23. The purifications of the Old Law were
shadows and affected shadow-types of heavenly things only, and yet animal blood
was required; but the heavenly things themselves (τὰ ἐπουράνια) must be purified by better sacrifices
(plural of category really meaning only one sacrifice applied in many ways). As
purifications fall only on the Church militant that must be the primary meaning
of ἐπουράνια (Chrys.
Theodoret.). These things of the Church combatant are ‘heavenly things’, for
they are of heavenly origin, belong to the sphere of eternal life and end in
heaven. (W. Leonard, “The
Epistle to the Hebrews,” in A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, ed.
Bernard Orchard and Edmund F. Sutcliffe [Toronto: Thomas Nelson, 1953], 1168)
