QUESTION 8: THAT DAVID RECOVERED THE
ARK FROM THE HOUSE OF ABINADAB
And David again
gathered all the elect of Israel, thirty thousand, and so forth. In the history of the blessed
king and prophet David where it is narrated that he recovered the ark of God, humility
is shown to be approved, pride condemned, and rashness punished. For David himself,
who was not ashamed to dance humbly before the ark of the Lord, soon afterwards
deserved to receive the promise that the Son of God would be born from his own
lineage. And the consort who despised his act of humility did not merit to be
fertilized with his seed, but suffered the penalties of perpetual sterility.
And the priest who touched the ark of God with ill-advised rashness was to make
expiation for the guilt of his audacity with an untimely death—which should
cause us to consider that while any offender who approaches the body of the
Lord is guilty of transgression, if that person has undertaken vows as a priest he will be punished with
death for having taken hold of that ark (namely, the figure of the Lord’s body)
with less reverence than it deserves.
But according to the allegory, David
signifies Christ and the ark signifies the Church. Now David sought to bring
the ark into his own city, but when something happened to prevent this he
diverted it elsewhere for a while, and afterwards achieved what he had so
greatly desired. For when the Lord appeared in the flesh he preached the gospel
to the children of Israel (that is, to his own people), but blindness fell
upon part of Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, and so
all Israel should be saved. But so that we might see these things more
plainly one by one, David gathered all the chosen ones of Israel, thirty
thousand, because it was out of Israel that the Lord established the
primitive Church—not out of all Israel, to be sure, but by associating the
elect to himself. For not all who are of Israel are Israelites, but the children
of the primes are counted among the seed.
. . .
But although the perverse are enraged
and despite the humility of the Church, the ark of the Lord nevertheless
proceeds to its place and is set in the midst of the tabernacle that David
had pitched for it—that is, the faith of the Church is preached, makes
progress, and is introduced into the hearts of all those whom the Lord has
preordained to life eternal. David offers burnt offerings and peace-offerings
before the Lord; Christ, who is at the right hand of the Father, and who
intercedes for us, commands the faith and devotion of the Church to the
Father. Following David’s example, he blesses those who are faithful and humble
and feeds them with the food of the saving mystery. He distributes to each of
them the one cake of that bread which comes down from heaven and gives
life to this world; and a piece of roasted meat from that
fatted calf which was slaughtered and roasted in the fire of suffering for the
younger son upon his return to the father; saying, My strength is dried up
like a potsherd; and fine flour fried with oil, namely, the cleanest
flesh free from the stain of sin, but baked on the frying-pan of the cross on
account of his abounding desire to save humankind. And rightly was there one
cake of bread and one piece of roasted meat, because there is one Lord, one faith,
one baptism, one God and Father of all. Otherwise, the faithful receive
these gifts when in Christ we, though many, are one bread, one body, and
when, they cook it in the fire of the Holy Spirit and through the love of
neighbor actually make fervid the fruits of good works enriched by the oil of
mercy. (Bede, “On Eight Questions,” in Bede: A Biblical Miscellany
[trans. Arthur G. Holder; Translated Texts for Historians 28; Liverpool: Liverpool
University Press, 1999], 159-60, 164, emphasis in original)
