I HEARD, when someone was saying, [that] the interval between the ark and the multitude [was] prescribed so great [only] for this [reason] — that it is the space which some father of a family, even an elderly one, could conveniently complete, together with [his] wife and children, going on the sabbath day to the Lord’s tabernacle, and into his [own]—
(col. 401)
—going on the sabbath day to the Lord’s tabernacle, and returning into his own — whether tabernacle or home. For here [Joshua] took [into account], as [was] said above (quest. 5), a certain reckoning — had in that precept — of the journey which [it] was lawful to make on the sabbath. But there are several other causes; and because I once cast [them] into the booklet cited before, On the Joshuan priests, and cannot devise better ones than they [are], it will now be not inopportune to take [them] thence in nearly as many words. For thus I was writing, ch. 3 num. 39:
“But why did the Lord command two thousand cubits to be interposed between those [priests] going before and the laity following? — ‘that you may be able to see afar off,’ they say, ‘and to know by what way you enter.’ But in an army of whatever size, if — [when] all are foremost, one and another close by, and (as it is said) at an equal pace — they follow, [then] necessarily all arrive at the same place. What, then, forbade them to walk right behind the priests? Why must they keep off from those going before by so great an interval? The cause, assuredly, [is] neither none, nor [only] one. THE FIRST: how far we, poor manikins and sinners, are removed from the perfection and excellence of Christ the Lord — this the Lord himself willed to signify. THE SECOND: of how great dignity the priestly office is. Since the priests themselves carry and handle those things from which all the rest — however lustrated and sanctified — must be shut off so far, [they] rightly say: What ought we to do, [we who are] set far and wide from the common crowd? THE THIRD: lest the laity ever in any way thrust themselves into priestly functions, but let each persist in the vocation in which he was called. ‘Beware, O princes, and any of the people, lest you approach the ark.’ THE FOURTH: that the honour [paid] to the ark itself, and to the priests its bearers, might be greater from the whole people; for this cause almost all were of old removed far from Mount Sinai — as [was] warned here by Vatablus, not a little more truly than what he adds, [namely] that this distance was so that, on the sabbath, before the ark, there might be, according to the reckoning, an open road, unimpeded by tents. THE FIFTH AND LAST: that they might see afar off the road by which [there was] to be entering — not simply see [it], but see [it] with admiration, with exultation of minds, with proclaiming of the divine majesty. For when [Joshua] was at the Jordan, the ark advanced through it by the space of two thousand cubits, so that all might see, by a huge miracle, how the water fled from the priestly feet, the channel dried up, [and] a way was paved through the midst of the waves. And [see] num. 41.”
And these [are] the causes why the priests ran ahead of the multitude by so many cubits. But why the Lord willed this to be done by that fixed number of two thousand cubits, or thereabouts, the ancient Gazan writer Procopius refers to two causes. ONE is: that there might be a signifying of those two periods which occur in those who are dipped in baptism — namely, of the preceding catechesis, and of the following chrisis [anointing], by which (and [it is] to be noted against the Novators) they are anointed against every adverse force, and the water is made effective for them. THE OTHER: that there might likewise be a signifying of the two thousand years which [there] were from the typical to the true Joshua [Jesus]. For he [Christ], by the baptism of the true Jordan, was to save the people, and lead [them] into the promised seats of the heavens, where [is] everlasting rest and inheritance. Another [reason] too may be added: [that] that time was to be circumscribed by two thousand years — [the time] in which the sacred baptism of this Jordan, and the other sacraments, flourish — during which we see the ark only from afar, and the mysteries which are hidden in it (in an enigma, I say, and as if through a mirror): the most holy humanity of CHRIST the Lord, which has now preceded [us] by one thousand five hundred and ninety-five years, and the divinity latent in it. Not that I am moved by the Talmudic fiction of Elias about the Hexachiliastic [six-thousand-year] duration of this world—
(col. 402)
—which is so greatly valued by our sectaries; but because [one] may praise great authorities of this opinion — provided, however, it be taken not by a most definite and most minute calculation of years. For of the last day, or hour, of the [future] judgment no one knows — neither the Angels in heaven, nor the Son (by natural knowledge, that is) — except the Father. And [there] could be brought in here what was said about the particle “about” or “as if” [in] quest. 6 — especially if it were reckoned to be added by way of doubting.