12. The Grate Of [The Altar] And Its Rings And Poles
BOOK TWO
and to accept them for imitation are content to be refreshed (as it were) with the flesh of a saving victim.
Since it belongs to spiritual teachers to discern most carefully which mysteries they should impart to be heard by each person, rightly is Moses ordered to make forks for the priests, with which they could arrange the flesh of the victims as would be necessary. Some of them indeed they offered up to be eaten by human beings, but only by those who were pure; others, however, they left to be consumed by the fires of the altar. This is because among the words of God there are some which he deemed right to reveal to our lowliness so that they might serve as food for our refreshment, but others are so profound that they are accessible to the understanding of the Holy Spirit alone and utterly exceed the capacity of our comprehension.
Next, the firepans are appointed for this purpose, that by means of them the holy fire may be brought from the altar of holocaust to the altar of incense, evening and morning, for the offering of incense. They, too, plainly contain in themselves the figure of the teachcrs who bring fire from the altar of holocaust to the altar of incense (as it were) when they teach thcir hearers to advance always from virtue to virtue, and to penetrate to the higher and inmost secrets of the Divine Vision by increasing in merits little by little.
But all of those who hasten to imitate the hearts of the neighbours when they see them burning with piety also become like firepans, because they are eager to kindle in their own minds also the flame of heavenly sacrifice which they see in the brethren.
All of these vessels are doubtless made out of bronze when the faithful endeavour to obey the divine precepts with constant devotion, or else when the good they do for their neighbours also resounds as being done with the clear sound of zealous exhortation. For, as we have said more than once, bronze is frequently accustomed to designate both the persevemnce in the minds of the faithful (on account ofthe durability of its incormptible nature) and the voice of teachers (on account of the clarity of its sound).
12. THE GRATE OF [THE ALTAR] AND ITS RINGS AND POLES
27:4-5 And a grate of bronze in the manner of a net, at the four corners of which shall be four bronze rings, which you shall set under the base of the altar; and the grate shall be level with the middle of the altar. The altar was commanded to be made entirely hollow, as is clearly taught in what follows, but in the middle of it there was a grate pcrforated all over in the manner of a net, into which was put the flesh of the victims that was to be burned. And under [the grate] there was a base upon which [82]
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wood was laid and a fire was burning, so that it was always ready to consume the holocausts that were being placed upon it. For opposite the base, on the east side of the altar, there was an opening through which wood could be inserted as fuel for the fire or coals and ashes could be taken out.
We have seen this depicted in the picture of Cassiodorus Senator, of which he himself makes mention in [his] Exposition ofthe Psalms; in this [picture] he also portrays four feet on each of the altars, that is, on both [the altar] of holocaust and [the altar] of incense.' We suppose that he learned both of these things from teachers among the Jews, in the Same way that [he learned about] the layout of the tabernacle and the temple.
In the middle of the altar of God, then, there is a grate which is ready to bear the holocausts, because the elect prepare a place for the Lord in the inmost affections of their hearts, where they gather thoughts devoted to him.
1 Cassiodorus, Exp. inps. 86, 1 (CCSr. 98: 789,40-3); Bailey (1983) has shown that Bede used a full text of this work, not just an epitome such as that in Durham Cathedral MS B.II.30.
Here Bede is refening to a picture of the tabernacle that Cassiodorus had caused to be placed in the Codex Grandior. Apicture of Solomon's temple in the Codex Grandior is also mentioned by Bede in De templo 2 (CCSr. 119A: 192, 28 - 193, 52), where, as Meyvaert suggested in Bonner (1976), 61, it is implied that he made his own diagram based on the picture he had seen. Since the late nineteenth century, Cassiodorus' Codex Grandior has been identified as the Old Latin pandect which Ceolfrith brought from Rome to Wearmouth-Jarrow, where some of its illustrations served as exemplars for those in the still-extant Codex Amiatinus produced there in the last decade of the seventh century and later taken by Ceolfrith on his ill-fated trip to Rome in 716; VIt. Ceol. 20 (ed. Plummer, 1: 395) and Bede, Hist. abb. 2, 15 (ed. Plummer,
1: 379). See Fisher (1%2), Halporn (1980), Bruce-Mitford (1967), and Alexander (1978),
32-5; the latter two contain plates of the bifolium tabernacle drawing, though both misidentify it as a picture of the temple of Solomon. A line drawing appears as the frontispiece to this volume.
Many have been tempted to imagine the drawing in Codex Amiatinus as a virtual reproduction of the Cassiodorian picture Bede had before him, but Corsano (l987), 9-1 1, has pointed out that the altar of holocaust in the Codex Amiatinus tabernacle is depicted as open on all four sides, not just on the east as Bede describes the one in the drawing he saw. In addition, note that the Codex Amiatinus picture locates the bronze basin in front of the altar of holocaust, contrary to Exod. 30:18 and Bede, De tab. 3, 14 (CCSL 119.4: 137, 1729-31).
