Numbers 18:1

But let us return to our high priest, the great high priest who has penetrated the heavens, our Lord Jesus, and let us see how he together with his sons—the Apostles, namely, and the martyrs—takes upon himself the sins of the holy. And indeed that our Lord Jesus Christ came to take away the sin of the world and by his death blotted out our sins, no one who believes in Christ is ignorant. But how his sons also take away the sins of the holy, that is, the Apostles and martyrs, we shall attempt, if we can, to prove from the divine Scriptures. Hear first Paul saying: "for gladly," he says, "will I spend and be spent for your souls"; and in another place: "for I am already being sacrificed," he says, "and the time of my departure," or "of my dissolution, "is at hand." For those, then, to whom he was writing, the Apostle says that he is spent and sacrificed. But when a victim is sacrificed, it is sacrificed for this end, that the sins of those for whom it is slain may be purged. Now concerning the martyrs the Apostle John writes in the Apocalypse that the souls of those who were slain for the name of the Lord Jesus stand beside the altar; but he who stands beside the altar is shown to perform the office of a priest; and the office of the priest is to make supplication for the sins of the people. Whence I fear lest perhaps, from the fact that martyrs are not made and the victims of the holy are not offered for our sins, remission of our sins may not come about. And therefore I fear lest, with our sins remaining in us, there may befall us that which the Jews say concerning themselves: that having neither altar nor temple nor priesthood, and on this account not offering victims either, our sins, they say, remain in us and therefore no pardon follows. On the contrary we ought to say: because the victims of the martyrs are not offered for us, therefore our sins remain in us; for we do not deserve to suffer persecution for Christ nor to die for the name of the Son of God. And therefore also the devil, knowing that through the passion of martyrdom remission of sins comes about, does not wish to stir up against us the public persecutions of the gentiles; for he knows that, if we are brought before kings and governors for the name of Christ as a testimony to Jews and gentiles, it will be for us joy and exultation, because our reward is great in the heavens. This the enemy…

There follows after these things: "and you," it says, "and your sons shall take upon yourselves the sins of your priesthood. And your brethren, the tribe of Levi, the people of your father, take to yourself, and let them be joined to you and minister to you, and you and your sons with you in the sight of the tabernacle of testimony shall keep your watches and the watches of the tabernacle." It befits those especially who glory in the priestly order to observe more diligently and to attend to these things which are written, that they may know what it is that the divine law prescribes to them to be observed. "You," it says, "and your sons with you in the sight of the tabernacle of testimony, keep your watches and those of the altar and of the tabernacle." The commands indeed are certain and evident, that we ought to keep the watches of the tabernacle and of the altar and of the priesthood; but who indeed it is that keeps and does those things which are commanded to the priests, and who it is that makes use indeed of the order and honor of the priesthood, but does not observe the work and ministry of the priesthood, he alone can know who searches hearts and reins. Now there are commanded to be observed not only those things which are without, but "those things," it says, that the priests should especially attend to, which are within the veil, as though it said: let it be the care of the priests both to fulfill the evident and manifest commands of the divine law, and to contemplate its mysteries, hidden and veiled, with all perspicacity. But if you wish to refer the tabernacle of testimony to man, since indeed Paul calls the body of man a tabernacle when he says: "for we who are in this tabernacle groan, being weighed down, in which we do not wish to be stripped, but to be clothed upon"—if, then, we refer the tabernacle to man, the interior parts of the veil, where inaccessible things are covered, we shall call the ruling part of the heart, which alone can receive the mysteries of truth and be capable of the secrets of God. But the two altars, that is, the interior and the exterior, since the altar is an indication of prayer, that one I think signifies what the Apostle says: "I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind." For when I have prayed in the heart, I enter to the interior altar, and this I think is also what the Lord says in the…