Commentary on the Gospel of John

It is worth while to enquire how, on the one hand, Solomon the king is said to have built the temple, and on the other the master-builder whom Solomon sent and fetched, “Hiram of Tyre, the son of a woman who was a widow; and he was of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass, and filled with wisdom and understanding, to work all works in brass; and he was brought in to King Solomon and wrought all his works.” Here I ask whether Solomon can be taken for the first-born of all creation, and Hiram for the man whom he assumed, from the constraint of men— for the word Tyrians means “constrainers”— the man who derived his birth from nature, and being filled with all manner of art and wisdom and understanding, was brought in to cooperate with the first-born of all creation, and to build the temple.

In this temple there are also windows, placed obliquely and out of sight, so that the illumination of the divine light may enter for salvation, and— why should I go into particulars?— that the body of Christ, the Church, may be found having the plan of the spiritual house and temple of God. As I said before, we require that wisdom which is hidden in a mystery, and which he alone can apprehend who is able to say, “But we have the mind of Christ,”— we require that wisdom to interpret spiritually each detail of what is said in accordance with the will of Him who caused it to be written. To enter into these details is not in accordance with our present subject. What has been said may suffice to let us understand how “He spoke about the temple of His body.”