Commentaria in Exodum
Will he be cold? The same happened to Paul; and there is also the clothing of a cave. Will he be torn by curses? He will conquer curses by not returning them. Will he suffer persecution? He will endure it. Will he be blasphemed? He will entreat. Will he be oppressed by calumnies? He will pray. Will he be struck on the right cheek? He will offer the other also, ready to offer a third as well (if he had it), that he may the more instruct the striker in gentleness, teaching by deed what cannot be taught by speech.
Will he be assailed with reproaches? Christ also is tormented in fellowship of affliction, although He is even called a Samaritan, although it is cast in His teeth that He is driven by the ravings of a devil; with God he will take up all things. Much still will remain, though he has suffered much: the vinegar, the gall, the crown of thorns, the sceptre of reed, the scarlet cloak, the cross, the nails, the robbers fastened to the cross together with Him, the insults of the passers-by. For he must have God above all this, coming for this reason into contempt, that he bears more torments. All things will yield sooner than the Christian philosopher will give his hand.”
“And thou shalt make a tiara of fine linen.” The tiara is what is called the cidaris and the mitre; St. Jerome describes it thus from Josephus: “The fourth kind of vestment,” he says, “is a round cap, such as we see on Ulysses in the pictures, like a sphere cut in half and one part placed on the head; this the Greeks and ours call a tiara, some a helmet, and the Hebrews call it mitsnephet; it has no point at the top, nor does it cover the whole head down to the hair, but leaves a third part uncovered from the forehead, and it is so bound by a band at the back of the head that it does not easily slip off; it is of byssus, and so skilfully covered with linen that no needle-marks appear on the outside.”
Bede adds that these tiaras or helmets had little crowns, and this is plain from Exodus 39:27; but the little crowns on the tiara of the high priest were of gold, while on the tiara of the other priests they were of byssus, like certain rings of byssus, or like a linen band often wound round in a circle, as Josephus insinuates. Again, the tiara of the high priest had a golden plate attached, on which was engraved the name of the tetragrammaton, which the tiaras of the other priests had not.
The tiara of the high priest therefore differed from the tiaras of the other priests, and so in Hebrew too it is distinguished by name: for the tiara of the high priest is called mitsnephet, from winding about; but the tiaras of the other priests are called migbaoth, from height.
Hear Josephus describing the high priest’s tiara and distinguishing it from the tiaras of the other priests: “A cap,” he says, “such as the other priests also used, over which stood another of hyacinth colour, variegated; this a golden crown encircled in a triple row, on which are seen golden calyxes (the husks of flowers), such as we see on the herb which is called hyoscyamus (now corruptly jusquiamus).”
Villalpandus, on Ezekiel chapter 44, thinks that the tiara or cidaris of the high priest was not a cap, but a fillet or band with which priests and kings were of old crowned; for of old the diadem of emperors was nothing else than a band of byssus encircling and binding the head, and hanging down behind upon the back, as may be seen in the images of the ancient emperors, with the crown of the Romans; for the priestly cap itself, says Villalpandus, was called migbah, as it were a little hill, a helmet, a galerus; because it was formed in the manner of a hill or helmet; and around this cap was wound the byssine band proper to the high priest, which was called mitsnephet, that is, a wrapping, and peer, that is, an ornament.
But this does not agree with the words of Josephus just cited: for he recognizes in the high priest’s tiara, besides the cap common to the other priests, another sewn cap of hyacinth, which was proper to the high priest. And Josephus knew this best, as one who daily beheld the high priests with their tiaras.
Yet I should believe that the tiara of the high priest had a diadem, or a byssine band wound round and hanging down, as the infulae of our bishops have: for hence it seems to be called in Hebrew mitsnephet, that is, a wrapping. Whence Pagninus says: mitsnephet was like a turban, or Turkish cap, which is wound with a long band; unless you say that the high priest’s tiara is called mitsnephet because in it one common cap was, as it were, wrapped within another, pontifical cap, as Josephus intimates.
Tropologically, by the tiara the high priest was admonished to consecrate all his senses to God, and to bind them to Him by a fillet, that is, by continence and self-denial. The plate inscribed with the name of God signified the knowledge of God and the profession of faith, and prudence and the intention of the Cross of Christ; see Bede and Origen, homily 6 on Leviticus. Again, the tiara, strengthening and crowning the high priest, signified that wisdom and prudence (of which the tiara is the symbol) strengthen and adorn him. For true prudence brings the greatest strength and glory. Hence Agesilaus, in the battle at Mantinea, exhorted the Lacedemonians to leave all the rest and fight only Epaminondas: “For the prudent alone,” he said, “are brave,” and when he was slain the victory over the rest would be easy, as they were foolish men and of no worth; and the outcome proved the counsel: for when Epaminondas was wounded, the Lacedemonians began to press on, and the Thebans to give way; and Epaminondas, dying (as though the prudence of the Thebans were dying, together with their courage and glory), persuaded the Thebans to make peace with the enemy. So Plutarch in his Laconian Sayings.
Third, the tiara admonished the high priest to a pure intention, that he should direct all his actions to God: for thus they become useful, holy, divine, and meritorious, which otherwise are often useless and vain (would that all Christians knew and heeded this!). “All men,” says the Wise Man, Wisdom 13:1, “are vain (and likewise their actions) in whom there is not the knowledge of God,” that is, the knowledge, intention, love, and worship of God. Whence St. Gregory, book 28 of the Morals, chapter 6: “By the ray of a good intention,” he says, “the merits of the action are made bright.” And Richard of St. Victor, book 1 On the State of the Interior Man, chapter 7: “What the body is without life,” he says, “that is a work without good intention.” And St. Augustine on Psalm 31: “Do not attend greatly,” he says, “to what a man does, but to what he looks at when he does it.” And St. Bernard, sermon 13 on the Canticle: “Thou art a faithful servant of God,” he says, “if, when much of the glory of thy Lord passes through thee, nothing happens to cling to thy hands”; but thou givest it back to Him from whom it flowed, and to whom every good belongs.
The triple crown signified that the high priest is more eminent than all kings, says Philo; for three signifies the universe: for all things are three (namely the first of all things), as Aristotle says, book 1 On the Heavens, chapter 1.
Again, this was a type of the triple crown of Christian and Roman Pontiffs, which St. Peter used, and the others after him. For the image of Peter, marked with a triple crown upon his very hair, is preserved at Rome in his church, a most ancient one, and it is that which Pope Sylvester showed to the Emperor Constantine.
“And a girdle,” namely the outermost sash, which girds the rational, and consequently all the other vestments.
Allegorically, Christ the High Priest puts on the hyacinth tunic with the ephod and the rational, on which are set all the tribes of Israel, that is, all the Christian nations; He took on the tunic of our flesh, and in it bound all Christians most closely and inseparably to Himself, and that at His reins and loins (for these are girded with the girdle), where is the seat of love and desire, that is, to His most ardent love and affection. So Jeremias, chapter 13, verse 1, calls the people of Israel the girdle of God, because, joined intimately to God by faith and religion, it clung to Him like a girdle.