The Purple Canopy and the Fruitful Branches

“To dwell in the house of the Lord for a long duration of days,” and again: “I asked one thing from the Lord, this I will seek out: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the delight of the Lord, and to be visited in his temple.”

This agrees with the thought previously said and with those things beginning from the 83rd and 3rd Psalms: “How beloved are your dwellings, Lord of powers. My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord” (Psalm 84:1-2), and after a little: “Blessed are all those dwelling in your house, they shall praise you unto the ages of ages” (Psalm 84:4). For the hymn-singing is fulfilled unto the ages of ages by those who, having attained all progress, shall come unto the house which God has established.

Concerning such things, the wise man says, singing of spiritual dwellings: “A voice of rejoicing and salvation in the dwellings of the righteous” (Psalm 45:15). And the proverbs-writer says: “Houses of the righteous remain” (Proverbs 15:1); “and the dwellings of those establishing themselves shall stand.”

For it is necessary at some time for the progress, having received the end, to be called a house. It is not right to always be making progress without reaching a final state, a house being called, in which the genuine healers of God, performing spiritual worships, shall praise and glorify God gratefully unto the ages of ages upon the perfect and most full rights that have come to pass.

Of the returned dwellings, it is fitting to crown each one decorously with each of the following having been legislated: a beautiful fruit of wood, and clusters of dates, and branches of wood thick with myrtle and olive. And see indeed if the beautiful fruit is that of wisdom, of the wood of life being called, regarding which the proverbial saying says: “to be a wood of life to all those approaching it and those relying upon it as a secure Lord.” It is also made manifest by another name, being a vine bearing beautiful fruit, a grape and a cluster.

Since the wine that gladdens the heart (Ps 104:15) is being trodden out, one must take the purple canopy to deck the portable house, which is a tent becoming a covering of purple, always having the heart held high by the constant presence of luxury.

The coverings taken from the purple work toward purity, just as the woman who lost one of the ten drachmas (Lk 15:8) used it and cast out the sweepings from the house and found the hidden coin, bearing the image of the Great King, which was nothing other than becoming like God according to the image.

Concerning the purple, for which the world should take the coverings for the sake of the tent, the bride in the Song of Songs (Song 1:9) cries out: 'I said: I will ascend upon the purple, I will grasp the heights of it.'

Regarding the coverings of the purple, one must also take leafy branches having much fruit, being leafy because of the continuity and density of the shoots and fruits. And the leafy branches exist as practical and contemplative virtues and the fruit-bearing doctrines of piety.

One must take for the adornment of the laid-out tents the myrtle and olive branches. Some thought it fitting to say both myrtle and olive, both names indicating one plant, which is a symbol of purity and incorruption, because its flower, when mixed with water thrice, unmans the eunuchs, as has been observed in other places.

He who celebrates the spiritual festival does this, as the preceding prophet indicates, while walking below and in the lowly state, wandering about the letter and the shadow of the law. And since the sweepings and the stubble of the shadow cover the spirit and the truth, it is fitting to take purple coverings, so that having swept away what the Apostle named 'refuse' (Phil 3:8), we may have the spiritual mind of and concerning this feast-law, ascending upon the...