Commentaria in Exodum
34. TAKE TO THEE SPICES, STACTE, etc.—As in verse 23 he described the composition of the ointment with which the priests and the sacred vessels were to be anointed, so here he describes the composition of the incense, which was to be burned on the altar of incense.
He commands, therefore, that this incense be made and mixed of stacte, onycha, galbanum and frankincense. For as God willed to be fed with victims in a human manner of speaking, so he willed also to be refreshed with sweet odours, and thus to be appeased, because the sign of anger and indignation is in the nostrils. Hence it is said in Job 41:11: “Out of his nostrils goeth smoke”; and the nostrils are soothed by sweet odour. Hence this is a fitting symbol of appeasement. So Arias Montanus, and Alcazar on Apoc. 5:8 remarks.
Note first: Stacte is the tear of myrrh, as I said on verse 23. Secondly, “Galbanum is the juice,” says Dioscorides, book 3, chap. 81, “of a ferula growing in Syria, which some call metopium: that is most praised which is gristly and fat (whence perhaps in Hebrew it is called chelbenah; for cheleb signifies fat); galbanum brings on the courses and childbirth, whether by application or by fumigation; it counters poisons, drives away serpents, and is taken for an old cough, difficulty of breathing, and other complaints.” Of galbanum Pliny also writes, book 12, chap. 25, and book 24, chap. 5, and Galen, book On Simple Medicines. Scripture adds and requires that the galbanum be of good odour, in Hebrew sammim, that is, aromatic, to signify one that is chosen and fragrant. For Dioscorides asserts that galbanum is of a heavy smell; and Pliny says that galbanum stinks, and castoreum smells sweet: which perhaps he means of the more earthy parts of galbanum, not of the finer, as I shall presently say of onycha; and therefore our Interpreter adds “of good odour”.
Thirdly, onycha, says the Gloss, is a small shell smelling like a human nail; for my part I think onycha is that which Dioscorides calls the fragrant nail, book 2, chap. 8, and says it is the covering of a shellfish in the nard-bearing marshes of India, and therefore breathes a sweet odour, because the shellfish there feed on the pasture of nard: onycha is burned for its fragrance, though it smells somewhat of castoreum; understand with Mathiolus, if its fine fragrant parts being exhaled, the shell is left and burned: for otherwise Propertius sings thus of onycha:
And let the myrrh-scented onyx anoint the nostrils with saffron.
Apothecaries call onycha the Byzantine blatta, as Amatus and Mathiolus attest on Dioscorides.
Tropologically, St. Gregory, book 1 of the Morals, chap. 31: “We make an incense compounded of spices,” he says, “when on the altar of good work we give forth fragrance by the multiplicity of virtues.” And fitly you may take frankincense for religion and prayer, stacte for mortification, galbanum (as being warm and fat) for charity and mercy, onycha (as being like a nail in colour and like nard in odour) for chastity.
Hence symbolically St. Basil, on chap. 1 of Isaias, before the middle: This incense, he says, is the holiness of the body through temperance, and the bridle of reason over the body, which consists of four elements: stacte refers to water, frankincense to air, onyx to earth because of its dryness, galbanum to fire because of its burning heat. This holiness therefore tempers and moderates among themselves, as a holy incense. But above all, prayer is the incense.
Alluding to this incense, St. John, Apoc. 5:8, says that to those four holy living creatures were given “golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints”; and in chapter 8, verse 3: “There was given to him,” he says, “much incense.”
Where note: The prayers of the saints are here compared to a fumigation, not of any kind, but of sweet odours. First, because prayer, like incense, ascends upward, Psalm 140: “Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight.” Secondly, because as incense is fragrant, so the prayers of the saints delight God. Thirdly, as incense drives away stench, so prayer drives away sin and mitigates the wrath of God. Fourthly, the incense was made of bruised spices: so prayer ought to proceed from a mortified and humble soul. Fifthly, the incense was burned in fire: so prayer kindles in the fire of tribulations. Hence in Cant. 4 the Spouse says: “I will go to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.”
35. AND THOU SHALT MAKE INCENSE, etc., MIXED WITH CARE, AND PURE, AND MOST WORTHY OF SANCTIFICATION.—an incense so well, purely and carefully mixed and compounded as to be worthy to be sanctified to God, that is, burned, offered, kindled;
36. AND WHEN THOU HAST BEATEN ALL INTO VERY SMALL POWDER,—that the mixture may be more perfect, and thence the incense more fragrant.
