Commentaria in Exodum
King Lysimachus, who had delivered up his army to the enemy because of thirst, after he was taken captive and had received water and drunk, said: “Ye gods, for how small a pleasure have I lost how great a good, how great a kingdom, and from a king have made myself a slave!” Let the penitent say this: Good God, for gluttony, for lust of a single quarter of an hour, how great a good, what heavenly delights have I lost, and made myself the bondslave of the devil, of death and of hell, and that for ever!
Secondly, in this laver our priests who are about to offer the sacred victim must be washed, and the other faithful, who also in a certain measure are priests, and offer the calves of their lips and hands, namely praises and holy works, and become partakers of the sacred victim.
Thirdly, this laver is set between the altar of holocausts and the tabernacle or Holy Place, in which stood the altar of incense; because, in order to enter in to the inner altar, that is, of incense, outward mortification does not suffice, but inward penance is also required, by which we purge the very affections. See Ribera, book 2 On the Temple, chap. 17, who applies each particular minutely.
19. AND HAVING WATER SENT FROM IT THEY SHALL WASH.—So it should be read, not in it. For the priests did not wash themselves in the laver (for so they would have defiled it), but in the water that flowed from the laver through a pipe, which could be opened and shut by a cock. What is therefore in the Hebrew, they shall wash from it, understand of the water that flows from the laver through the pipe. So Cajetan. So we are said to drink wine from a vessel, that is, from a cup, which has been drawn from the vessel.
THEIR HANDS AND FEET.—Hence Cajetan, Lipomanus and others probably hold that the priests ministered barefoot in the tabernacle (which they did twice a day, namely morning and evening, as I said above). For they seem to have washed their feet so as not to defile the tabernacle with them when soiled. For if afterwards they put shoes and sandals on again, what need was there to wash them? This washing was done only for the cleanliness and decorum both of the feet and of the tabernacle. In token of this, Moses was commanded on Sinai, as on holy ground, when about to speak with God, to put off his shoes, Exod. 3:5. The Lord plainly willed by this ceremony of bare feet to teach the priests that decorum and reverence in divine worship are to be observed even outwardly.
Secondly, by this he willed to admonish them of inward purity, that the priests might remember that henceforth they must walk not on the ground, but through the air, says Philo, book On Victims. The Gentiles imitated this in their profane rites. Hence that saying of Hesiod: “To handle sacred things with unwashed hands is impious.” Hence, too, the priests of the new law wash their hands at Mass, and all Christians formerly, when about to enter the church and to communicate, washed their hands, both that they might be reminded of inward purity, and because they were to receive the sacred Eucharist in their hands; and for that reason a vessel of water for purification was placed before the doors of the church; in place of which there afterwards remained the little vessel of holy water, set at the entrance of the church, as I showed on 1 Tim. 1. Nay, it was also a doctrine of Pythagoras: “Sacrifice with bare feet”; which others, and the Lacedaemonians, adopted.
Josephus writes also that Berenice, sister of King Agrippa, when she had gone to Jerusalem to fulfil a vow, about to perform a sacred rite, did the same, and so stood barefoot before the tribunal of the governor Florus. Hence too that exclamation of St. Leo in a certain sermon on fasting, speaking of the fast of the Hebrews: “Let them have their barefoot-walkings, and show in the sadness of their countenances their idle fasts.”
Even now the Moors and Saracens do not enter the temples in which they are about to perform their rites, except with their shoes put off. I think, therefore, that Pythagoras advised that those who sacrifice should give themselves to divine things clean, with worldly cares laid aside, and purified from the defilements of crimes.
For to wash the feet we say mystically is to purge the mind. In this sense our theologians expound the Lord’s command about the washing of feet, and together with it that other, to shake the dust from the feet. Euthymius also on Psalm 32 expounds “feet” as thoughts: “By feet,” he says, “he understands thoughts, as being those which, like feet, guide and sustain the religion of our soul.”
