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Chapter XLII.—The bells on the priest’s robe were a figure of the apostles.

“Moreover, the prescription that twelve bells 2062 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.’ 2063 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.’ 2064 (And what follows in order of the prophecy already quoted. 2065 ) 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 and a church, 2066 though many individuals in number, p. 216 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. 2067

Footnotes

Ex. xxviii. 33 gives no definite number of bells. Otto presumes Justin to have confounded the bells and gems, which were twelve in number.

Ps. xix. 4.

Isa. 53:1, 2.

Chap. xiii.

ἐκκλησία Lat. vers. has conventus.

Literally, “to the discourse in order.”