2. The New Covenant and the Heavenly Sanctuary
BEDE: ON THE TEMPLE
tabemaculo to explain why Bede's exposition extends to all the circumstantial details of time, place, objects, deeds and words contained in the description of the Tabernacle in Exodus. Similarly, immediately after the introduction to De Templo, Bede explains he will be discussing all the details of the Temple's construction contained in the biblical account of Solomon's Temple 'for these matters too are pregnant with scriptural mysteries according to the testimony of the Apostle: "All these things happened to them (in the Old Testament) by way of example, and they were recorded in writing to be a lesson for us'".
2. The New Covenant and the Heavenly Sanctuary While the magnificent Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, filled with the glory of the Lord, is a powerful image of Isaiah's experience of the presence of God (Is 6:1-6), the prophet was also aware that the Creator of heaven and earth could not be circumscribed (Is 66:1, cf. Ps 105) and his words were taken up in the New Testament to show that God who made the world 'dwells not in temples made with (human) hands' (Ac 4:8-9; 17:24; Jn 4:21-24). The Epistle to the Hebrews gives an extended exegesis on the replacement of the entire Old Covenant by the New which greatly influenced patristic expositions of the Tabernacle and Temple. The 'former Tabernacle'
(including, by extension, the Temple) is revealed to have been but an earthly shadow or copy of the heavenly reality shown to Moses
(Heb 8:5,9; lO:l), its priesthood and blood sacrifices now superseded by Christ's priestly offering of himself which has enabled him to pass through the veil of the Holy of Holies, not into the inner sanctuary rcscrved for the High Priest in the earthly Tabernacle, but into the heavenly sanctuary 'not made with hands' which is the abode of God
(Heb 9:ll-12,24).
A roll-call of honour reviews Old Testament history and heroes, including Abraham and other faithful patriarchs from even before the Mosaic Law, who desired not simply a homeland but a city 'whose builder and maker is God' (Heb 1l:lO); these are the spiritual ancestors of all Christians (cf. Ga 35-29). As in the prophetic visions of the Temple in Isaiah, Ezekiel, the psalms and the Apocalypse, the image of the heavenly sanctuary here broadens and merges with that of the walled citadel of the heavenly Jerusalem to which all the faithful will eventually be drawn (Heb 12:22). For the faithful there can