blessed Plato the Abbot enriched with the same gift, of whom Blessed Theodore the Studite, in the funeral oration on Blessed Plato, has these words: “As long as he dwelt with those who were in the city of Byzantium, he changed whole households into another form of life, and turned them to the state of virtue. What is this that I say? By the admonitions of his tongue, I say, he took away from the men of that place the habit of swearing, and by his modest doctrine repressed the excessive adornments of the body: discoursing often on probity of morals, he persuaded men to exercise charity toward the poor. Wherefore it came to pass that money was abundantly brought, and publicly distributed to those places in which piety was practised: he instituted them to the diligent exercise of reading, and led them to any other good.” The same grace and efficacy of moving and kindling souls to piety was had by our founder St. Father Ignatius, as is plain from his deeds, and from the Life which our Ribadeneira wrote.
Finally, Origen notes (hom. 9) that the high priest has these little bells on the hem and edge of his garment, so that he may never be silent about the last times and the end of the world, but may ever sound forth from it, speak from it, and dispute from it, according to him who said: “Remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin.” This is what the most excellent and effective preachers do: they give no sermon in which they do not strike their hearers with the threat or terror of some last thing.
Hence Gregory of Nyssa also seems to understand by these little bells the last trumpet of the Archangel, which shall sound: “Arise, ye dead, come to judgment.” Therefore, he says, the priest is admonished by these bells to keep his body light and airy through moderation in food and drink, that it may leap up at the last trumpet and be borne aloft through the air to meet Christ coming to judgment. Let priests therefore see that their bodies are never weighed down by surfeit and drunkenness.
Verse 36. “Thou shalt make also a plate of the purest gold, on which thou shalt engrave with the work of an engraver, Holy to the Lord.” This plate was fixed to the tiara on the high priest’s forehead, as follows. For “the Lord” the Hebrew has the tetragrammaton. That name, therefore, was inscribed on the plate, as St. Augustine, Jerome, and Bede teach, and as is plain from the Hebrew: “Thou shalt engrave,” he says, Holiness to Jehovah (so to speak), that is, thou shalt engrave, Holiness of Jehovah; as if to say: Thou shalt engrave on this plate this emblem: God is most holy, and holiness itself is proper and essential to God, that thou mayest know that He must be worshipped by thee with holy sacrifices and acts. Second, that the name of God may crown and protect the beauty of the high priest, says St. Jerome. Third, that the high priest may be a type of Christ, whose name he bears on his forehead, and therefore, after the likeness of Christ, may bear all iniquities, even those committed in the very act of offering, and expiate them by invoking the name of God; whence it follows: “And Aaron shall bear the iniquities,” etc.