Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
It would be a long task to go through all the prophetic and legal sayings that are spoken in riddles, taking them up one by one. For practically the whole of Scripture speaks its oracles in this fashion. It suffices, I think, for one who has acquired understanding, that a few examples be set forth for a demonstration of the point before us. To begin with, the concealment is confessed by the account current among the Hebrews concerning the ancient temple with its seven enclosures, and by the arrangement of the ankle-length robe, which through the various symbols relating to visible things riddles the covenant that reaches from heaven down to earth. The veil and the curtain were worked in blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen, and this riddled the fact that the nature of the elements contains the revelation of God: for purple comes from water, linen from earth, blue resembles air in being dark, and scarlet resembles fire.
Between the veil and the curtain, where it was permitted for the priests to enter, there stood the altar of incense, a symbol of the earth set in the middle of this world, from which the exhalations rise. And that place itself was in the middle both of the space within the inner veil, where alone the high priest was permitted to enter on appointed days, and of the outer hanging surrounding it that was open to all Hebrews; wherefore they say it is the very midpoint of heaven and earth. Others say it is a symbol of the intelligible world and the sensible world. The veil, then, was stretched as a barrier against lay unbelief before the five pillars, shutting out those in the outer court. It is for this reason, in the most mystical way, that the five loaves are broken by the Savior and multiplied for the crowd of hearers. For the multitude clings to sensible things as though these alone existed. "Look about you carefully," says Plato, "lest any of the uninitiated overhear." These are they who suppose that nothing exists but what they can grip firmly with both hands, and who do not admit actions and comings-to-be and everything invisible as part of reality; such are those who cling to the fivefold company of the senses alone. But the apprehension of God is inaccessible to hearing and to things of that kindred order.
From this it is said that the Son is the face of the Father, having become flesh-bearing through the fivefold senses, the Word who is the announcer of the Father's own peculiar nature. "But if we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." "We walk by faith, not by sight," says the noble apostle. Within the veil, then, the priestly ministry is hidden, and it shuts off those who labor in it, far removed from those outside. Again, the curtain marking the passage into the holy of holies had four pillars there, a token of the sacred tetrad of the old covenants, and moreover the mystic four-lettered name, which was worn by those alone for whom the inner shrine was accessible. It is spoken as Iaoue, which is translated "He who is and who shall be." And indeed, even among the Greeks, the word "theos" contains a tetrad of letters. Into the intelligible world the Lord alone enters, having become high priest, slipping through the sufferings into the knowledge of the ineffable, withdrawing beyond every name that is made known by speech. Moreover, positioned south of that incense-altar, stood the lampstand, and by it are signified the motions of the seven light-bearers, which make their circuits toward the south. For three branches grow out on either side of the lampstand, and upon them the lamps, since the sun too, like the lampstand, is set in the middle of the other planets, and by a certain divine music imparts its light both to those above it and to those below it.
But the golden lampstand holds yet another riddle of the sign of Christ, not by its shape alone, but also by its casting light in many ways and many parts upon those who believe in him and hope and see through the ministry of the first-created beings. The Lord's seven eyes, it is said, are those same seven spirits resting upon the rod that flowers out of Jesse's root. To the north of the altar of incense the table had its place, on which was the setting-out of the loaves, because the northern spirits are the most nourishing. These might be certain abodes gathered into one body and one assembly of churches breathing together. What is recorded concerning the holy ark signifies the things of the intelligible world, hidden away and shut off from the many. And indeed those golden images, each of them six-winged, whether they signify the two Bears, as some would have it, or, what is more likely, the two hemispheres, while the very name Cherubim is meant to denote "abundant knowledge." Together the pair carries twelve wings between them, and through the zodiacal circle and the time that moves along it they signify the sensible world.
Concerning these things, I think, tragedy too speaks in a naturalistic vein: "Untiring time, full with its ever-flowing stream, goes its way, itself begetting itself, and the twin Bears, with the swift-wandering beatings of their wings, keep watch over the Atlantean pole." Atlas, the pole that suffers nothing, can indeed be the unwandering sphere, but perhaps it is better understood as the unmoved age. But I think it better that the ark, called from the Hebrew name thebotha, signifies something else. It is interpreted as "one instead of one, of all places." Whether then the ogdoad and the intelligible world, or the God who is all-encompassing, formless and invisible, is signified, let this be set aside to speak of for now; only it signifies the rest that comes with the glorifying spirits, which the Cherubim riddle. For never would he who counseled that not even a graven image be made himself have fashioned an image of the holy things, nor is there in truth any composite and sensible living creature so situated in heaven; rather it is a symbol: the face stands for the rational soul, the wings for the lofty services and activities of the powers stationed both to the right side and to the left, and the voice for the grateful glory rendered in unceasing contemplation.
