[Footnote 200: Exodus XX, 26.]
[Footnote 201: Psalm li (Miserere mei), 19.]
[Footnote 202: Exodus XX, 25.]
[Footnote 203: Psalm cxviii (Confitemini), 27.]
[Footnote 204: III Kings vi. 22.]
[Footnote 205: Exodus xx 26.]
[Footnote 206: This prayer, which immediately precedes the Commemoration of the Dead, runs thus: Supplices Te rogamus, omnipotens Deus, jube hoc perferri per manus Sancti Angeli Tui, in conspectu Divinae Majestatis Tuae: ut quotquot ex hac Altaris participatione sacrosanctum Filii Tui Corpus et Sanguinem sumpserimus, omni benedictione caelesti et gratia repleamur. Per.]
[Footnote 207: Psalm lxxxiv (Quam dilecta), 4.]
4. Secondly, it also signifieth the Spiritual Church: and its four horns teach how she hath been extended into the four quarters of the world. Thirdly, it signifieth Christ, without whom no gift is offered acceptable to the Father. Whence also the Church addresseth her prayers to the Father through Christ alone. Fourthly, it signifieth the body of Christ, as shall be explained in the fifth book. Fifthly, it signifieth the table at which Christ did feast with His disciples.
5. It is written in Exodus, that in the Ark of the Testament or of the Testimony the witness was laid up: [Footnote 208] that is, the tables on which the law was written: and it is said that the Testimony was there laid up, because it was a bearing witness that the law imprinted on our hearts by nature God had reimprinted by writing. Also, there was laid up the golden pot full of manna, for a testimony that He had given the children of Israel bread from heaven. And the rod of Aaron, for a testimony that all power is from God. And the second tables of the law, in testimony of the covenant in which they had said, 'All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.' [Footnote 209] And on these accounts it is called the Ark of the Testimony or Testament; and also the tabernacle of the testimony thence deriveth its title. But over the ark was made a mercy seat: of which we shall speak in the proeme of the fourth book. In imitation whereof some churches have over the altar an ark or tabernacle, in which the body of the Lord and relics are preserved. The Lord also commanded that a candlestick should be made of beaten pure gold. It is written in the third book of Kings, that in the Ark of the Covenant was nothing else than the two tables of stone which Moses put therein in Horeb: when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel in the day that they came out of the land of Egypt.
[Footnote 208: Exodus xxv, 16.]
[Footnote 209: Exodus xix, 8.]
6. And note that in the time of S. Silvester, Pope, [Footnote 210] Constantine the Emperor built the Lateran church, in which he placed the Ark of the Testament, which the Emperor Titus had brought from Jerusalem, and the golden candlestick with his seven branches. In which ark are these things: the rings and the staves of gold: the tables of the testimony: the rod of Aaron: manna: barley loaves: the golden pot: the seamless garment: the reed: a garment of S. John Baptist, and the scissors with which the hair of S. John the Evangelist was shorn.
[Footnote 210: It is very remarkable that no notice whatever is taken of these relics by Ciampini in his very minute description of the Lateran Basilica: although in his account both of this, and of all the other Basilican churches built by Constantine, he copies verbatim the list of the donations of the Emperor which is given in the life of Pope S. Sylvester, compiled by an unknown librarian of the Vatican. It is clear that either Durandus was misinformed, or that the present passage is corrupt. Again, it is not likely that the vest of S. John Baptist, or the scissors of S. John Evangelist would have been kept in the ark besides its proper contents. Yet Durandus had obviously some facts to go upon, since the Lateran Church, having been originally dedicated to the Saviour, was now under the Invocation of the two SS. John; and the sufferings of both these saints were depicted in a very ancient mosaic, those of the Evangelist having over them the following inscription, which we give as describing a Confession of this Martyr in will, now little known.
Martyrii calicem bibit hic Athleta Johannes
Principium Verbi cernere qui meruit.
Verberat hunc fuste Proconsul, forfice tondet,
Quem fervens oleum laedere non valuit.
Conditus hic oleum, dolium, cruor, atque capilli,
Quae consecrantur libera Roma tibi.
To return, we may be satisfied that these Jewish memorials did not exist, since Ciampini, while composing his account, consulted the former writers upon the Lateran Basilica; viz. the poet Prudentius, an unedited MS. of Panvinius, Severanus De Septem Urbis Ecclesiis, and the work of Caesar Cardinal Rasponus.]