Ark of the Covenant
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The Ark of the Covenant (Hebrew: אָרוֹן הָבְּרִית ʔārōn hābrīt) was, according to the biblical tradition of the Old Testament, a central cult object that represented God's covenant with the people of the Israelites. The chest, made of acacia wood and measuring approximately 130 × 80 × 80 cm, was covered with gold on the outside and was equipped with two supporting beams, each of which was guided by two golden rings. Two Cherubim were enthroned on the removable lid with their wings stretched out towards each other.
„10 They shall make an ark of acacia wood. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. 11 You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and outside shall you overlay it, and you shall make on it a molding of gold around it. 12 You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it. 13 You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. 14 And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark by them. 15 The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it. 16 And you shall put into the ark the testimony that I shall give you. 17 “You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. 18 And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. 19 Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. 20 The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. 21 And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. 22 There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.“
Just as Solomon's Temple, built later, was to be an image for the physical body, so the Ark of the Covenant was an image for the soul of man.
„Now man dwells in his physical, etheric and astral sheath with his I, through which he is to transform this threefold nature in such a way that the three higher principles can receive their appropriate dwelling place here on earth and feel at home. The old covenant was to see to this. He was to bring sons of men into the world through the arts of the Cain race, and through these sons of men all external things were to be created which serve the physical, etheric and astral bodies. What is all this?
What serves the physical body is first of all everything that is set up by the technical arts for the satisfaction of the physical body and for its comfort. What we then have in the way of social, state institutions and organisations in relation to the living together of human beings, what relates to nourishment and procreation, serves to build up the life body. And acting on the astral body, we have the field of moral rules, of ethics, which is to bring the instincts and passions into order, regulate the astral nature and raise it to a higher level.
This is how the sons of Cain built this three-tiered temple throughout the old covenant. It is, as it is composed of our outer institutions - you can think of our dwellings, tools, the social and state system, the moral institutions - in all this it is the building of the sons of Cain, which serves the lower members of human nature.
Next to them worked the other stream, which is presided over by the Sons of God, their disciples and their successors. From there we have the servants of the divine world order, the servants of the Ark of the Covenant. In them we have something that is a separate current from the servants of the world. They occupied a special position. It was only when Solomon's Temple was built that the Ark of the Covenant was to be placed in it, that is, everything else was to be ordered towards the Ark of the Covenant, as it were, to be grouped around it. Everything that was formerly worldly was to become an outward expression, a building for what the Ark of the Covenant meant for humanity. He will best imagine the Temple of Solomon who imagines it as something that expresses externally, as physiognomy, what the Ark of the Covenant is to be as soul.“ (Lit.:GA 93, p. 157f)
„As long as men were not mature enough to receive the laws inwardly, as long as in the law there is the rod of Moses which forced men under a yoke, so long lay the law in the Ark of the Covenant. Until the Pauline principle, the principle of grace came over the people and he was given the opportunity to become free from the law. Therein lies the depth of the Pauline view, that it makes a distinction between law and grace. If the law is suffused with love, if love has joined itself to the law, then it is grace. This is how the Pauline distinction between law and grace is to be understood.“ (Lit.:GA 93, p. 167)
Literature
- Rudolf Steiner: Die Tempellegende und die Goldene Legende , GA 93 (1991), ISBN 3-7274-0930-4 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
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References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
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