Commentaria in Exodum
Thirdly, these have a cubit of length and breadth, because they keep an even longanimity in whatever adversities are sent upon them from any quarter, because in all things they think of one thing, that is God, from whom they know these things are sent to them, and for whose honour and will they gladly suffer all things; they have also two cubits in height, because both in body and in mind they are borne up to heavenly things, and say with the Psalmist, Psalm xxxii: “My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.” Fourthly, these have four horns, that is, four cardinal virtues flowing from the altar, that is, from the very bosom and habit of the heart. Fifthly, the grate is their heart, in which those spices are burnt to God, and if any earthly ash be in them, it falls through, that the prayer and praise of God may be pure, and the desires of the heart pure. Sixthly, the golden crown signifies the crown prepared for them in heaven. Seventhly, the four rings with the bars are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, by which the just are easily moved by Him, and stirred up to glorious deeds. Eighthly, incense was offered at the same time as the perpetual sacrifice, because these two, namely mortification, which the perpetual sacrifice or immolation of the lamb represents, and the ardour of contemplation, which the incense represents, are to be joined: for the one cannot be without the other; whence the Spouse says, Cant. v: “I have reaped my myrrh with my aromatical spices.” Where by myrrh mortification, by spices divine love and contemplation are understood. At which place note that Christ in His passion compares Himself to a reaper, both to signify the joy of soul with which He suffered, and to show the abundant fruit of His passion, which even then by suffering He seemed as it were to reap and gather in: thus the passion of Christ itself was as it were a harvest and a gathering of fruits. Would that our heart were an altar of incense, which itself might breathe forth incense to God, namely pious and frequent vows, desires and sighs! So St. John saw an angel take fire from the altar of incense, and offer to God vials full of odours, which are the prayers of the Saints, Apoc. viii, 3 and 5. Hence Pope Urban IV, explaining that verse of Psalm l, “Then shall they lay calves upon thy altar,” says: “This is the altar of Thy holy temple, which I am, beside which stands an angel deputed to keep guard, holding a golden censer in his hand, that with much incense he may present before Thee, O Lord, the prayers poured out with tears. This is the altar hollow and empty, that is, emptied of all earthly affections, which Thou hast commanded to be made for Thee, to lay up the ashes of the memory of our death.”
“Many,” says St. Augustine on Psalm xxv, “grow faint in praying, and in the newness of their conversion pray fervently; afterwards languidly, afterwards coldly, afterwards carelessly, as if they were secure: the enemy watches, and dost thou sleep?” The same to Proba: “The brethren in Egypt,” he says, “are said to have indeed frequent prayers, but very short ones, and as it were hurled forth in haste, lest that vigilant uplifting of the mind, which is most necessary to one who prays, vanish and the attention be dulled by longer delays.” The same again: “Prayer,” he says, “is the defence of the holy soul, a comfort to the good angel, a torment to the devil, a pleasing service to God, and the whole praise of penance and religion, perfect glory, sure hope, incorrupt health.” The same to Dioscorus: “This business,” he says, “is carried on more by groans than by words, more by weeping than by speaking.” For, as St. Chrysostom says, “God is a hearer not of the voice, but of the heart.”
let prayer arm him as he leaves his lodging, and meet them as they return from the street; let the poor body not rest in sitting down before prayer has fed the soul.”
And St. Isidore, book III On the Highest Good, chap. viii: “He who wishes,” he says, “to be always with God must frequently pray and read. For when we pray, we ourselves speak with God; but when we read, God speaks with us.” And soon after: “This is the remedy of him who burns with the temptations of vices, that as often as he is touched by any vice, so often he apply prayer; for frequent prayer extinguishes the assault of vices.” And again: “In two ways,” he says, “prayer is hindered, so that it cannot obtain what is asked: if either he who prays still commits evil, or if he does not forgive the debts owed him by one who has offended against him.”
St. Basil asks, book I of the Hexameron: “How shall one obtain that in prayer his mind be not carried about ... before the eyes of the Lord.”
“Prayer,” says Cassiodorus, “clears the heart, draws it from earthly things, cleanses it from vices, lifts it up to heavenly things, and makes the heart more capacious and more worthy to receive spiritual goods.”
Abbot John used to say: As a man who sees wild beasts flees and climbs a tree, so when evil thoughts come, flee through prayer to the Lord, and thou shalt be saved. For as water extinguishes fire, so prayer extinguishes temptation. In the Lives of the Fathers.
