Ark of the Testament

WHEN SAINT Francis died, Anthony was the regional superior, or Custos, at Limoges. As such, he was called to attend the Chapter at Assisi, the following Pentecost, to help choose a successor. Once the winter was over and conditions suitable for long-distance travelling had returned, he set out for Italy. Part of the journey seems to have been by sea, so that he arrived in Rome just in time for Holy Week and Easter.
There was a new Pope, Gregory IX, the former Cardinal Ugolino, a friend and sponsor of both Francis and Anthony. Delighted at Anthony's opportune arrival, he invited him to preach to the Curia. This was not unusual, when a distinguished preacher was available. Anthony was not over-awed by the occasion. He preached from his extensive knowledge of the Scriptures, yet in a way accessible even to the uneducated. The Cardinals were impressed, and the Pope himself coined a new title for him, Ark of the Testament.
Why did the Pope choose this phrase? Certainly it plays upon Anthony's familiarity with the Old and New Testaments. It may even have suggested to Anthony himself a way of looking at his own work. When he came to write the Prologue to his Scriptural Commentaries for Sundays, he began with a text from the Book of Chronicles, which tells how King David gave gold to make the figures of the cherubim that decorated the original Ark.
The theme of the Ark returns several times in Anthony's writings. There are, in fact, two Arks mentioned in Scripture - that of Moses and that of Noah. Anthony explains that an 'ark' was simply a chest or strong-box, in which valuables were kept safe from theft or damage. Later on, his own tomb was often referred to as an 'ark'.

Moses' Ark

The two Biblical arks are each depicted as a rectilinear box. The 'Ark of the Covenant' (the Latin for 'covenant' being testamentum) was the box in which the Law, the terms of the Covenant between God and Israel, was kept. This was the most valuable thing the Israelites possessed, and in time the Ark came to be richly decorated, and to have a significance in itself. In particular, it was surmounted by the figures of two 'cherubim'. These were not the humanoid winged figures we now imagine, but winged bulls, such as we can see in ancient Assyrian sculptures. The ox suggested the strength of God, just as elsewhere the 'seraph' (a winged serpent) represented his wisdom.
Between the cherubim on the Ark was a gold plate, veiled by their wings. This was called the 'Mercy Seat', and was regarded as the very throne of God. The ancient Israelites therefore saw the Ark as somehow the focus of God's Real Presence among them, just as we reverence the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
Anthony says that every faithful soul is, as it were, an 'Ark of the Covenant'. We have the Law of God written within us, and we are overshadowed by the angelic wings of the Old and of the New Testaments. Truly we are God's throne, He is present in us and among us.

On the move

In the early days of Israel, before King David's time, the Ark was carried around, supported by poles on either side, held by priests or Levites. Between the Covenant at Mount Sinai and the settlement in the Promised Land, Israel was a people constantly on the move, living in tents. Even God had his special tent, or Tabernacle, to encamp in. Between encampments, tent and Ark were packed up and carried. As the tribes entered the Land promised them, the Ark (God's throne) went ahead. It was carried round the city of Jericho, before the walls fell. The people began to believe that as long as the Ark was with them, they could never be defeated.
The people forgot that within the Ark was the Law, the terms of their Covenant with God. Although God would never desert them, neither could he be fully 'present' if the Law was a dead letter within their hearts. God allowed the Ark to be captured by the Philistines, who took it and placed it in one of their temples. In one of his Commentaries, Anthony tells how the Philistine god Dagon (or rather their idol) was thrown down in the night before the Ark, his head and hands cut off. This is an image of the way 'the mighty are cast down from their seats' in the presence of the true God.

Ezekiel's vision

Anthony in several places links the Ark, regarded as the throne of a God on the move, with the mysterious vision of the Prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel saw God coming upon a flying chariot drawn by strange winged beasts resembling at the same time a bull, a lion, an eagle and a man. Very hard for us to picture! Ezekiel was in exile in Babylon, and the meaning of the vision was that even when Israel was far away from the homeland, God was still with them. God is with us, in our exile from our heavenly homeland.
The experience of the destruction of their City and Temple, followed by the deportation of most of the leaders of the people, secular and religious, was as traumatic for Israel as the holocaust of modern times. It has left its mark on virtually the whole of the Old Testament, re-read and re-edited by the post-exilic community. Why had God allowed such a thing to happen? Was it still possible to hope?

