7. THE VESSELS FOR [THE TABLE], AND THE LOAVES OF: Proposition, And The Incense
BOOK ONE
so that they can renew the hearts of their hearers with the words of Sacred Eloquence.' They must direct every sense of their interpretation of the text in accordance with faith and the intention of its own doctrine, and in all the Scriptures they must diligently t,&e care lest they should teach that anything is to be done, hoped, or loved other than what is to be found in the four books of the gospels. As long as they relate all the eloquence of the Scriptures to that faith and love which are written in the gospels, it is as if on four rings they cany the whole table of the Lord with its loaves and vessels.
THE VESSELS FOR [THE TABLE], AND THE LOAVES OF
PROPOSITION, AND THE INCENSE
25:29 Out of purest gold you shall prepare also dishes and bowls, censers, and cups, in which the libations are to be offered. The various vessels that were made for the offering of the libations are the various aspects of Divine Eloquence which correspond to the disparate capacities of those who hear it. For it is not possible for one and the same doctrine to be suitable for everyone. Surely the wise arc to be taught in one way, tlie foolish in another; the rich in one way, the poor in another; the healthy in one way, the sick in another; the old in one way, the young in another; men in one way, women in another; celibates in one way, mamed persons in another; prelates in one way, subjects in Nevertheless, every one of the vessels is suitable for all of the libations to be offered on the table of the tabernacle. For whatever different tlungs the skilled teacher esounds to different hearers, all are found in the rule of Sacred Scripture, and they stir up the hearts of the hearers to offer vows of good works to the Lord. This opportune diversity of holy preaching was commended by the mouth of the Lord himself when he said: 'Who do you think is Ihe faitlijiul arid wise sleward whoiti the niaster will set over his household, to give tlieiti their ineasure ofwheat at tlie proper tittle? Surely the faithful and wise steward gives the measure of wheat to those fellow servants at the proper time when the discerning nunister of the word not only observes the opportune time in speaking, but also diligently inquires into the condition and capacity of the hearers and tempers the manner of his speech according to their differences in that regard.
1 Gregory the Great, Reg. pasf. 2, 11 (SC 381: 254, 38 - 256, 55) 2 Ibid. 3, 1 (SC 382: 262-6) 3 Luke 12:42
BEDE: ON THE TABERNACLE
25:30 And upon the table you shall set loaves of proposition, in my sight always. The loaves of proposition set always upon the table are the spiritual teachers who meditate upon the law of the Lord day and night' and offer the refreshment of the heavenly word to all who enter the Church.
Rightly are they called 'loaves of proposition', because the word of salvation ought to be always in plain view before all the faithful, and devout hearers in the Church must never lack the comforting word. For the Lord has willed it to be always manifest in the world through the heralds of truth who set it before his face, and to abound constantly for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, until the end of the age.2
In Leviticus it is explained more fully how many of these loaves are to be made, of what sort they should be, and how they are to be presented. For the Lord says to Moses: 'Andyou shall take thefinest wheatflour and bake twelve loaves of it, each of which shall have two tenths. You shall place them in two rows of six on the most pure table before the Lord, and you shall put the clearest frankincense upon them, that the bread may be a memorial of the oblation ofthe Lord. Every sabbath day they shall be changed before the Lord, being taken up by the children of Israel as an everlasting covenant; and they shall be for Aaron and his sons, that they may eat them in the holy place. In the first place, the figure of the twelve apostles is clearly foretold here in the very number of the loaves, for when the Lord appeared in flesh he chose them to be the first of those by whose ministry he gave the food of life to all nations. And then to these same disciples of his (that is, to our apostles), he says in reference to the multitudes hungering in the wilderness, 'You give them something to eat; * and when five thousand men had been satisfied from the five loaves, they gathered twelve baskets ofjagments, ' doubtless because those sacraments of the Scriptures which the multitudes are not able to receive belong to the apostles and the apostolic men.
The twelve loaves on the table of the tabernacle, then, are the twelve apostles and all those in the Church who follow their teaching; since until the end of time they do not cease to renew the people of God with the nourishment of the word, they are the twelve loaves of proposition which never depart from the table of the Lord. And those same loaves are properly ordered to be made not from just any flour but from the finest wheat,
1 Ps. 1:2
2 Matt. 5:6
3 Lev. 245-9 4Matt. 14:16-21 5 John 6:13
BOOK ONE
doubtless because all those who minister the word of life to others must first devote themselves to the fruits of virtue, so that they may commend by their actions those things that they counsel in their preachmg, being conformed to the example of him who says concerning himself: 'Unless a grain of wheatfalls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. J Those same loaves are also properly commanded to be set on the table in two rows of six for the sake of concord (that is to say, charity and fellowship); for the Lord is also said to have sent his disciples out to preach hvo by two,2 suggesting figuratively that the holy teachers never disagree with one another in either their ardour for love or their defense of truth.