Another said: We must pray that the soul may be purged of sins and passions; because as nothing is seen in troubled water, so a troubled soul cannot see God.
Wouldst thou have examples of those who prayed and obtained? The prayers of Moses, Elias, David and others are known in Scripture.
Rufinus, in the Lives of the Fathers, book III, num. 194, relates of a Religious who was singing the psalms, that as he sang, from his mouth at each verse a flame of fire went forth and ascended to heaven.
St. Antony and Arsenius often prayed whole nights, and in the morning were found standing in the same footprint in which they had begun to stand in the evening, gazing intently toward heaven; by prayer they overcame all the temptations and snares of the devils.
Abbot Bessarion prayed for 14 days continuously, with his hands stretched out to heaven. Whence he made the water of the sea sweet, as Rufinus has, book III, in the Lives of the Fathers. James of Nisibis by prayer defended the city of Nisibis against Sapor, and made all his devices vain, as Theodoret testifies in his Life.
Publius by prayer stayed the devil sent forth by Julian the Apostate, as is found in the Lives of the Fathers. Simeon Stylites by prayer obtained water, and wrought very many miracles, as Theodoret testifies.
Abbot Theonas by prayer made robbers motionless; Zacchaeus turned away the plague from Caesarea; St. Hilarion cast out devils.
By prayer and fasting of seven days, Macarius the Egyptian cast out a gluttonous demon, as his Life relates.
Prayer, then, is converse with God, the prelude of future beatitude, the work of angels, the victory over all difficulties, medicine for the weak on the way of God, correction of the mind, fruitfulness of the soul, the kindling of the spirit, joy and jubilation.
2. FOUR-SQUARE,—that is, it shall be square; for it had a cubit as well in length as in breadth. Our version therefore calls it “four-cornered,” because it had four horns and angles.
HORNS SHALL COME OUT OF IT.—These horns, therefore, were not added on, but rose, skilfully wrought in the manner of an obelisk, from the four corner posts which served as feet. They were therefore as it were four elegant spikes, set upright above the four corners of the altar, so that they proceeded and were raised up from the four beams that supported the altar. So Cajetan, Lipomanus, Ribera and Villalpandus, in whom see their figure and idea, p. 336, in the Fabrica Templi. Lyranus, however, and the Hebrews think that these horns were certain knobs placed on those four corners, for the beauty and adornment of the altar; but these knobs are not horns.
Abulensis, Quest. II, notes that nothing was hung on these horns, but that all the vessels pertaining to the altar of incense were kept at the altar of holocausts and hung upon it.
3. THE GRATE THEREOF.—So also the Septuagint render the Hebrew gaggo, that is, its roof or covering. This grate was of network, so that through its openings the ash of the incense, or of the burnt spices, falling to the ground, might slip down beneath the altar. The grate, then, on which fire was put with the incense, was of gold; the remaining part of the altar, though it was of wood, was nevertheless so covered with thicker plates of gold that no access to the wooden boards lay open to the fire: although St. Jerome, on chap. xli of Ezechiel, says that these boards were of wood brought from paradise, which is not harmed by fire, but is made purer by it, like asbestos. But who brought this wood from paradise? Adam, or someone afterwards, having obtained leave from the Cherubim, the guardians of paradise?
Note: The incense with fire was not placed immediately upon this grate (for so the gold would have been melted by the fire and darkened by the ashes), but in a brazen censer, which was set upon the grate itself, as is plain from Levit. x, 1.
AND THOU SHALT MAKE IT A CROWN,—a rim, or circle, like that which the table of the loaves of proposition had, of which I spoke in chap. xxv, verse 24. This crown was square, as was the altar itself; it is called a crown, however, because it encompassed the whole altar round about.
6. AND THOU SHALT SET THE ALTAR OVER AGAINST THE VEIL (which divides the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies), WHICH HANGETH BEFORE THE ARK OF THE TESTIMONY (that is, before the ark of the testament), BEFORE THE PROPITIATORY WHEREWITH THE TESTIMONY IS COVERED,—that is, wherewith the ark of the testimony or testament is covered; it is a metonymy. Hence it is plain that the altar of incense was not in the Holy of Holies, as St. Augustine thought, but in the Holy Place, as I shall show more fully in chap. xl, verses 4 and 5.