Bede : Just as the entrance to the inner sanctuary by which one reached the ark of the Lord and the cherubim signifies the entrance to the kingdom of heaven whereby we hope and desire to be introduced to the vision of our Creator and the heavenly citizens, so the entrance into the temple shows in type the beginnings of our life oriented on God when we enter the church of this present time. The latter entrance denotes our entry into the faith, the former our entry into vision. Hence the posts of this entrance were foursquare because of the four books of the holy gospel by whose teaching we are instructed in the true faith, or because of the four cardinal virtues of prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice, on whose most firm foundation, as it were, every edifice of good actions rests; prudence, by which we learn what we ought to do and how we ought to live; fortitude, through which we carry out what we have learned must be done; and the prophet briefly sums up these virtues in one verse, saying, "The Lord is my light and my salvation"; light, that is, to teach us the things we ought to do, salvation to strengthen us to do them; temperance by which we have discretion so as not to find ourselves giving more or less than the right amount of attention to prudence or fortitude; and since anyone who exercises prudence, fortitude and temperance will be proved beyond dispute to be just, the fourth virtue that follows after prudence, fortitude and temperance is justice. — Of the Temple of Solomon 1.16.4