Now that clearest frankincense which is put upon the loaves designates the power of prayer, because the same teachers commit both their ministry of preaching and their labour of devotion unto the Lord; for prayer is designated by frankincense, as the psalmist testifies when he says: 'Let my prayer be setforth in your sight as incense. The clearest frankincense is
[28] put upon the loaves as a memorial of the oblation of the Lord when the pure prayer of the saints is added to their pious action and teaching, so that when each is duly joined to the other, the rememblance of the sacred oblation will always appear in the sight of the Supreme Judge.
The loaves are properly commanded to be changed before the Lord every sabbath day; for surely the loaves that were set out on the table of the Lord through the six days of work are exchanged for new loaves on the sabbath when all the teachers in the Holy Church, once the time of their holy labour is completed are rewarded in heaven with eternal peace and leave others behind them in the same work, labouring in the word with the hope of the same reward. And in this way it is brought to pass that the table of the Lord is never left destitute of bread, but as soon as one loaf is taken away another is put in its place, as long as the churches never lack ministers of the word who follow one another in succession. In their words and in their deeds, they always manifest the faith of apostolic piety and the purity of apostolic action, continuing as in that most beautiful verse in which it is said in praise of that same Holy Church: 'Instead ofyourfathers, sons are born to you; you will make them princes over all the earth. In other words, that is as if it were being said to the tabernacle of the Lord: 'Instead ofyour old loaves, new ones are prepared for you; you will designate them for the refreshment of the spiritual hearts of the faithful in all the world.'
1 John 12:24
2 Mark 6:7
3 Ps. 141:2 (140:2) 4 Ps. 4516 (44:17)
BEDE: ON THE TABERNACLE
Therefore loaves were exchanged for loaves, but the table itself always stood in the tabernacle; for the teachers of the word come and go, and others follow in the succession of those who pass away, but the Sacred Scripture remains for all time without ever being abolished, until the time when the Lord shall appear at the end of the world. Then we shall have no further need for Scriptures or for those who interpret them, since there will be a long-awaited fulfilment of that promise of the Lord which says: 'And they shall not teach their neighbour and brother saying, "Know the Lord, "for they shall all know me, @om the least of them to the greatest. J
The loaves were baked before the sabbath, as Josephus writes: Before the sabbath they were divided two by two, and on the sabbath morning when they were to be offered upon the holy table they were set out in two rows of six, and two golden bowls full offrankincense were put upon them; these remained until another sabbath, and then others were brought in place of those, and they were given to the priests; and the@ankincense was burned in the sacredjre in which all the sacrrfices were made, and other@ankincense was added upon the other loaves.2 And what is written in the Book of Kings, that David went into the tabernacle and received the holy loaves from the prie~ts,~ happened on a sabbath morning; for he came to the tabernacle at the hour when the loaves from the preceding week were being removed from the table of the Lord so that new loaves which had been baked the day before might be set out, and thus he received the holy loaves in such a way that the table of the Lord did not remain without bread for even a fraction of an hour.
[29] Perhaps we should nmv consider more closely how the loaves were ordered to be changed each sabbath, for they were changed in such a way that each of them were placed on the table on the sabbath and could then be taken away on the following sabbath to serve as food for the priests. On the six days of work they were to be found laid out on the table, but on the sabbath day (that is, the day of rest) they were being put out upon the table, and on the next sabbath day they were being taken off the table again.
Mystically, what are we to understand in the sequence of this arrangement except that the holy teachers (or, indeed, all of the righteous) attain rest after the good works with which they shone brightly in the Church, and are
1 Jer. 31:34
2 Josephus, Anr. Jud. 3, 10, 7 (ed. Blatt, 251, 11-16); Bede has changed the tenses of the verbs from present to imperfect. He quoted the same passage in his commentaries In Luc. 2
(CCSL 120: 128, 1132 - 129, 1139) and In Sam. 3 (CCSL 119: 197,2590 - 198,2596).
3 1 Sam. 21 :6. The book commonly known as 1 Samuel in modern versions of the Bible is called 1 Kings in the Vulgate, and W e uses that terminology here, even though he had earlier
(c.716) entitled his commentary on that book I n primam parfern Samuhelis.