Commentaria in Exodum
Hence in Apocalypse 1:13, St. John saw Christ clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girt about with a golden girdle, which represents the charity of Christ, which He showed to the sick man with few words, says [the Father]: Drink the cup of temptations and tribulations, that thou mayest be healed and live. And lest the sick man should answer Him: I cannot, I do not bear it, I do not drink, the physician, being sound, drank first, that the sick man might not hesitate to drink. For what is bitter in such a cup that He has not drunk? If it is insult, He first heard it, when He cast out devils: “He hath a devil,” and “he casteth out devils in Beelzebub.” Whence, that He might comfort the sick, He said: “If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?” If sorrows are bitter, He was bound, scourged, crucified. If death is bitter, He also died. If weakness shrinks from the kind of death, nothing at that time was more ignominious than the death of the cross.
Tropologically, St. Gregory, book 34 of the Morals, chapter 7: “To be girded with a golden girdle,” he says, “is to restrain all the motions of changeable thoughts by the bonds of love alone.” Now the double girdle of the high priest, namely one with which he girded the linen tunic, and another with which he girded the hyacinth one, signified a double charity and a double heap of virtues, namely the internal, for conscience, and the external, for the help and edification of others. So Origen, homily 6 on Leviticus. I have gathered more moral lessons on the girdle elsewhere.
“Of embroidered work,” that is, of work of many colours and threads, namely those with which the ephod was woven, as is explained in Exodus 28:8. Josephus adds that golden tubes were added to this girdle, encircling both its edges. Whence in this chapter and the next, verse 5, the girdle is called in Hebrew an ingenious weaving.
Verse 40. “And for the sons of Aaron thou shalt prepare linen tunics.” Here are enumerated the vestments of the lesser priests. For they did not have all those which the high priest had, but only some. The lesser priests therefore had four vestments only, namely, first, the breeches; second, the linen tunic; third, the girdle; fourth, the tiara: they lacked, therefore, the hyacinth tunic, the ephod, the rational, and the golden plate with the name of the tetragrammaton, which the high priest had, as I said at the beginning of the chapter.
Note: the priests put on these vestments when they entered the tabernacle to sacrifice, or to perform some other priestly office; but not when they entered the tabernacle to take it down at the breaking of camp: for then both the high priest and the other priests entered it clothed in their common garments. Again, when the high priest performed some priestly office, he was clothed in the eight vestments already mentioned, but the others in four only. Except the feast of Expiation: for then the high priest, entering the Holy of Holies to make atonement for all, put on four of his vestments like a common priest: for that was a day of affliction, as with us on Good Friday, Leviticus 16:4. From what has been said it is clear that the priests in the temple prayed and sacrificed not with bare head, but covered with the tiara; and that for the sake of ornament and majesty. The Roman Gentiles did the same, as Plutarch testifies in his Roman Questions, from the institution and imitation of Aeneas. Whence Virgil:
“And before the altars, my head veiled with a Phrygian mantle.”
Note second: the duties common to the high priest and the other priests were three: first, to set out the new loaves of proposition and to take away the old, on every sabbath day, Leviticus 24:8; second, to trim the lamps of the candlestick every day, morning and evening, Exodus 27, last verse; third, to put incense on the altar of incense every day, morning and evening, Exodus 30:7. But, as I said, they differed in their vestments; for the high priest was clothed in his eight, and the other priests in their four only. It was proper to the high priest to enter the Holy of Holies once a year, on the day of Expiation; the other common duties of the priests he ordinarily left to the lower ones; yet, as Josephus says, book 6 of the Jewish War, chapter 6, he himself went up into the temple on the sabbath, on the calends, or whenever a national festival was kept by all the people each year.
Verse 42. “Thou shalt make also linen breeches,” of linen not of any kind, but of byssus, and that twisted and doubled for strength: so Josephus expressly. These breeches covered the thighs: St. Jerome gives the reason, namely the reverence and decency proper to the priest, lest, if the priest should chance to slip in the labour of slaying and offering victims, his nakedness should be seen when the linen tunic was lifted. For a like reason God commanded that the priest should not go up to the altar by steps, Exodus 20:26.
