Pure oil and the lamps: Christ's light in the Church and under the law

Cyril: …loaves. Each loaf shall be of two tenths, and you shall set them in two rows, six loaves to a row, on the pure table before the Lord. And you shall put pure frankincense and salt on the row, and these shall go with the loaves as a memorial, set before the Lord. On the Sabbath day you shall set them out before the Lord continually, in the presence of the sons of Israel, an everlasting covenant. And they shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat them in a holy place, for it is a most holy thing. This is his share from the offerings sacrificed to the Lord, a perpetual ordinance’ (Leviticus 24:5–9).

The oil, then, is pure, and it is olive oil besides: that is, it comes from olives, not from other, more earthy kinds of seed, which did yield pressed oil, but oil that was spurious and, so to speak, adulterated. For the light in the churches is always pure and truly genuine: the light, clearly, that comes through Christ, by the Spirit, even if it is ministered through the voice of the saints, to whom Christ said: ‘You are the light of the world’ (Matthew 5:14). And this is no wonder. For with those whom he called his brothers (Hebrews 2:11) and made partakers of himself (Hebrews 3:14), he would fittingly share the glory of his own honors as well.

So the lamp burns in the first tent as well, and the matter would have a twofold sense. In the inner tent seven lamps shine (Exodus 25:37); they are kindled in the morning, and they pour a rich light upon those who hurry in. And the lampstand was Christ, again as in a type, flooding with abundant and generous light those who wish to hurry into the Holy of Holies. For, it says, ‘Come to him and be enlightened’ (Psalm 34:5). Moreover, the lighting of the lamps in the morning would signify the time when he became man. For something like a day dawned, and a light perceived by the mind shone out, driving away the darkness of our ancient ignorance and scattering the mist that had fallen like night upon the hearts of all. So too the prophet called for the time of the Savior’s coming among us, when he said: ‘In the morning you will hear my voice; in the morning I will stand before you, and I will keep watch’ (Psalm 5:3). For when would the prayers of all have become acceptable, and when would we who once wandered have stood, as it were, before God, through kinship with him (the spiritual kind, of course) and through obedience and faith, if the light from heaven, that is, Christ, had not shone upon us?

So in the inner tent the light of the seven lamps is rich and clear, but in the first tent it was a single lamp that gave light; and it showed, I think, that not even those being schooled under the law were without the divine light, as the thing itself makes plain. For the law given through Moses also called people out of the worship of many gods to the knowledge of him who is God by nature and in truth. It drew the people of old away from still serving the creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25), and persuaded them that they must hold fast to the Maker of all. And these things were not achieved in the souls of those under its schooling without the light perceived by the mind. So, to say it once more, the illumination that comes from Christ is rich and plentiful for those who enter the Holy of Holies, but less for those under the law; and the statement is true.