Noah's ark

One of the stories re-visited during this period was the story of Noah, which involves yet another Ark. Similar stories circulated in Mesopotamia in ancient times, no doubt reflecting the experience of great floods in the Euphrates plain. Scholars now know of several ancient epics with this theme. The priests and scribes who were responsible for the final form of the Book of Genesis must have known the story, and they saw how it could speak to their people in their doubt and despondency.
Genesis is constructed round two sets of five 'generations' or genealogies, and in each set the middle one is the most significant. At the beginning of human history, mankind disobeyed God and was expelled from paradise - Adam was, in the literal sense of the story, driven out into exile in Mesopotamia. Things went from bad to worse, until God decided to wipe everything out and start again. But although the world seemed to dissolve back into the watery chaos out of which it had come, God did not really start again from nothing. He saved a small remnant of humanity to carry on. God put his most valuable possession, human beings, into a great box, and floated them across the waters until they could start again with a new Covenant (the Covenant of Noah). The rainbow would be an everlasting reminder that God saves, rather than destroys. Of course, things still went wrong again, and the Scriptures contain repeated examples of this pattern. The lesson for Israel is that it is always possible to turn again to God, to be forgiven and to start again.

The Church & the soul

In two of his Sunday Commentaries, those for Sexagesima and for Pentecost, Anthony takes up the image of the Ark of Noah. While he knew nothing of the findings of modern Biblical scholarship (but how well he would have used them, if they had been available to him), he knew that the Scriptures cannot be reduced simply to information about remote past times. It is the task of the preacher to make them relevant here and now to believers.
In his first treatment, for Sexagesima Sunday, he likens the Ark to the Church. It contains people of various kinds - married people, clergy and religious. Christ, like Noah, 'went out to build his Church. He built it of 'smoothed' wood, meaning those who are holy, pure and perfect. He lined it with the pitch of mercy and love, both within (that is, in their inner affections) and without (in the effect of their works). Anthony goes on to give practical moral teaching about the various kinds of sinner in the Church - the lustful, the hypocrites, the greedy and so on - as well as the penitents who make use of God's gifts - contrition, confession and satisfaction. Here we have the picture of a community, a Church which is afloat on the oceans of the world, buffeted by the winds, but secure because God is with her.
On Pentecost Sunday, Anthony follows a different line, that of the Ark as representing the individual soul. The moral teaching is, as one would expect, quite similar, but here the individual Christian is encouraged to see himself or herself as an 'Ark', full of frailty, but loved and protected by God. We keep our personal 'ark' water-tight by keeping watch over our senses: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting. But this must not be taken in a purely negative way. By our sense of sight we should look with pity on the poor and needy, and 'set our eyes on things above'. By hearing, we should not be moved to instant reaction; we should be humble and temperate in our response, whether to undeserved reproach or undeserved flattery. Our sense of touch should not be devoted to outward pleasure, but to discipline and self-sacrifice. Our 'spiritual nostrils' should breathe in the odour of heaven, while our tongue (organ of speech as well as taste) should be used to praise God and to confess our sins.

Pictures, not words

Anthony presents his teaching through a whole series of pictures, appealing to the imagination, rather than through logic, which appeals to the intellect. He was a skilled preacher, helping others to preach, and he knew that his hearers (be they manual workers or learned Cardinals) would grasp a vivid image much more easily that a wordy argument. As the saying is, one picture is worth a thousand words. As well as the Scriptures, he used the 'Book of Nature' to provide illustrations for his theme. For instance, in the Pentecost commentary there is a beautiful and apt (and remarkably accurate) illustration based on the structure of the human ear, to help us grasp the spiritual significance of hearing.
The image of the Ark enables us to see ourselves as valuable to God, kept safe from the floods and storms of life within the Church. We are also ourselves 'arks', carrying the Law of God within us, as we travel through the desert of this world to the Promised Land of heaven. Anthony himself was truly a 'treasure-chest' of the Scriptures, constantly bringing out from his store of knowledge things both new and old. Pope Gregory showed both wit and wisdom in giving him this title.