Tropologically, the breeches, say Bede and others generally, signify chastity, which is uniquely required in a priest. Whence in Hebrew they are called michnesaim, from the root canas, that is, he gathered together, as if you said, the binders of the two loins and thighs. So Josephus. Hence they are made of linen variously combed and prepared, because chastity is begotten and preserved by the continual mortification of the flesh and senses. Again, they are made of twisted byssine linen, because chastity is soft and delicate: whence it ought to be fortified and doubled more than other virtues, that it may be firm. With linen breeches, therefore, from the reins to the thighs, the priests were covered, to signify that the priests of the New Testament must either be virgins or have dissolved the bonds contracted with their wives, says Bede.
“From the reins even to the thighs,” inclusively. For the breeches, as St. Jerome teaches, reached from the loins to the knees, and from covering the thigh (femur) were called feminalia or femoralia. No mention is made here of hose or leggings; whence it seems that the priests lacked them, and ministered in the tabernacle with bare feet, of which in chapter 30, verse 19: “Lest they be guilty of iniquity (disobedience against this my precept) and die.”
Verse 43. “It shall be a law for ever to Aaron, and to his seed after him,” as if to say: I will that Aaron and his posterity keep this statute concerning the sacred vestments for ever: that is, as long as the Aaronic priesthood shall last, and this old typical law.
Allegorically, the law of the old priesthood was everlasting, because it signified the things of the priesthood of Christ, which shall endure for ever. Thus, therefore, that law was everlasting, not in itself, but in the truth of Christ, which it signified. So St. Augustine, Question 124.
Morally, all this outward adornment of the priests signifies what their interior adornment ought to be, and how it ought to shine forth and glitter before the people. St. Ambrose teaches the same, epistle 6 to Irenaeus, where, in accordance with the saying of Pythagoras, by which he forbade his disciples to enter the common and usual way of the people: “Thou seest,” he says, “that in priests nothing plebeian is required, nothing popular, nothing common with the multitude: sober gravity apart from the crowds, a serious life, a singular weight of dignity, the priestly dignity claims for itself. For how can he be observed by the people who has nothing secret from the people, nothing unlike the multitude? For what would one admire in thee, if he recognizes his own in thee? If he sees nothing in thee which he thinks beyond what is to be revered, he is offended? Let us therefore pass beyond plebeian opinions, and the beaten tracks of the common manner of life, and let us seek for ourselves a way inaccessible to the talk of the insolent.” And below: “Let our way be narrower, our virtue more abundant, our path more pressed, our faith more sublime, our track straighter, the vigour of our mind overflowing, the way of the right path an ascent to higher things.”
St. Chrysostom, book 2 On the Priesthood: “Let them come forward,” he says (to the pastoral office, to the episcopate), “who far surpass all others, and who excel the rest in virtue of soul as much as Saul excelled the nations of the Hebrews in height of body; or rather even much more.” The author of the Unfinished Work, homily 43: “Let men hear thee,” he says, “enjoining small things, and see thee doing great ones.”
St. Gregory, part 1 of the Pastoral Rule, chapter 3: “Let the pastor,” he says, “be foremost in action, that by living he may show his subjects the way of life; and the flock, which follows the voice and manners of the shepherd, will go better by examples than by words. That voice more willingly penetrates the hearts of the hearers which the life of the speaker commends; and the best pastures of the sheep are the examples of the shepherd.”
Such was St. Malachy, Archbishop of Ireland, who, as St. Bernard testifies, used to say to his people: “I do not refuse to die, that you may keep the example of my life.”
For he was himself, says Bernard, “the rule of the brethren; they read in his life how they should live; poor to himself, but rich to the poor; a father to orphans, a husband to widows; more ready to sympathize, free to reprove,” etc.