And the capitals that were upon the top of the pillars were of lily work in the porch, four cubits.
All Commentaries on 1 Kings 7:19 Go To 1 Kings 7
Bede
AD 735
What else can the lilies mean but the glory of the heavenly homeland and the beauty of immortality fragrant with the flowers of paradise? What else can the four cubits mean but the word of the gospel, which promises us entry into eternal happiness and shows us the road by which we may reach it? Therefore, when holy teachers show us the promised threshold of the heavenly kingdom in the four books of the holy gospel, it is as if the tops of the pillars display the lily work of four cubits that is on them. Taking this text literally, it should be noted that when the lily work on the capitals is recorded as having been of four cubits and the words “in height” or “in width” are not added, it is, of course, left to the reader’s judgment whether this ought to be understood as referring to height or to width. It is agreed beyond the slightest doubt that a pillar that a rope of twelve cubits spanned would be four cubits thick. For the circumference of every circle is three times the length of its diameter. Finally because the bronze sea was ten cubits in diameter, as we read in what follows, it was thirty cubits in circumference. But because the lily work is said to have been four cubits, whether this means in width or height, at all events, the meaning of the figure is clear, because it is only through the gospel that the voice most ardently longed for has sounded: “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
