Matthew 10:2

The law also prefigured these twelve disciples, and the prophets proclaimed them beforehand. It is written in the Mosaic book: “Take fine flour and make it into twelve loaves, and set them on the pure table before the Lord, and set frankincense and salt on them.” For the bread that came down from heaven “and gives life to the world” is Christ himself; and by imitation of him the blessed disciples too are called breads. Having become sharers in the one who nourishes us unto eternal life, they also nourish, through their own writings, those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

Just as the Savior, being “the true light,” named them light (“You are the light of the world”), so he himself, being “the bread of life,” also granted the disciples to be understood in the rank of the breads. See the skill of the law: “You shall set frankincense and salt on the breads.” Frankincense is a symbol of fragrance; salt, of mind and understanding. Both were present in the highest degree in the holy apostles. Their life was fragrant — they even said, “We are the fragrance of Christ” to Christ — and they were also all-understanding. That is why they also heard, “You are the salt of the earth.”

I hear the prophet David singing about them: “There Benjamin the younger in ecstasy, rulers of Judah their leaders, rulers of Zebulun, rulers of Naphtali.” For the divine disciples were chosen from almost every tribe of Israel and became worldwide luminaries holding a word of life — men who had been craftsmen, seafarers, and fishers, without a stock of polished words, “unlearned in speech” yet rich “in knowledge.”

God also showed these through Jeremiah’s voice, saying about Satan: “Woe to him who multiplies for himself what is not his, for suddenly those who bite him will rise, and your plotters will wake, and you will be plunder for them.” For Satan gathered all people on earth who were not his and made them his own worshipers; but those who plunder his vessels rose up. The net of the apostolic teaching caught all who had gone astray, and they brought the world under heaven near to God.