Commentaria in Numeros
Question the second: What and what kind of devices did the standards of these four archducal tribes bear? The Hebrews and the Rabbis writing on this chapter relate that these standards bore the figures of four animals, namely a lion, a man, an ox and an eagle. Andrew Masius follows the Hebrews on Josue 6:9, where he says: “The Hebrews relate that the first standard, of the leading tribe Juda with its companions, bore as its device the figure of a lion; the second standard, of the Rubenites, bore the figure of a man with mandrakes, which Ruben had brought to his mother, Genesis 30:14; the third standard, of Ephraim, bore the image of an ox; the fourth, of the Danites, bore the figure of an eagle. These by a fitting type signified our propitiatory, namely Christ, and his ark, namely the Church, which was placed among these four standards, through the four standards of the Evangelists to be spread to all quarters of the world.” The same is taught by Villalpandus, On the Temple, vol. 2, part 2, book 5, disputation 2, chapter 29, and by Jerome Prado on Ezechiel chapter 1, page 44, who describes these things from the Hebrews thus: “The several leaders of the tribes bore their own devices, namely the coats of arms of their fathers, painted on the standards. On the east, then, above the tent of Naasson, firstborn of Juda, shone a standard of green colour, which colour he took because on the green stone, the emerald, the name of the father Juda was engraved on the Rational of the High Priest, that is, on his breastplate, in which was seen the right of citizenship and nobility of the Israelites, namely of the several twelve tribes; on which standard was painted a lion, the emblem and hieroglyph of the father Juda; for Jacob had compared him to a lion, saying: ‘Juda is a lion’s whelp.’ On the south, above the tent of Elisur son of Ruben, stood out a red standard, bearing the colour of the sardius, on which was the name of the father, Ruben, written on the Rational; and the symbol painted on this standard was seen to be a human head, because Ruben was the firstborn and head of the family. On the west, there rose on high above the tent of Elisama son of Ephraim a golden standard, on which was seen engraved the head of a calf (because his grandfather Joseph by the vision of the calves, or oxen, had foretold and provided against the famine of Egypt: whence the Egyptians also worshipped him in the form of an ox, and called him Apis or Serapis, as I said on Genesis 41, at the end; hence Moses afterwards, Deuteronomy 33:17, blessing the tribe of Joseph, that is Ephraim, says: ‘His beauty is as of the firstborn of a bull’). The golden splendour of Ephraim’s standard rivalled the brightness of the chrysolite, on which the name of Ephraim was written in the Rational. On the north side there floated above the tent of Ahiezer son of Dan a standard variegated of white and red colour after the likeness of the jasper (so Prado, but it is truer that Dan was inscribed on the Rational with the carbuncle, as I said on Exodus 28:18; add that jaspers are for the most part green, not white and red), on which the name of Dan was raised on the Rational; his emblem was an eagle, enemy of serpents, chosen by the archduke in place of the serpent, because the grandfather Jacob had compared the father Dan to a serpent, saying: ‘Let Dan be a snake in the way, a serpent in the path’; in place of which Ahiezer added the eagle, bearing in its talons a snake or dragon that it had seized; which was also the emblem of the Lacedaemonians, with which they too sealed the letters sent to the Jews their kinsmen,” as Josephus testifies, Antiquities book 12, chapter 5. So in Plutarch we read that an eagle portended to Gaius Marius a return with the highest glory and triumph, when it tore a snake seized in its talons, cast it into the waters, and flew away toward the west:
Thus Jupiter confirmed the bright omen of the eagle; the Father himself thundered from the left side of heaven. These tribes, then, bore the emblems of their families and fathers as their device and standard; whence in the Hebrew the standards are called “the signs of their fathers.”