Our priests, however, celebrate shod, not barefoot, both for chastity and modesty, and because they are soldiers and leaders of Christ (whom it becomes to be shod, nay, to wear greaves), ever ready for war against the demons, and to preach the gospel everywhere: hence their feet must be “shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace,” as the Apostle says, Ephes. 6:15. See what is said there.
21. LEST PERHAPS THEY DIE,—lest I punish them with death (if they neglect this ceremony of washing commanded by me), as disobedient and irreligious. Think the same if they should omit any other ceremonies commanded by God, above all if this were done from contempt.
A LAWFUL ORDINANCE,—that is, this law shall be to you eternal, that you may observe it continually.
23. TAKE SPICES, THE CHOICEST OF MYRRH AND CHOSEN.—So the Chaldee and the Septuagint; but the later Hebrews divide their codices otherwise, and read in this manner: Take to thee spices of the head, that is, the first and most excellent, namely, chosen myrrh. St. Jerome, however, with the Chaldee and the Septuagint, punctuate and render thus: take to thee spices, the head of free myrrh, that is, of freely flowing or distilling myrrh. Now the head of free myrrh is stacte, which is the flower of myrrh (as the Septuagint and St. Jerome to Principia render it), that is, the tear of myrrh, namely the liquor flowing and distilling of its own accord from the myrrh, which myrrh is the purest, the choicest and the most excellent. Hence in Hebrew it is called the head of myrrh, that is, that which is first and most excellent in myrrh.
Here is described the composition of the ointment with which the priests were to be anointed and consecrated, and likewise the tabernacle and its vessels; and it is commanded that it be made of stacte, cinnamon, calamus, cassia and olive oil, mixed together in a certain measure here prescribed.
OF CALAMUS.—Understand here the sweet-smelling or aromatic calamus, as is plain from the Hebrew, the Chaldee and the Septuagint; of which Theophrastus, book 9 of the History of Plants, chap. 7; Pliny, book 12, chap. 22; Galen, book 8 On Simple Medicines; Dioscorides, book 1, chap. 16.
24. OF CASSIA FIVE HUNDRED SHEKELS, AFTER THE WEIGHT OF THE SANCTUARY,—as if to say: I take the shekel here to be of that weight which the shekel of the sanctuary was, or a shekel which is of as great a weight as the shekel of the sanctuary weighs; not that it is greater than the common shekel, but that it is of the most exact measure, as I said on verse 13. Nor is it necessary to suppose, with Arias Montanus, another shekel of weight, different from the shekel of money, as though this shekel were a kind of weight which was not equal to the shekel of money but had a different weight; for Scripture gives no indication of this diversity of shekel. It is therefore more likely that the Hebrews transferred the weight of the coin-shekel to other things as well; as we too in familiar speech sometimes do, when we say that rare and precious things weigh two, three or four royals; especially since the ancients used money, for instance the shekel, not stamped but weighed out, and with it priced their wares and goods, as I said on verse 13. The shekel, then, in its origin, as also in its etymology, was a measure of weight no less than a coin.
of meeting, that is, of the assembly or of the testimony, of which I spoke in the preceding chapter, verse 43.
29. THEY SHALL BE MOST HOLY,—they shall be most holy by this consecration.
WHOSOEVER SHALL TOUCH THEM SHALL BE SANCTIFIED,—that is, by the touch of the holy vessels he who touches them shall be sanctified, says R. Solomon; but I showed that this is false in chap. 29, verse 37. “Shall be sanctified,” therefore, means ought to be sanctified, so that if he be unclean, he must cleanse himself with the water of purification, of which Levit. 14 and Num. 19, before he touch the altar or other holy vessels, says Abulensis.
33. WHATSOEVER MAN SHALL COMPOUND THE LIKE, AND SHALL GIVE OF IT TO A STRANGER, SHALL BE CUT OFF FROM HIS PEOPLE.—“To a stranger,” that is, to anyone who is not a priest, or of the priestly race: for as he forbade before that anyone should compound such priestly ointment for his own use, so here he forbids that it be done for the use of others. So Augustine, Question 135.