Along with some distinctively Northumbrian features, these discrepancies indicate that the artist who produced the tabernacle picture in the Codex Amiatinus was not simply copying a model in every detail. In fact, Corsano, 23, suggests that Bede may not have been looking at the original pictures in the Codex Grandior at all, but at copies ofthem which had been inserted in a manuscript of one of Cassiodorus' other works. In her view, the illustrations in the Codex
Amiatinus were inspired not by direct contact with the Codex Grandior but rather by the text of Cassiodorus' Insritutiones; this assumes that a copy of that work, or at least a substantial excerpt from it, was available at Wearmouth-Jamow. In this regard, however, it should be noted that when Bede supposed that Cassiodorus had learned about the layout of the tabernacle and the temple from Jewish scholars, he seems to have been unaware that in Instir. 1, 5, 2 (ed.
Mynors, 22-3) Cassiodorus had explictly stated the memorable fact that his informant was a blind Novatian schismatic from Asia named Eusebius.
BOOKTWO
Under the grate [the altar] has a base upon which it bears the wood and the fire for the holocausts, because these same hearts of the elect prepare a receptacle in themselves by hearing the celestial words with which they are warmed (or perhaps I should say inflamed), so that through the gift of the Holy Spirit they might render pious thoughts as votive offerings acceptable to God. For surely the priest puts wood into the base of the altar when all the teachers convey to the yearning and eagerly-seeking minds of the faithful those testimonies of Holy Scripture with which they are strengthened all the more in faith and love, and they add fire to the wood when they teach that the understanding of the word and the efficacy of pious devotion' are to be sought from God. Wood bums on the altar when the charity of God is poured forth into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us,2 and this holocaust which is placed upon the fire is consumed when everythmg that we have managed to do well by the grace of the Holy
Spirit is rendered acceptable to God through the power of love.
Hence the grate which bears the holocausts is properly commanded to be made in the form of a net, in such a way that the fire which is set under it may penetrate freely through its numerous openings to consume all parts of the sacrifices. For in the same way it is indeed necessary in all things that we should never harden our hearts or shut them up against the grace of God after the fashion of the Pelagians. Instead, we must open them diligently and pray earnestly, as if with many doors open wide at the same time, that in all the good things that we begin or that we desire to do, as if in every piece of his sacrificial victims, [God] will deign to enlighten us with mercy and to kindle us in his love. For surely the Pelagians, who presume that they are able to achieve somethmg good apart from the grace of God, do not set a spotted grate in the form of a net over a holy fire in the altar of their heart, but instead they set a solid wall (as it were) between themselves and the fire of the Holy Spirit, so that they are never made warm in love.
(831 Now the four bronze rings which are ordered to be made at the four corners of the altar are the four books of gospels, whch are aptly compared to rings because they promise to their hearers the eternal crownof life. Aptly are they bronze, because their sound hasgone out into all the earth;3 aptly are they placed at the four comers of the altar, so that with the word of faith and truth they may strengthen the Church of the faithful which is dispersed throughout all the regions of the world; aptly are they fastened under the 1 piae operarionrs; literally, 'of pious working'
2 Rom. 5 5 3 Ps. 19:4 (185)
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base of the altar, so that they may lift up the souls of the humble with the bulwarks of their consolation.
27:6 You shall also make for the altar two poles of acacia wood, which you shall cover with plates of bronze. The poles with which the altar was carried are the teachers who are accustomed to cany the Holy Church (as it were) as long as they either bear the faith and the sacraments of truth by preaching to those who are ignorant of them, or strengthen' them by confirming them in those who have already come to know and accept them.
S'nce they do not preach their own interests] but those of Jesus Christ,2 they are not following clever myths but are rather making known to the world the power4 of our Lord as it is ascertained from the heavenly oracle.
Aptly are the poles put into the rings' so that they may be able to cany the altar, for poles to cany the altar of the Lord through rings is surely for the holy teachers to lift up the hearts of the faithful by exhorting [them] through the words of the gospel, which will not pass away even though heaven and earth pass away.6 And there are two poles so that the word may be preached to both peoples, that is, to both Jews and Gentiles. This is also amplified further in the words that follow, whcn it is added:
27:7 And they shall be on both sides of the altar to carry it. For there would be teachers who would call the Jews and those who would call the Gentiles into one and the same grace of faith by concordant speech and deer'. Or perhaps there are poles on both sides of the altar to cany it when the holy preachers teach the minds of the faithful to hold virtue unshaken and constant both in prosperity and in adversity, lest the former should elevate them with its charms or the latter disturt, them with its alarms.
27:8 You shall not make it solid, but empty and hollow on the inside The reason that the altar was commanded to be made not solid but empty and hollow was so that it might have ample room to receive the most sacred fire and the wood for the fire as well. as the holocausts which were to be consumed by the fire. After tlus example, you too, if you wish to be God's altar, must yourself be empty and devoid of every contagion of worldly things, so that there may be in you sufficient room for the wood of heavenly words and the sacrifices of virtues, and so that you may be able to hold the fire of the Holy Spirit, with which those same sacrifices are consecrated to (841 1 roborant: derived from robur ('oak-tree').
2 Phil. 2:2 1 3 2 Pet. 1:16
I 4 vrrtutem 5 This is a comment on Exod. 27.7 (Andyou shall put them through the rings), which Ekde does not quote.
6 Matt. 24:35