Bede

For the servants of Hiram who cut down cedars from Lebanon for Solomon are the teachers chosen from among the Gentiles whose task is to fell those who enjoy the goods and glory of this world by correcting their pride and arrogance and convert their ambition into obedience to their Redeemer. Now with these servants were also the servants of Solomon, and together they set about the work referred to because the first teachers from among the Gentiles needed the apostles, who had received training by being instructed in the word of faith, lest, were they to begin to teach without masters, they might turn out to be teachers of error. For the reason why Solomon wanted the servants of Hiram to hew timber from Lebanon for him was that they were more experienced than his own servants in felling, but the reason why he also wanted his own servants to be there with them was that they might show the lumbermen what length the planks ought to be. What this symbolizes is plain, namely, that the apostles had a surer knowledge of how to preach to others the word of the gospel that they were privileged to hear from the Lord, but the Gentiles, converted from error and brought into conformity with the truth of the gospel, had a better knowledge of the actual errors of the Gentiles, and the surer their knowledge the more skillfully they learned to counteract and refute them. Paul indeed had a better knowledge of the mystery of the gospel, which he had learned through revelation, but Dionysus was better able to refute the false teachings of Athens, whose syllogisms as well as errors and all of whose arguments he knew since a boy. With this explanation the statement that follows is fully in keeping: “For you know that there is not a man among my people who has the skill to hew wood like the Sidonians.” For when the Lord was bodily present teaching, there was not one among the Jewish people who knew so well how to refute the errors of the Gentiles as the actual Gentile converts to the faith and those of the Gentiles who had become Christians. For the Sidonians and Tyrians are rightly taken as a type of the Gentiles because they were Gentile peoples.

Where it says, “in the fourth year in the month of Zio, which is the second month of the reign of Solomon over Israel,” the intended order is, in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon in the month of Zio, that is, the second month. He calls the second month May, for April, in which the Pasch, the principal feast among the Hebrews, is held, was the first month of the year. From this it is quite clear that later when the Pasch was over, he began to build a house for the Lord, and after they had been consecrated by the mystical solemnity, the people set their hands to the mystical task. A commemoration is made of the exodus from Egypt when work began on the building of the tabernacle so that the reader may be made aware what a period of time had passed between the building of both houses and learn the spiritual mystery attaching to this period of time. For four times 120 make 480; now four is very appropriate to evangelical perfection on account of the actual number of the Evangelists; 120 is appropriate to the teaching of the law on account of the same number of years of the legislator. It was also in this number of men that the primitive church received the grace of the Holy Spirit, clearly showing that those who use the law legitimately, that is, those who recognize and embrace the grace of Christ in it, are deservedly filled with the grace of his Spirit so that they may become more ardent in his love.

"The door of the middle side was on the right side of the house." [1 Kings 6:8] When it is said: The door of the middle side was on the right side of the house, it does not indicate, as some think, that the door through which one would enter the temple was on the southern side, that is, on the middle side of the southern wall. Otherwise, Scripture would simply say: The door of the house was positioned towards the South. But now the door, through which one would enter for the everyday services of the temple, was to the East, as Josephus reports; and the portico before its face, also open to the East, so that the equinoctial rising sun would send its rays without any obstacle through the doors of the temple and the oracle into the ark itself, which was in the Holy of Holies. Furthermore, the ascent leading to the upper house, and from the upper to the third, was on the southern side of the temple (which is the right part of the house) made in a hidden manner, having a very small door below on the East in the very corner of the right wall. Hence it is consequently added: And through the winding stairs, they would ascend to the middle chamber, and from the middle to the third. The layout of this ascent commends to us a mystery much worth remembering; for it is clear that this temple which Solomon made figuratively indicates the body of the peaceful king Christ, not only that which is His entire Church but also that which He received most sacredly from the Virgin, to be the head of the Church. Now, the door of the middle side was on the right side of the house, through which one would secretly ascend from the lower to the middle chamber, and from the middle to the third. Just as when our Lord suffered on the cross, one of the soldiers opened His right side with a lance, and immediately blood and water came out, which is the blood of our redemption, and the water of our cleansing, by whose sanctifying mysteries, cleansed and consecrated, from this life which we conduct on earth we aim towards the rest of the spirit in the future, as it were, to the upper house. And when we ascend to the rest of the spirit having been released from the flesh, we also await the ascension of our flesh in the day of resurrection, as it were to the highest chamber.

