4. What Kind Of Stone The Temple Was Made Of
BEDE: ON THE TEMPLE
circumcision and converted to the faith and fellowship of the people of God.
3.5 The workmen of the house of the Lord were drawn from among the sons of Israel, the proselytes and the gentiles; i.e. from the sons of Israel came the thirty thousand who were sent to fell the cedars of Lebanon; from among the proselytes came the stonemasons of whom we have just spoken; from among the gentiles came Hiram himself and his slaves who together with Solomon's slaves cut the timber. Therefore, every kind of person by whom the Church was to be built had already gone before in the building of the temple. For the Jews and proselytes and gentiles converted to the truth of the Gospel build one and the same Church of Christ whether by upright living or by teaching as well.
(1541
4. WHAT KIND OF STONE THE TEMPLE WAS MADE OF
4.1
(5:17) And the king commanded that they bring great costly stones for the foundation of the temple and square them. The foundation of the temple is to be understood mystically as none other than that which the Apostle points out when he says, For there is no other foundation anyone can lay than the one which has been laid, name&,
Jesus Christ. Consequently, he can rightly be called the foundation of the house of the Lord, because, as Peter says, There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.2 Into this foundation great and costly stones are carried when men eminent in deeds and sanctity adhere by their habitual sanctity of spirit to their creator, so that the more firmly they place their hope in him, the greater is their capacity to direct the life of others, which is to act as a broad foundation supporting a massive building. Therefore, the stones which were laid as the foundation of the temple to bear the whole structure, are properly speaking the prophets and apostles who either visibly or invisibly received the word and mysteries of truth from the very wisdom of God. Hence of us too, who, in our modest way, strive to imitate the life or teaching of these men, the Apostle says we are supported on the foundation of the apostles and prophet^.^
1 1 Co7:ll Ac4:12
Ep 2:20
BOOK ONE
But even in general all the perfect who have learnt to adhere faithfully to the Lord himself and bear with fortitude the needs of their brethren which are laid upon them, these too can be symbolized by these great and precious stones. And they are fittingly ordered first to be squared and so placed in the foundation. For whatever is squared is accustomed to fit no matter which way it is t ~ r n e d . ~
To this figure are likened the hearts of the elect which have learnt to stand firm in the faith so that no adverse occurrence, not even death itself, can make them deviate from their way of uprightness. Such for instance are the teachers whom the Church has received in great numbers not only from Judaea but also from the gentiles. Hence concerning such great and precious stones is fittingly added:
4.2
(5:18) And the masons of Solomon and the masons of Hiram hewed them. For precious stones are hewn when, as a result of the instruction and zeal of the saints who have gone before them, each of the elect gets rid of whatever is harmful or vain in himself, and in the sight of his creator exemplifies only the norm of righteousness implanted in him as the stable form of a square. However, it was not only Solomon's masons but also those of Hiram that hewed the stones because there were teachers of the holy Church from both groups.
In fact there were some from both groups so eminent that they were rightly teachers even of the eminent teachers and, as it were, by squaring them, prepared them to erect the building of the house of the Lord. For not only Jeremiah and Isaiah and the other prophets of the circumcision but also blessed Job with his sons who were of the gentiles, afforded teachers of the succeeding age the greatest example of lifestyle or patience, and the greatest proclamations of salutary teaching so that they gave up vain words, acts and thoughts and were deemed worthy and competent to bear the responsibility of the holy Church.
[ISS] 4.3 (5: 18) Furthermore the men of Biblos prepared wood and stones to build the house. Biblos is a city in Phoenicia which Ezekiel mentions saying, Your skilled men, Vre, were your pilots. The elders of Biblos and its skilled for which (city) in Hebrew is written Gocf. Greg., Horn. in Ezech. PL 76:lWC
Ezk2793-9
BEDE: ON THE TEMPLE
Gobel or Gebal which means 'defining' or 'limiting'.6 This word is very appropriate to those who prepare people's hearts for the spiritual edifice which is built of the virtues of the soul. For they are only equal to the task of teaching their hearers faith and the works of righteousness when they themselves have first been instructed by the Sacred Page and thoroughly learnt from a clear definition of the truth what belief one must hold, and on what path of virtue one must walk. For he who does not know what is definitely catholic faith is wasting his time assuming the office of teacher, and those who try to teach others the norm which they themselves have not learned, do not build a sanctuary for the Lord but ruin for themselves.
4.4
In building the house of the Lord, first of all the wood and stones must be hewn from the mountain because those whom we seek to train in the true faith we must first teach to renounce the devil and escape, by being reborn, from the fate of the first transgression in which they were born. Then we have to look for large, precious stones and lay them in the foundation of the temple, so that after they have renounced their former way of life, we may remember in all things to watch over their life and conduct, and set before our hearers for imitation those whom we know to cling in a special way by the virtue of humility to the Lord, people whom we see persevering unflinchingly with invincible constancy of spirit like squared stones, in a certain sense, and whom by their merit and repute we have found to be large and precious stones. But after the foundation which is made up of stones of such quality and size, the house must be built with wood and stones very carefully dressed and laid in the proper arrangement, (wood and stones) which had once been removed from their original position or roots, because, after the first rudiments of the faith and after the foundations of humility have been laid in us after the example of men of high virtue, there remains to continue upwards the wall of good works, superimposing on each other, as it were, courses of stones by the life we lead and by advancing from virtue to ~ i r t u e . ~ Or at all events the large precious square stones are, as I said above, the first masters of the churches who heard the word of salvation from the Lord himself. The courses of stones or [I561 timber laid upon them were the priests and teachers who followed, cf. Jer.. Nom. Hebr: CCSL 72:119,20; Sit. PL 23:884B cf. Ps 83:8