Commentaria in III Regum
8. THE DOOR FOR THE MIDDLE SIDE WAS ON THE RIGHT HAND OF THE HOUSE: AND THEY WENT UP BY WINDING STAIRS INTO THE MIDDLE FLOOR.—Understand here the winding stair by which one ascended into the floors both of the temple itself and of the adjacent cells of the temple, of which it was said in verse 5 and following, and the door of the winding stair, which was in the wall of the temple itself. For the wall of the temple was nine or ten cubits thick. Whence a winding stair could be made in it without damage to the wall, as at Rome in the Basilica of St. Peter and others, nay in the column of Trajan, as in that of Antoninus, we see winding stairs by which one ascends inside from bottom to top by 185 steps. He calls this “the door of the middle side,” that is, of the middle floor, because by this door and its winding stair one ascended to the middle, or second, floor both of the temple and of the cells, and from the second to the third or highest: for the lowest part of the temple, as of the cells, did not need a winding stair or ascent, since it was situated on the pavement itself. This door, then, with its winding stair was “on the right hand of the house,” that is in the right wall of the temple, that is the southern; for to those facing east the south is on the right, the north on the left. In the southern wall of the temple, then, was this winding stair, and its door, which rose from the bottom by steps to the top of both the temple and the cells. For there was a threefold order and floor, as I said, of the cells as of the temple, namely lowest, middle and highest. Of the door of the lowest order and floor nothing is said here, because that was on the ground, whence it needed no ascent and steps of a winding stair. “On the right hand of the house,” then, that is in the thickness of the southern wall of the temple itself, from the bottom, or from the pavement, rose the winding stair with its door, and ascended within the thickness of the wall to the middle, that is the second floor or order of cells (whence it is plain that these cells, though separate from the temple, were yet joined to it by the winding stair: for they were near it) of the cells near the temple, and from the second it stretched and ascended to the third and highest floor or order of cells.
One door and one entrance sufficed for each floor, because the cells were connected, as I said. So Cajetan, Ribera, book 1 On the Temple, chapter 15, and others. Whether it was one and the same winding stair by which one ascended to the floors of the temple itself and at the same time to the floors of the cells near the temple, or two, is not plainly clear. It is probable that there were two. First, because in the Hebrew for winding stair is tulim, in the plural, that is winding stairs. Second, because this was more convenient, and for the greater majesty of the temple. Third, because Josephus insinuates it, book 8, chapter 3, who frequently stayed in the temple. So Salianus. By one winding stair, then, one ascended to the floors of the temple, by the other to the floors of the cells.
Tropologically, the winding stair ascending in a spiral signifies that one ascends to heaven, to the perfection of virtue and to the glory of the Blessed, only by the winding way of labors and sorrows. So Eucherius and Angelomus, of which thing a fitting vision exists in the Life of St. Perpetua, who by a ladder beset with knives saw Satyrus, her fellow in prison, ascend into heaven, and by this vision received an omen of martyrdom. So has her Life in Surius on the 7th of March.
10. AND HE BUILT A FLOOR OVER ALL THE HOUSE FIVE CUBITS HIGH.—This seems to be understood of the floors of the cells: for the floor of the temple was 90 cubits high, as I said: nay he seems to speak only of the highest floor of the cells, say Abulensis and Cajetan; for Josephus asserts that the whole height of the cells was sixty cubits.
15. AND HE BUILT THE WALLS OF THE HOUSE WITHIN WITH BOARDS OF CEDAR.—“He built,” that is, covered, clothed, adorned: for the walls were built of stones: afterwards he clothed the stones with boards of cedar, as he clothed the pavement with boards of fir, as follows. That it was so is plain from verse 18, where explaining he says: “all was covered with boards of cedar, and no stone could be seen in the wall.”