Prado moreover thinks that these devices of four animals are signified by the Psalmist, Psalm 67, when speaking of the camp of the Hebrews he says: “Thy living creatures shall dwell therein.” These are the living creatures in thy inheritance, in thy camp, in thy people, O Lord: there were seen of old in the desert standards marked with the figures of four animals, namely man, lion, eagle and calf. And Prado adds that it is plain these figures of four animals were taken from the Cherubim of the ark; for God willed by these four animals to signify his attributes, majesty, glory and triumphs, as his own coats of arms, and therefore commanded his Cherubim to be so made and fashioned as to bear the likeness of these four animals, as I said on Exodus 25:18. Hence he carried the same over to his camp and people and their standards. For this was the camp of God, whose leader and prince was God himself.
Rightly, then, Balaam, admiring the beauty of this camp, sang, Numbers 24:5: “How beautiful are thy tabernacles, O Jacob, and thy tents, O Israel, as woody valleys, as watered gardens near the rivers, as tabernacles which the Lord hath pitched,” etc.
Question the third: What do this camp and these standards signify mystically? Villalpandus answers first, from Philo, that in this camp of God the whole world is symbolically represented, and the twelve tribes and their devices signify the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Juda has the form of the Lion, Ruben of Aquarius, Ephraim of Taurus, Dan of Scorpio seized by the eagle. See the rest in the idea and image he gives, fol. 470, where he also teaches that by the four quarters and four battle-lines, both of the Levites and of the camp, the four elements are signified: namely by Moses and Aaron, who were on the east, fire; by the Gersonites, who were on the west, earth; by the Caathites, who were on the south, air; by the Merarites, who were on the north, water.
Allegorically, this camp signifies the Church of Christ, of which it is said, Canticle 6:3: “Fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array”; hence God also is called Sabaoth, that is, of battle-lines and armies; for this reason too this camp was round the tabernacle, that is, the temple of God, and was measured to it, and so itself presented the appearance of a temple or Church, as in turn the temple itself bore the appearance of a camp. Hence in 2 Paralipomenon 31:2 Ezechias is said to have appointed the Levites “to sing in the gates of the camp of the Lord,” that is, of the temple. Moses, then, is Christ, who in the midst of the twelve Patriarchs and tribes, that is of the twelve Apostles, was seen in Judea and adored as the true creator of the new heaven and the new earth, surrounded as it were by four Cherubim, the Evangelists, whom he sent to preach the gospel to the four quarters of the world. Hence the Cherubim had the likeness of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle, by which the four Evangelists are shadowed forth and depicted, as is plain from Apocalypse 4:7, and all the Fathers everywhere teach it.
But more fittingly Rabanus here applies the several parts one by one. This camp-array, he says, is the Church, of the new Testament as well as the old. The Levites are the priests and clergy: these guard the sacred things, and for the law and the people fight for them, and the people surround and protect them, coming from the four quarters of the world to the Church. So the Church on each of its four sides is a trinity of tribes, that is the faith of the Most Holy Trinity; the twelve princes are the Apostles. Archidamus, as Plutarch testifies in his Laconian Sayings, being asked how much territory the Spartans possessed, answered: “As far as we can reach with the spear.” So the Church occupies as many regions as she has subdued by fighting against demons, unbelievers and the impious, so that she can say with Jacob: “I give thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorrhite with my sword and bow,” Genesis 48:22; this, then, is the camp, this the battle-line of the Church. King Agis, when he was forbidden to fight at Mantinea because the enemy exceeded him in numbers, said: “He must needs fight against many who wishes to rule over many.” So the twelve Apostles, fighting against the whole world, subjected it to themselves and to Christ. A Spartan woman, handing her son a shield as he set out to war, said: “Your father always kept this; so do the same, or perish.” Let the Church now say the same to any of the faithful. Another, who was present at a solemn sacrifice crowned with a garland, hearing that her son had fallen victorious in battle, did not take off the garland, but said boastfully to those near her: “It is far more beautiful, friend, to meet death conquering in the line than to conquer and survive.” Let the Martyr say the same, and the teacher and preacher who, by suffering and by labouring for the glory of God, falls.