Tropologically St. Gregory, at the end of book 1 of the Morals: “We bruise all the spices into very small powder,” he says, “when we pound our good deeds, as in the mortar of the heart, by a hidden examination, and if they are truly good, subtly review them.” Among the ancients a heart placed in a censer signified hieroglyphically prayers and supplications offered to God with a pure, humble, contrite and burning heart, says Pierius, hieroglyph 34.
AND THOU SHALT PUT OF IT (of the incense) BEFORE THE TABERNACLE OF THE TESTIMONY,—namely on the altar of incense, which is before the tabernacle of the testimony, that is, before the Holy of Holies. For there was a twofold tabernacle, as it were, on account of its two parts: one was called the Holy Place, the other the Holy of Holies; of the second Scripture here speaks.
IN WHICH PLACE (namely in the tabernacle just spoken of, that is, in the Holy of Holies) I WILL APPEAR TO THEE. THIS INCENSE SHALL BE HOLY OF HOLIES (that is, most holy).
38. WHATSOEVER MAN SHALL MAKE THE LIKE (incense) THAT HE MAY ENJOY THE SMELL THEREOF, SHALL PERISH OUT OF HIS PEOPLE.—The Hebrew is, shall be cut off from his peoples, because God will slay him, as disobedient and sacrilegious, by some plague of this life, or certainly will punish him eternally in hell. For, on the contrary, “to be gathered to his people” signifies to be joined to the company of the saints and the blessed. The Lord forbade, under so grave a penalty, that anyone should apply the composition of the incense to profane uses, in order that sacred things and the things of the temple might not be profaned, or the ecclesiastical ministry grow cheap and be despised.
Moreover he willed to unteach them the softness of anointing; for this holy ointment was used not for softness, but for sacred symbol and signification, and for reverence of the priesthood.
The Gentiles gave the same warning. Socrates used to say that ointments should be left to women; that in young men no ointment smells better than the oil which they used in their exercises. For with amaracine or leaf ointment the slave and the freeman straightway smell alike. Being asked what it becomes old men to smell of: Of probity, he said. Being asked where this ointment was sold, he recited the verse of Theognis:
He that is good, from him learn good things.
Xenophon collects some things of this sort in the Banquet; Erasmus, book 3 of the Apophthegms.
The same, when he censured those drenched in ointments, Phaedo being asked who was so drenched in ointments, Aristippus answered: “I, unhappy man; but the king of the Persians is far more unhappy than I. But see to it,” he said, “that as in this respect thou art surpassed by none of the other living creatures, so thou be not more excellent than any of men.” By which saying he showed that a man is made no better by ointments and perfumes, since a horse smeared with balsam smells the same as a king, and a beggar anointed with like ointment smells no worse than the high priest. Laertius, book 2.
Anacharsis used to say that oil was a poison engendering madness, because he saw the athletes, when anointed, rage against one another. Nor, as I think, did the Scythians know the use of oil, since it neither grew among them nor was imported from elsewhere. The athletes became more robust; and the Scythian pretended to believe that oil was the cause of madness. Laertius, book 1, chap. 9.
Diogenes, having got hold of some ointment, anointed his feet with it contrary to public custom. To those who wondered at it he said: “Because ointment poured on the head is exhaled into the air, but from the feet it rises to the nostrils.” Similarly another man censured the public custom of placing garlands on the head, since it would be more fitting to set them below the nostrils, because the fragrant vapour rises rather than descends. Laertius, book 6.
The same, to one who had his hair drenched with ointment: “Beware,” he said, “lest the sweet smell of thy head bring an ill smell upon thy life”; for we have tried in some way to preserve the pleasing affinity of the Greek words. Ointment in a man argues softness of life. Something similar was said by Martial:
Postumus, he does not smell well who always smells well.
So Laertius, book 6.
The same used to say that the gods are ready to give men life, but that this is unknown to those who seek ointments. Laertius, in the same place.
Lycurgus cast ointments out of the commonwealth as a corruption and ruin of oil. For oil, he said, spoiled by perfumes is of no use, neither for eating nor for anointing the limbs; and while they corrupt a necessary thing for luxury, it comes about that there is less supply. Plutarch in the Laconic Apophthegms.
When a young man was thanking Flavius Vespasian for a prefecture he had obtained, since he smelt of ointment, he was dismissed with a contemptuous nod and sharply rebuked: “I would rather,” said Vespasian, “that thou hadst smelt of garlic.” And presently he even revoked the appointment he had granted. Suetonius in his Life.