Before tent patterns: golden jar/manna = Word; Aaron’s rod after; Paul orders types

Cyril: …before the patterns concerning the holy tent were seen at all, and the commands upon it came to be, he has oracled the word upon the golden jar, knowing what would be. And after at least the pitching of the whole tent, in the Numbers we will find Aaron’s rod brought into the Holies of holies. And in the Leviticus God was legislating further concerning both lampstand, and indeed also table, the one in the first tent. And being law-learned, all-wise Paul passes by altogether nothing of the things that have come to be, and makes mention of first and middle and last things.

Palladius: You have spoken most excellently. Speak then each clearly and distinctly; for deep somehow altogether is the word upon them.

Cyril: Yes, you say uprightly. For the matter holds thus according to truth. And I will make of the narrations also the jar a beginning. For God was sending down, as rain, the manna to those from Israel according to the desert; for this was food and bread for them from above and from heaven. But that the thing done was not only as far as the sense-perceptible; for it also carries up as through type and shadow unto the needing to think, that according to times the Word from above for us and from Father will be present, as bread from heaven, as also the divine David hints for us saying: ‘Bread of heaven he gave them; bread of angels human ate.’ (Psalm 78:24–25) And we do not somehow say that the sense-perceptible manna is the bread from heaven and of angels. For the spirit is nourished spiritually, and body again according to its own nature—that is, bodily. And food of angels and bread fitting heavens and the spirits above is the Word from God Father. So then the manna was making clear Christ. And the type has nothing beneficial, unless the truth has been received. For this is a shadow of that, having come to be not through itself properly, but in order that it may paint something of the better things upon itself. On account of this Christ was making a wise rebuke to the crowds of Jews, because they marvel not rather at him as truth, but at Moses, the servant of the types. For he said thus, ‘Amen, amen I say to you, Moses has given you the manna; for the bread of God is the one having come down from the heaven, and giving life to the world. I am the living bread.’ (John 6:32–35) So then setting the manna as an image of the Word having come down from above and from heaven, God has oracled the things upon the jar. And it has been written thus: ‘And Moses said: This is the saying which the Lord arranged, Fill the gomer of the manna, unto a storehouse unto your generations, that they may see the bread which you ate in the desert, as the Lord led you out from land of Egypt. And Moses said toward Aaron: Take one golden jar, and cast into it the gomer of the manna full, and you will set it away opposite God, unto keeping unto your generations, in which manner the Lord arranged for Moses. And Aaron set it away opposite the testimony, unto keeping.’ (Exodus 16:32–34) For just as we were saying that the ark having the divine word was hinting Emmanuel—for he was Word of God as in