It is understood, secondly, what are the parts of the Pontiffs when they are interrogated about articles of faith and controverted heads. They ought to hear from the Lord, from whom [is] all doctrine and truth; to supplicate Him; to take up the sacred Ephod and breastplate, on which are the twelve Apostles’ names — that is, to weigh the Apostolic writings and traditions; to employ the gems of the Christian people, that is, the Bishops and Doctors; and to labor with the utmost zeal, so that, [being themselves] learned and illumined, they may teach and illumine others. “Let there be set,” says Origen, “upon the rational a MANIFESTATION, so that [the priest] may be able to answer everyone demanding of him a reason concerning faith and truth. And there is placed above it also TRUTH, so that he build not up those [things] which he can devise by his own wit, but those [things] which truth holds, and [so that] he never depart from truth.” The same Origen (homily 6 on Leviticus): “The Logion is a token of wisdom, because wisdom consists in reason.” But he shows what the wisdom of this [rational] and the virtue of the reason is: for he sets upon the rational [both] manifestation and truth. Then, [he shows] what wisdom and integrity [ought to be] in all their words and deeds; what [is] the doctrine and perfection of a sincere breast; what [is] the imitation of good examples; what zeal and ardor for teaching — or illumining and perfecting — others. “On the rational,” says St. Gregory (Pastoral [Rule] 2, ch. 2; bk. 1, epist. 24), let [the high priest] vigilantly join—
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—[let the high priest vigilantly] be joined [to it], so that the twelve names of the Patriarchs be inscribed. For to bear the enrolled Fathers always on the breast is to think without intermission on the life of the ancients. For then the Priest walks irreproachably, when he gazes unceasingly upon the examples of the preceding Fathers, [and] when without cease he considers the footsteps of the saints. That is: for the Priest to bear “the judgment of the sons of Israel” on his breast, before the sight of the Lord, is to discuss the causes of [his] subjects with regard for the intention of the internal Judge alone, so that nothing of human [partiality] mix itself into him, in that which — being set in the stead of the divine [Judge] — he dispenses.
St. Jerome, on Hosea 2: “This we understand: that in the breast and heart of the Pontiff there ought to be ἀλήθεια καὶ φωτισμοί [alētheia kai phōtismoi, ‘truth and illuminations’] — that is, truth and doctrine — so that he not only know the right faith, but also can utter with his mouth what he has known.” Which also the Apostle Paul writes to Titus, teaching of what sort a Bishop-to-be-ordained should be: “For a Bishop must be without crime, as the dispenser of GOD: not proud, not wrathful, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but hospitable, kind, sober, just, holy, continent, embracing that faithful word which is according to sound doctrine: that he may be able to exhort in sound doctrine, and to convince those who contradict” [Titus 1:7–9]. And [Jerome], epistle 128: “Beautifully, however, is this very [piece] which is in the middle called rationale [‘reason’]. For all things are full of reason; and earthly things cling to the heavenly — nay, the reason of earthly things, and of the seasons, of heat and cold, and the twofold temperateness between both, descends from the course and reason of the heavens. Whence also the rational is bound more tightly to the Ephod. Furthermore, [as to] what is said — [that] in the rational itself there is δήλωσις [dēlōsis, ‘manifestation’] and ἀλήθεια [truth], that is, truth, or manifestation and doctrine — this very [thing] signifies that in GOD’s reason there is never a lie, but that truth itself is shown to men by many signs and arguments, and comes even to mortals. Whence it came about that we might know the reason of the sun, and of the moon, and of the year, and of the months, and of the times, and of the hours; also the serenity of storms, and of the winds, and of all things — receiving the wisdom implanted by GOD, and Himself, the inhabitant and teacher of His dwelling, demonstrating to us the science of its fabric [construction].” And afterward:
“The rational is twofold — open and hidden, simple and mystical — having twelve stones in itself, and four rows; which four I think to be the virtues: prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance, which cling to one another mutually; and while they are mixed together, they make up the number twelve — or the four living-creatures which in the Apocalypse are described [as] full of eyes, and, radiant with the Lord’s light, illuminate the world. In one [row there are] four, and in [each of] the four the individual [virtues]; whence also δήλωσις καὶ ἀλήθεια [dēlōsis kai alētheia], that is, manifestation (or doctrine) and truth, is on the breast of the Priest. Since, when one has clothed him with the manifold garment, it follows that he utter with speech the truth which he retains in his heart; and on that account, in the rational there is truth, that is, knowledge — that he may know what things are to be taught; and manifestation, and doctrine — that he may be able to instruct others [in] what he has conceived in his mind. Where are those who say that innocence [alone] can suffice for a Priest? The Old law agrees with the New: the same [teaches] Moses, [as] the Apostle. That one [Moses] adorns the Priest’s knowledge in [his] garments; this one [Paul] instructs Timothy and Titus in disciplines.” Philo, book On the Judge: “What in life is as precious as truth? — which the wise seer [Moses] inscribed in a most sacred place, on that part of the Pontifical garment where is the principal power of the soul, that through this ornament he might make the Priest more august. But to truth he joined a kindred virtue, which he calls declaration, that they might be—