It suffices to have carried the mystical interpretation this far. As for the ankle-length robe of the high priest, it is a symbol of the sensible world: of the seven planets, the five stones and the two carbuncles stand for Kronos and Selene; for the one is southern, moist, earthy, and heavy, while the other is airy — wherefore Artemis is called by some "cutter of the air," the air itself being dark. He describes those set over the planets, who cooperate by divine providence in the coming-to-be of things here below, as fittingly established on the breast and shoulders, through whom is the activity that governs generation, the first heptad; and the breast is the dwelling-place of the heart and soul. And in another way the varied stones might be the manifold modes of salvation, some established among those raised higher, others among those set lower, of the whole body that is being saved. And the three hundred and sixty bells hanging from the robe are the space of a year, "the acceptable year of the Lord," proclaiming and announcing beforehand the greatest manifestation of the Savior. And also the golden mitre, raised aloft, signifies the kingly authority of the Lord, since the Savior is the head of the church.
The mitre placed above the head, then, is a sign of the most governing rule; besides, we have heard, as has been said, that the head of Christ is God, and the head of Christ is also the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover the breastplate is composed both of the ephod, which is a symbol of activity, and of the oracle (by which the Word himself is riddled), with which it is joined and of which it is the image; it is the image of heaven, which came to be through the Word, subordinate to the head of all things, Christ, and moved in the same manner and in accordance with the same laws as he. The luminous emerald stones on the ephod, then, signify the sun and the moon, the co-workers of nature. And the shoulder, I think, is the starting-point of the arm/hand. The twelve stones arranged in four rows on the breast trace out for us the zodiacal circle according to the four turnings of the year. Besides, it was fitting that the law and the prophets be subordinate to the Lord's head, through which the righteous are made known under each of the two covenants; for we should be right to say that the apostles were prophets and righteous ones at once, since one and the same Holy Spirit works through all. And just as the Lord stands over the whole cosmos — or better, beyond even the intelligible world — so likewise the name engraved on the golden plate was judged worthy of standing above every rule and authority, inscribed on account both of the written commandments and of his sensible presence. It bears the name of God because, as the Son gazes upon the Father's goodness, so he acts, called God the Savior, the first principle of all things, molded as an image out of the unseen God, prior to and before all ages, and he has pressed his form upon everything that afterward came to exist.
And indeed the oracle signifies the prophecy that cries out through the Word and proclaims, and also the judgment yet to arrive, for it is one and the same Word who both prophesies and judges, discerning every matter at once. And they say that the vestment, the ankle-length robe, prophesies the dispensation according to the flesh, through which he was seen more directly present in the world. It is for this reason that the high priest, taking off the sanctified tunic (for the world, and the creation within the world, has been sanctified by him who assented that the things coming to be were good), washes and puts on the other tunic, holy of holy as it were, that which accompanies him into the inner shrine — signifying, as it seems to me, the Levite and gnostic man, as the ruler, so to speak, of the other priests, while those others are washed with water and clothed with faith alone and await their own proper abode; but he himself, having distinguished the intelligible things from the sensible, hastens by an ascent above the other priests toward the passage into the intelligible world, washed clean of the things here no longer with water, as he was formerly purified when reckoned into the Levitical tribe, but now already by the gnostic word.
Being then pure in his whole heart, and having set his conduct thoroughly right even to the highest degree, growing beyond the priest to something greater, purified without artifice both in word and in life, having put on over himself the radiance of glory, having received the unspeakable inheritance of that spiritual and perfected human — things no eye has beheld, no ear caught, and no human heart ever conceived — and having now become both son and friend, he is filled, face to face, with contemplation that cannot be sated. Yet nothing compares to hearing from the Word directly, who through Scripture supplies still more toward understanding. For thus he speaks: "And he shall strip off the linen garment he had worn on entering the holy place, and shall set it down there. And he shall wash his body with water in a holy place, and shall put on his robe." In one sense, I think, the Lord takes off and puts on as he descends into sense-perception; in another sense he who believes through him takes off and puts on over himself — as the apostle too has signified — the sanctified robe. Hence, after the image of the Lord, the high priests used to be chosen from the sanctified tribe, the most approved among them, and those elect for kingship and for prophecy were anointed.
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