Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, says he, that you make all things according to the pattern showed to you in the mount.
Read Chapter 8
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Who serve unto The priesthood of the law and its functions were a kind of an example, and shadow of what is done by Christ in his Church militant , of which the tabernacle was a pattern. (Challoner)
Here we must apply our minds attentively, and consider the Apostolic wisdom; for again he shows the difference of the Priesthood. Who (he says) serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things.
What are the heavenly things he speaks of here? The spiritual things. For although they are done on earth, yet nevertheless they are worthy of the Heavens. For when our Lord Jesus Christ lies slain [as a sacrifice], when the Spirit is with us, when He who sits on the right hand of the Father is here, when sons are made by the Washing, when they are fellow citizens of those in Heaven, when we have a country, and a city, and citizenship there, when we are strangers to things here, how can all these be other than heavenly things? But what! Are not our Hymns heavenly? Do not we also who are below utter in concert with them the same things which the divine choirs of bodiless powers sing above? Is not the altar also heavenly? How? It has nothing carnal, all spiritual things become the offerings...
377. – Having proved the excellence of Christ’s priesthood over that of the Levitical on the part of the person, the Apostle now proves the same on the part of the priesthood itself. In regard to this he does two things: first, he shows in a general way that Christ’s priesthood is more excellent than that of the Old Law; secondly, in detail (chap. 9). The first is divided into two parts: first, he states his thesis; secondly, he explains it (v. 3). In regard to the first he does two things: first, he states the way in which he will present his teaching; secondly, he prefaces what he means to say (v. 1b).
378. – He says, therefore: Now the point in what we are saying is this [recapitulation]. A recapitulation is a brief synthesis containing many things. The word comes from ‘caput’ or ‘head,’ because, just as in the head are virtually and, as it were, summarily, contained all the things which are in the body, is in a recapitulation everything that has been said.
379. – Then (v. 1b)...