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—as it were images of speech, which is either conceived in the mind, or also uttered. For for this [truth] there is need of declaration, through which whatever lies hidden in the mind may be opened to others: just as [there is need] of truth for that other [end], the perfection of life and of the actions by which one goes to happiness.” Book 3 On Moses: “The artificer willed the rational to be four-cornered [square], beautifully intimating that the reason both of nature and of man ought to be unshaken and solid; wherefore he attributed to it the two aforesaid virtues, revelation and truth. For the reason of nature is true, and revelatory of all things; and that [image] which is in the wise man — an image of that other [reason] — ought to be most true, and to conceal nothing out of envy, [of anything] which is indeed useful to be known. Nay, both the speech and the reason of each one of us are to be adorned with these two proper virtues: speech by declaration, [inner] reason by truth. For it befits the mind to admit no lie, and speech to utter and declare truth readily.” Book 2 On Monarchy: “A twofold text varies [distinguishes] the rational, of which the one is called clarity, the other truth. By this [truth] it is intimated that it is not lawful for any lie to ascend to heaven, [and] that the whole [breed of lies] is thence relegated to earthly places, and has migrated into the souls of wicked men. But by clarity our affairs grow clear by the heavenly natures, [which are] otherwise going to be in obscurity.”
For it is plain that, unless the sun illumine, so many qualities of bodies would not be conspicuous, nor so many kinds of heavens and forms, nor the distinctions of days, nights, months, and years; and, in general — who distinguished the times, if not the courses and recurrences of the sun, the moon, and the other stars, [courses] more harmonious than that they could be recounted by human eloquence? Whence [comes] the nature of numbers, if not from the observation of the just-named parts of time? Who, in so great a breadth and depth of the sea, opened the ways for sailors, if not the reckoning of the stars? Wise men also reported into letters innumerable other [things] discerned through their knowledge [of the heavens]: as the storms and calms of the air, the favorable and malign yields of crops, remiss and most burning heats, harsh or spring-like winters, droughts and rains, the fecundity of animals and plants, or, conversely, sterility, and other [things] of that kind. For of all earthly things the signs are marked in heaven.
Nay indeed, Cyril also (bk. 11 On Adoration), when he had understood holy men by the stones set in the rational, goes on to say [that] their names [were] placed there as a figure of CHRIST, who, he says, dwells together with the holy men: “For behold,” he says, “I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age.” But the Truth and Manifestation is CHRIST: for in Him we have known the Father, and He manifested to us His good will — both perfect and well-pleasing — according to the scriptures; for Christ says: “Now I call you not servants; you are my friends, because all [things] which I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you.” He, [that] Emmanuel, is Truth also by another reason: because He alone is [Truth] according to nature, and, as GOD from GOD, alone Holy, alone Lord; but the creature [is such] by participation and imitation — that is, in whatever [manner] he is understood to be. Christ, therefore, is present with holy men, when He is understood as if in manifestation and truth.
And to this looks — not that [wish] of Momus, who wished the breasts of men [to be] windowed; but the wish of Aelian, who, in the place cited before, preferred that truth be within the breast of the Egyptian Judge, rather than that the image [of Truth] should hang before it. “The judges,” he says (bk. 15 [read 14] Varia Historia), “among the Egyptians were once the same [men] who were also the Priests. Among these, the chief in rank was the greatest—
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—[the] greatest in age [eldest], and had the right of deciding over all. It behooved him to be the most just and most sincere of all men, who wore around his neck an image made of a sapphire gem, which was called Truth. But I, for my part, would prefer [that] a judge carry about truth, not [so much] sculpted or expressed in a stone, as [rather] have [it] implanted and fixed in [his] soul and mind. Thus he [Aelian]. Yet this [gem] was the figure and memorial of this thing [truth]. But [here is] that ridiculous [claim] which a certain Lutheran of Brunswick, Hermann Nicephorus, in [his] disputation On Dialectical Distribution (num. 40), seriously affirms: [that] by divine authority the two parts of Logic — Invention and Judgment — are proved, because the former is signified by Urim, the latter by Thummim.