16. AND HE BUILT TWENTY CUBITS AT THE HINDER PART OF THE TEMPLE WITH BOARDS OF CEDAR,—as if to say: As he covered the front part of the temple with boards of cedar, as I have already said at verse 15, so he covered with the same the hinder part of the temple, that is the oracle or Holy of holies, from which God gave oracles. For the Holy of holies is here described, which was the inner or hinder part of the temple, and had in length twenty cubits, as many in breadth, but thirty in height, like the rest of the temple or Holy: for the whole temple was thirty cubits high, as was said in verse 2. Yet it is said here to be built only to twenty cubits; because namely to twenty cubits only from the pavement upward it was covered with boards of cedar (so that on this side the floor might seem to be square, as it had been in the tabernacle of Moses); but for the remaining ten cubits in height the bare wall or masonry rose. So Ribera, book 1 On the Temple, chapter 6. Some, however, think that the Holy of holies had only twenty cubits in height, as it had as many in length and breadth, so as to be perfectly a cube, or square, and that the whole was covered with boards of cedar: while the Holy alone had thirty cubits of height, and so was ten cubits higher than the Holy of holies, as at Rome in many churches the tribune or choir is lower than the rest of the church. This opinion is favored by this verse, which assigns twenty cubits to the Holy of holies, and by the fact that it would have been unsightly if one part of it were covered with cedar and the other bare.
It seems truer that the Holy of holies was in every respect square as to the cedar floor, yet rose ten cubits beyond this floor, so as to be absolutely thirty cubits high, like the Holy; but that on this floor of twenty cubits covered with boards of cedar, both in the Holy and in the Holy of holies, a cedar vault was placed, imitating and representing the form of the heavens: and this vault rose to ten cubits, which stood out above the remaining twenty up to the floor, as Vilalpandus solidly shows on Ezechiel 41, Azor, book 6, chapter 53; and Ribera, book 1 On the Temple, chapter 6, and Barradius, volume 2, book 12, chapter 12, wish nothing else.
AND HE MADE THE INNER HOUSE OF THE ORACLE FOR THE HOLY OF HOLIES,—as if to say: He made the inner house, which was called the oracle, to be the Holy of holies, that is the most holy part of the temple. For this is now called the oracle, now the inner house, now the second tabernacle, now the Holy of holies.
17. AND THE TEMPLE ITSELF, BEFORE THE DOORS OF THE ORACLE, WAS FORTY CUBITS.—as if to say: The front part of the temple, which was before the oracle or Holy of holies, and which was called the Holy, had forty cubits in length.
Furthermore the doors of the oracle, or Holy of holies, were large, and always open: whence the ends of the staves of the ark of the covenant, projecting and covered by the veil, appeared to those standing near, either because the veil was transparent or rather because they projected beyond the veil. Hence also, when this veil was rent in the passion of Christ, the Holy of holies appeared: for otherwise, if the doors of the oracle had been closed, it would not have been open.
19. AND HE MADE THE ORACLE (the Holy of holies) IN THE MIDST OF THE HOUSE (that is in the house itself, or in the temple itself)—for the oracle was not in the middle, but at the end of the temple; it is a Hebraism.
20. HE COVERED THE ALTAR ALSO WITH CEDAR,—understand the altar of incense, which was in the Holy facing the Holy of holies, so that from it the smoke of the incense might ascend to God residing upon the ark in the Holy of holies. Hence it seems that Solomon made a new altar of incense, for it is said that he covered it with boards of cedar, which he afterwards covered with gold in verse 21, just as he made a new table of the loaves of proposition and a new, larger candlestick: for the Mosaic ones were smaller and meaner than befitted the greatness and magnificence of his new temple; wherefore Solomon removed them from the temple and stored them with the tabernacle of Moses in the upper floors. That it was so is clear from chapter 7, verse 48, as I shall show there.
21. AND FASTENED THE PLATES WITH NAILS OF GOLD,—which could scarcely be done without hammer and noise. When he said in verse 7, then, that neither hammer, axe nor iron was heard in the temple, understand as to cutting or hewing, as went before in the same place, not however as to fastening nails: for these, since they were very many, had to be fixed with a hammer, says Ribera, book 1, chapter 12, unless someone say that the nails were turned and the holes into which they were to be driven were turned, so that by their rotation alone they were fixed in their places without hammering. For so at Cyzicus, says Pliny, book 36, chapter 15: “The Buleuterium (house of council) was built without an iron nail, the completion being so arranged that the beams may be taken out without props, and put back.”