Commentaria in Exodum
The Emperor Trajan called the treasury the spleen, because when it grows, all the other members waste away. Fabricius the Roman, when Cineas, the ambassador of the Epirotes, offered him a great quantity of gold, refused to accept it, saying that “he preferred to rule those who had gold than to have gold.”
ACCORDING TO THE STANDARD OF THE TEMPLE.—Many have thought that the sicle of the sanctuary differed in weight and value from the common sicle. For some have held that it was smaller than the common one. So R. Solomon and Lyranus: to the common sicle they give twenty-four obols, but to the sacred, twenty. Others, however, have thought the sacred sicle to be greater than the common. So Pagninus gives to the sicle of the sanctuary forty obols, to the common twenty. Others, in the book On Coins, chap. ii, num. 9, give to the common sicle ten obols, but to the sacred twenty.
But this distinction of the sacred and common sicle was unknown to the ancients, namely Josephus, St. Jerome and others; nay, that these sicles were equal is plain from Ezech. chap. xlv, verse 12; for there the common sicle is said to have twenty obols, as the sacred is said to have here. That Ezechiel speaks of the common sicle of the laity, rich and poor, is plain from what goes before. So Ribera on Amos chap. vii, num. 45 and following; Villalpandus, part II On the Apparatus of the Temple, book II, chap. xxviii.
Thou wilt say: The Septuagint here, and in Levit. chap. xxvii, Num. iii, and elsewhere, everywhere render the sicle a didrachm; therefore this sacred sicle was smaller than the common sicle: for this, according to Josephus, weighed four drachmas. Hence Epiphanius calls the sacred sicle half a stater, that is, of the common sicle. “The sicle,” says Epiphanius, “which is also called a quarter, is the fourth part of an ounce, half a stater, having two drachmas;” and a little before: “A pound is twelve ounces; an ounce has two staters; a stater is half an ounce; but it has two didrachms.”
I answer: The Septuagint take didrachm after the Hebrew manner, not the Attic: but the Hebrew didrachm was an Attic tetradrachm: for one Hebrew drachma made two Attic. The Septuagint therefore call a didrachm two Hebrew pieces of silver, each of which weighed two Attic drachmas, as Budaeus testifies, book V On the As: although there was also another piece of silver, greater, of the same value and price as the sicle and the stater, namely worth a didrachm, as is plain from the Septuagint version compared with ours, Gen. chap. xx, verse 16; for there ours has: a thousand pieces of silver; but the Septuagint: a thousand didrachms. On the contrary, in Matthew chap. xvii, verse 23 [24], the foreign tribute which the publicans demanded of Christ was an Attic didrachm, namely the half part of a sicle; for Christ there paid one sicle or stater, namely half for Himself and half for Peter.
Thou wilt say: If the sacred and the common sicle were the same, why then does Scripture here and elsewhere limit the sicle, and call it the sicle of the sanctuary?
I answer that this is done because in the sanctuary, as in a sacred and safe place, a sicle of most exact weight was kept, by which all the rest could be weighed and tested, that no room be left for fraud, namely clipping and diminution: as among the Romans a public measure of the foot was kept, as the first and surest of the rest, and a public measure of the amphora stood in the Capitol, of which Priscian says:
The amphora, whose capacity it was not lawful to violate, the Quirites consecrated to Jove on the Tarpeian hill.
Scripture therefore here calls “according to the standard of the temple” the sicle of most exact weight; this is plain from Levit. last chapter, verse 25, where it is said: “Every estimation shall be weighed by the sicle of the sanctuary” (not, shall be reckoned, as should have been said if this sacred sicle had been worth more), where the Septuagint render: and every price shall be by the holy measures, as if to say: Every sicle, and every weight and price, shall be weighed by the sicle, and by the most exact measure, which is kept for this purpose in the sanctuary. To Epiphanius I answer that he slipped in memory, or that an error crept into his codex: for Epiphanius plainly contradicts the Septuagint, who call a didrachm a stater or sicle.
A SICLE HATH TWENTY OBOLS,—Jewish obols, that is: for the Attic had twenty-four; for so many obols do the four Attic drachmas make, which the sicle is worth. The obol was therefore the twentieth part of the sicle, that is of the Brabant florin, which is worth twenty stivers; the obol was therefore a stiver, and the sicle, being worth twenty obols, was worth twenty stivers.