The way to the upper and third [parts of the] building was made through the innermost part of the southern wall, as if by an invisible entrance, so that only its beginning might be evident from the eastern corner of the before-mentioned [southern] wall. Only he who could climb [it] knew the progress of this ascent, of which Scripture recalls: “The door in the center of the side was on the right [i.e., southern] part of the house, and they ascended by a circular stairway to the middle room and from the middle room to the third.” When our Lord was suffering on the cross, “one of the soldiers opened his side with a lance, and immediately there came forth blood and water.” This [prefigured] the water of baptism by which we are cleansed [from sin] and the blood of the Lord’s chalice by which we are sanctified. Through these holy mysteries of his side, as a consequence of our invisible faith, we ascend from the present life of the church, in its pilgrimage on earth, to the life of heavenly blessedness that the souls of the righteous enjoy once they have laid aside their bodies. When we have recovered our [earthly] bodies at the [general] resurrection, we will pass over from that life even to the supreme glory of eternal bliss, with our faith in our Lord’s passion leading the way. It is undoubtedly of this glory that Isaiah says, “In their own land they will come into possession of a double portion, undying happiness will be theirs,” that is, they will receive the eternal joys of an immortal body and a happy soul together in the land of the living, which is the only land of the saints. The lowest [part of the] building signifies the present way of life of the saints; the middle [part signifies] the repose of souls that is acquired after this life; and the top [part signifies] the glory of the [final] resurrection, which will never be changed and will last forever. The door in the center of the side, which was situated in the right [i.e., southern] part of the building, and which opened up the way to the upper parts, [represents] our faith in the passion of Christ, from whose pierced right side, [while he was hanging] on the cross, there flowed forth the sacraments, by receiving which we will be able to ascend to the joys of heavenly life.

Ceilings are boardwork constructed and adorned with great beauty and fixed to the beams on the lower side, and because the house of the Lord had been built three times the double height, naturally it had three ceilings. What is more fitting for us to believe than these ceilings signify all the just people of most exalted virtue in the holy church? And their work and teaching is held up as an example to all as being much loftier than any other, and by their intercessions and exhortations they keep the spirits of the weak from failing in temptation. These ceilings are indeed rightly described as being of cedarwood. For cedar is by nature a completely incorruptible tree, of pleasant fragrance and luxuriant appearance, and when it is set on fire it drives away and destroys serpents by its dazzling brightness. These things are an apt figure of all the perfect whose patience is indomitable, whose outstanding reputation for virtue is far more pleasing to the good than that of anyone else, whose powers of refuting and proving wrong those who resist the truth are utterly unshakable, and who, both in this life and the life to come, shine with a resplendence that outshines the rest of the saints.

"He also covered the house with cedar ceilings." [1 Kings 6:9] The term "He also covered the house with cedar ceilings" refers to the timber-frame ceilings that, when fastened with nails, display the wondrous beauty of their paintings to those who behold them. There were three ceilings in the temple. The first had thirty cubits from the floor; the second had sixty cubits, aligned with the height of the porticos; the third had one hundred and twenty cubits at the top of the entire house. For in Palestine, as in Egypt, roofs are not raised high but instead built flat, suitable for sitting or walking. Hence, the Lord says in the Gospel: "And what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops." Such a place is most appropriate for proclaiming the word—to those sitting with the speaker or to listeners below. As Solomon says in Proverbs: "It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a contentious woman" (Prov. XXI); for what is called "roof" in Latin is "doma" in Greek. Moreover, the porticos around the temple had three levels of ceilings. The first from the ground had twenty cubits, the second forty, and the third sixty. Their roofs were also flat. There were thirty porticos on the lower level, thirty in the middle, and thirty above, not separated by walls but by wooden planks, so each of the ninety porticos measured five cubits in width and length, and twenty in height. These porticos are frequently mentioned in the book of Chronicles. Josephus explains their arrangement in more detail. "And he built a platform over the whole house five cubits high;" this is what Moses commanded in Deuteronomy: "When you build a new house, make a parapet for your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from it" (Deut. XXII). This platform at the top of the temple walls acted as a parapet to prevent someone ascending to the roof from falling off carelessly. This is mentioned as the cause of King Ahaziah's death, as he fell through the lattice of his upper chamber and suffered fatal injuries. When these panels, walls, or parapets are placed for safety, the common people call them "lattices." "And he covered the house with cedar wood;" signifies the upper covering of the entire structure, that is, the panel added above those beams on which the uppermost ceilings we mentioned earlier were affixed.

This means the breastworks that were constructed on top of the roof of the house all around in case anyone who came up to the upper parts of the building should suddenly fall to the bottom. And in every house that anyone built, Moses ordered this to be done, saying, “When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof all the way around, lest blood be shed in your house and you be to blame should anyone slip and fall down headlong.” Now these structures or breastworks are called sides above, where, after the words “and on the wall of the temple he built structures all around, running around the walls of the house, both the temple and the oracle,” the following is immediately added: “and he made side chambers all around.” These side chambers, of course, we have understood as denoting the divine protection that helps us not to give up while still struggling in this world and daily striving after higher things according to our capacity. We ought to understand this passage also in the same sense, but with this distinction that in this life, whether amid the frequent temptations of our implacable enemy or the obstacles of our frailty, we are often, indeed constantly, protected by heavenly compassion, but in the life which, as we have stated above, the top of the roof of the temple suggests, we are protected by so great a grace of God who is with us, that we neither want nor are able to sin, nor are we affected by fear of either death or pain or the adversary who tempts us. The Lord speaks of the helps he gives us in the present life, as if they were the sides of the structures, when he says of his people, “They will call on me, and I shall hear them; I am with them in their tribulation, and I shall rescue them and glorify them.” Of his grace to come whereby that heavenly city is illumined, the prophet says to the same city, “Praise the Lord, Jerusalem,” and so forth as far as “peace in your borders.” Now this structure on the roof of the house of the Lord is rightly said to be five cubits high because, of course, the presence of God’s glory in that homeland [of ours] fills us in such a way that nothing else is sweet to our sight, our hearing, our sense of smell or taste or touch except to love the Lord our God with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

