Chapter XLII.—The bells on the priest’s robe were a figure of the apostles.
“Moreover, the prescription that twelve bells298 be attached to the [robe] of the high
priest, which hung down to the feet, was a symbol of the twelve apostles, who depend on
the power of Christ, the eternal Priest; and through their voice it is that all the earth has
been filled with the glory and grace of God and of His Christ. Wherefore David also says:
‘Their sound has gone forth into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.’299
And Isaiah speaks as if he were personating the apostles, when they say to Christ that they
believe not in their own report, but in the power of Him who sent them. And so he says:
‘Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We have
preached before Him as if [He were] a child, as if a root in a dry ground.’300 (And what
follows in order of the prophecy already quoted.301) But when the passage speaks as from
the lips of many, ‘We have preached before Him,’ and adds, ‘as if a child,’ it signifies that
the wicked shall become subject to Him, and shall obey His command, and that all shall
become as one child. Such a thing as you may witness in the body: although the members
are enumerated as many, all are called one, and are a body. For, indeed, a commonwealth
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and a church,302 though many individuals in number, are in fact as one, called and addressed
by one appellation. And in short, sirs,” said I, “by enumerating all the other appointments
of Moses, I can demonstrate that they were types, and symbols, and declarations of those
things which would happen to Christ, of those who it was foreknown were to believe in
Him, and of those things which would also be done by Christ Himself. But since what I have
now enumerated appears to me to be sufficient, I revert again to the order of the discourse.303
298 Ex. xxviii. 33 gives no definite number of bells. Otto presumes Justin to have confounded the bells and
gems, which were twelve in number.
299 Ps. xix. 4.
300 Isa. liii. 1, 2.
301 Chap. xiii.
302 ἐκκλησία Lat. vers. has conventus.
303 Literally, “to the discourse in order.”
Chapter XLII.—The bells on the priest’s robe were a figure of the apostles.
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Chapter XLII.—The bells on the priest’s robe were a figure of the apost…