Tropologically, Radulphus, book III on Levit. chap. vii: The half sicle, he says, or the ten obols, signifies the integrity of faith. This ought to have the measure of the temple, because it must be conformable not to the doctrine of heretics, but to that of the holy Fathers. It is a half, because although it has all that is necessary to human salvation, yet it does not reach to the fulness of the vision of God: in this neither to the poor nor to the rich is it lawful to take anything away.
15. THE RICH MAN SHALL NOT ADD TO THE HALF SICLE,—first, that the number of the people might be made up from the sicles; secondly, that in the census no occasion be given to the rich man to be proud, or to despise his poor fellow-tribesman; thirdly, because the soul of all men is one, whether he be a Croesus or a poor man; fourthly, because with God things are of no more worth in riches than in poverty; fifthly, because precious to God is the life and soul of each, as those for the redeeming of each of whom the Son of God shed His precious blood on the altar of the cross; sixthly, because every man, whoever he be, ought to render equal thanks to God, as far as in him lies, whether he have received riches from Him or labour under want: of which equity St. Job was a pattern, who, being made from very rich a poor man, rendered thanks to God: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,” what was His own, when He had judged it more profitable for me. For the life therefore and soul preserved by Him amid so many perils of death, I will give Him the sacred didrachm, the price of my soul, namely praise and thanksgiving, saying: “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
16. AND THE MONEY WHICH THOU SHALT RECEIVE THOU SHALT DELIVER UNTO THE USES OF THE TABERNACLE.—Great were the expenses of the tabernacle, and greater those of the temple, in its so ample construction, in feeding and clothing so many thousands of priests and Levites, in victims, in bringing in wood, water, etc. Hence the Hebrews relate that every year, at the feast of the expiation, this collection of the half sicle was made from each. So Lipomanus.
THAT IT MAY BE A MEMORIAL BEFORE THE LORD,—as if He said: You shall give this price of the census, namely half a sicle, to the temple and to God, that by this God may remember you, and be propitious to you.
this laver was placed between the tabernacle or Holy Place, and the altar of holocausts, as follows: for both in the Holy Place and at the altar of holocausts the priests had to discharge their sacred duties, which they could not do unless they were first washed.
A like vessel for the same purpose Solomon made, but much larger, which from its immense capacity was called the brazen sea; for it was like a huge hemisphere, whose circumference or upper and wider brim was thirty cubits, so that this whole vessel held three thousand metretes: now a metrete contains seventy-two sextaries, or twelve congii.
Moreover, this basin, or laver, Moses made of the brazen mirrors of the women who watched at the door of the tabernacle, Exodus xxxviii, 8.
Mystically, some understand baptism by this laver and washing-basin; but since this basin stood in the court, which signified the Church, and not before the court or at its entrance, to which baptism is likened, we shall better take it, with St. Gregory, Hom. 17 on the Gospels, and Bede, book 3 On the Tabernacle, last chapter, to mean penance, or the Sacrament of Penance. For first, this laver is made of the looking-glasses of the women, that is, of the contemplation of the last things, and of the precepts of God, in which faithful souls behold themselves, and discover and correct their stains.
Hear St. Gregory: “Moses places a brazen laver, in which the priests must be washed before they enter the Holy of Holies, because the law of God commands us first to be washed by compunction, that our uncleanness may not be unworthy to approach the purity of the secrets of God.” He then adds why this laver was made of the looking-glasses of the women: “The looking-glasses of the women are the precepts of God, in which holy souls ever behold themselves, and discover whatever stains of foulness are in them. They correct the faults of their thoughts, and as it were set in order their unruly countenances by the image given back to them; for while they diligently attend to the commandments of the Lord, they recognise in them beyond doubt both what in themselves pleases the heavenly Spouse and what displeases him.” He adds why these women kept watch at the door of the tabernacle: “Because holy souls, even while still burdened with the infirmity of the flesh, yet with continual love watch for the entrance of the eternal entering-in. Moses therefore made the laver for the priests of the looking-glasses of the women, because the law of God offers the washing of compunction to the stains of our sins, while it sets before us, to be looked upon, the heavenly precepts by which holy souls have pleased the heavenly Bridegroom. If we attend to these diligently, we see the stains of our inner image; and seeing the stains, we are pierced with sorrow of penance; and being pierced, we are washed as it were in the laver of the looking-glasses of the women. But it is most necessary that, when we are moved by compunction for ourselves, we should also be zealous for the life of those committed to us.”