A twofold manner can be regarded in the carrying of that ark. The first. Since [it] is certain [that] it was carried by poles [vectes], [it] can be asked whether those [poles] were on the sides of [its] length or of [its] breadth? But [in] quest. 14, against Abulensis, [it] was already answered above [that] they were on the sides of the length. The other manner: whether those [priests] carried the ark so that one went before and the other followed; or whether — [be there] two, or more — they were at the sides of the ark? This latter [view] Theodoret is said to assert, in the place cited in the preceding question — namely, [so] that the ark hung in the middle of them, and there was no one before it, and another behind; and this, lest anyone turn a back and buttocks toward the ark. But — first — they would not then have carried the ark on [their] shoulders, contrary to the most usual custom (most attested by the scriptures, Num. 7 v. 5, [and] 1 Chron. 15 v. 15, and by all the pictures) — unless we imagine [that] the same priests, standing at the ark like Cherubim, looked at one another mutually, and advanced, not so that [their] face looked [forward], but so that [their] sides [did] — the left of the one, indeed, [and] the right of the other; and [that] each always advanced the left foot first, the other the right; and thus made [their] journey not in the manner of men, but of wheels. Secondly, [they] would not have used poles either — if indeed they proceeded straight, and [with] the face [toward] where [it] tended — but ropes; otherwise the ark would not have hung level between them. Thirdly. That reasoning of honour and courtesy — lest one’s back be turned toward some greater [personage] — is indeed today customary among the Turks, and among some few of our courtiers begins [to be observed] when they depart from the presence of princes; but that [it] was of old among the Israelites, by what argument [is it proved]? And not even among those [Turks], most ambitious and most superstitious, is [it] observed in all places and times — nor can [it be]. For the guards, horsemen, [and] Janissaries who go before the Tyrant of the Turks — do they not look at him with their backs [turned]? Fourthly. So many lords who had standard-bearers, litter-carriers, fore-walkers [anteambulones], and so great a retinue before them of old (as I was also saying above, quest. 15) — did they not follow their backs? [Did] not also, not long ago, among the Peruvian nation, its Kings? Fifthly. The ark was wont at other times to be carried in the middle of the Israelites. Was it an injury to it, that some preceded it with backs turned? Sixthly. Of that so curious courtesy [David] thought nothing at all, when — girt with the linen ephod — with all his strength he danced before that same ark, and turned himself into various circles (2 Sam. [Reg.] 6 v. 14 and following). Seventhly. We could also, in the same way, in some measure calumniate God himself, who testified [that] he sat upon the ark. For if he sat there, he looked either toward Canaan, into which [they] went, or [toward] the Israelites themselves, who followed the ark. If the former, he himself turned [his] back toward the Israelites; if the latter, he went backward, and as it were in the manner of crabs. Eighthly. But although we ought to owe reverence and veneration to God as prudently as ever we can — and [although] the priests too should moderately and honourably beware, at the altars, lest they give [their] back to the most holy Eucharist — nevertheless God is not so [fastidious]—
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—[God is not so fastidious] or ambitious, that he would utterly spurn the nature which he founded (covered and veiled, especially, in an honourable and seemly manner among men), or demand from us that honour which [is] altogether [determined] by human actions, and by the manner of walking prescribed by nature. Not [so]. Yet if he had then demanded [it], why is that nowhere handed down to memory? [why] insinuated nowhere by a single little word? From the bearers of the ark, therefore, let one have gone before it, [and] the other after it, and let the second have put [his] shoulders under that Sacred burden. Yet I am easily led [to think] that, for the sake of greater reverence and religion, those same [bearers] were bare-footed. For we shall hear a little later [that] their feet were plunged into the water, and nothing is added about shoes [calcei]. If they had had these then, they would not only have gotten wet, but would also have gotten very much water [in them]; and thus, even with the channel dried up, they would have had to unshoe themselves there, and pour out that water — or would have proceeded thereafter with much noise and trouble, and stood there in wet shoes; or, just as the lower waters of the Jordan had flowed away, that water would have had to be removed from those same shoes of theirs by a new miracle. But that there is something of religion in bare-footedness, I showed [at] Exod. 3 v. 5, and I will show again below, ch. 5 v. 15.