He calls the east side of the temple the rear; for the temple had its entrance on the east and its inner house, that is, the Holy of Holies, on the west. The fact that he says that the board partitions that separated the inner house from the outer one were erected from the floor to the top does not mean they were built to the ceiling, which was at the height of thirty cubits from the floor, as has already been said above, but only up to a height of twenty cubits, as one can clearly read in what follows. But the portion above these partitions up as far as the ceiling was left open and empty to a height of ten cubits and a length of twenty cubits across the width of the house, and, of course, through this aperture the smoke of the burnt offerings from the altar of sacrifice used to ascend and penetrate all the way in to cover the ark of the Lord. This division of the Lord’s house is a clear figure of a mystery and, thanks to the explanation of the apostle, is clearer than daylight because the first house into which “the priests” continually “go performing their ritual duties” is the present church, where, intent on works of piety, we daily offer sacrifices of praise to the Lord, but the inner house, which was built at the rear of the temple, is the promised life in heaven, which indeed precedes this life of our exile, which is celebrated there in the presence of the supreme king as a perpetual solemnity of the blessed, both angels and humankind. Hence it is with reference to it that the servant is quite deservedly told, “Enter into the joy of your Lord” but is later in time because it is after the labors of this world that we succeed in entering it.

We have said that the temple itself before the doors of the oracle was a type of the present church. Hence it was rightly forty cubits long, for this number is often used to signify the present labor of the faithful, just as the number fifty stands for the rest and peace to come. For the number ten contains the precepts, the observance of which leads to life. Likewise the number ten signifies that very eternal life that we desire and for which we live. But the world in which we strive to attain that life is a square. Hence too the psalmist, foreseeing the church that was to be assembled from the nations said, “He has gathered them out of the countries from the rising and from the setting of the sun, from the north and from the sea.” Now ten multiplied by four makes forty. Hence the people liberated from Egypt as a figure of the present church were subjected to many hardships for forty years in the desert, but at the same time they were also regaled with heavenly bread, and in this way they finally reached the land promised them of old. They were subjected to trials for forty years in order to draw attention to the hardships with which the church contends throughout the whole world in observing the law of God; they were fed on manna from heaven for those forty years to demonstrate that the very sufferings that the church endures in the hope of the heavenly denarius, that is, of eternal happiness, are to be alleviated when those “who now hunger and thirst for righteousness will have their fill,” and as the same church sings to its Redeemer, “But as for me, I will appear before your sight in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when your glory shall appear.” In the same way then the people of God is both subjected to adversities and regaled with manna to confirm the saying of the apostle: “Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.” In this figure too our Lord fasted forty days before his bodily death and feasted forty more with his disciples after his bodily resurrection “appearing to them by many proofs and speaking of the kingdom of God, and eating together with them.” For by fasting he showed in himself our toil, but by eating and drinking with his disciples he showed his consolation in our midst. While he was fasting he was crying out, as it were, “Take heed lest perhaps your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life,” whereas while he was eating and drinking he was crying out, as it were, “Behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world”; and “But I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one shall take from you.” For as soon as we set our feet on the way of the Lord we both fast from the vanity of the present world and are cheered with the promise of the world to come, not setting our heart on the life here below but feeding our heart on the life up there.

We have said of cedarwood that it betokened the unsurpassable beauty of the virtues. Now the entire house is covered inside with this wood when the hearts of the righteous begin to shine with nothing but the love of good works, and the house has its turnings made of cedar boards and its joints skillfully wrought when these elect are joined to each other by the most beautiful bond of charity so that, though the multitude of the faithful is innumerable, they can nevertheless, with good reason, be said to have one heart and one soul on account of the community of the faith and love they share. For the turnings that were attached to the joints of the planks in order that they might all make one partition are the very services of charity by which the holy brotherhood is bound together and formed into one house of Christ all over the world. Moreover, this house has carvings standing in relief when, far from covering and hiding their works of virtue, the saints, by a clear outward expression, show forth to all, as an example for living, what they themselves are like and what they do, as did the apostle Paul who not only by preaching Christ to the Gentiles and by personally suffering for Christ showed how outstanding he was, but also in his letters addressed to the churches declared how many perils he underwent for Christ and by what great revelations he was raised aloft in a blessed glorification. And when he said to his listeners without any hesitation, “Be imitators of me, just as I am of Christ,” what did he show them but the carvings standing in relief in the house of the Lord, which by the exceptional eminence of his virtue showed itself to be within the power of all to imitate?