1 Reis 5
Bede
1 Reis 5:6
For the servants of Hiram who cut down cedars from Lebanon for Solomon are the teachers chosen from among the Gentiles whose task is to fell those who enjoy the goods and glory of this world by correcting their pride and arrogance and convert their ambition into obedience to their Redeemer. Now with these servants were also the servants of Solomon, and together they set about the work referred to because the first teachers from among the Gentiles needed the apostles, who had received training by being instructed in the word of faith, lest, were they to begin to teach without masters, they might turn out to be teachers of error. For the reason why Solomon wanted the servants of Hiram to hew timber from Lebanon for him was that they were more experienced than his own servants in felling, but the reason why he also wanted his own servants to be there with them was that they might show the lumbermen what length the planks ought to be. What this symbolizes is plain, namely, that the apostles had a surer knowledge of how to preach to others the word of the gospel that they were privileged to hear from the Lord, but the Gentiles, converted from error and brought into conformity with the truth of the gospel, had a better knowledge of the actual errors of the Gentiles, and the surer their knowledge the more skillfully they learned to counteract and refute them. Paul indeed had a better knowledge of the mystery of the gospel, which he had learned through revelation, but Dionysus was better able to refute the false teachings of Athens, whose syllogisms as well as errors and all of whose arguments he knew since a boy. With this explanation the statement that follows is fully in keeping: "For you know that there is not a man among my people who has the skill to hew wood like the Sidonians." For when the Lord was bodily present teaching, there was not one among the Jewish people who knew so well how to refute the errors of the Gentiles as the actual Gentile converts to the faith and those of the Gentiles who had become Christians. For the Sidonians and Tyrians are rightly taken as a type of the Gentiles because they were Gentile peoples. — Of the Temple of Solomon 1.2.4-5
1 Reis 5:13-14
The first thing to note here is that it was not for nothing that Solomon chose workmen from all Israel, nor was there any section of the people from which men fit for such a great task were not taken, because, of course, priests nowadays are not to be chosen from the stock of Aaron alone; rather, people are to be sought from the whole church who, whether by example or word, are competent to build the house of the Lord, and wherever they are found they are to be promoted to the office of teachers without any exception of persons. And when such people are ordained to instruct the infidel and those who are to be called into the joint pastorate of the church, they are sent as energetic and picked men, as it were, to hew in Lebanon the materials for the temple. And indeed the number of thirty thousand, which was the tally of the hewers of wood, can be aptly applied figuratively to those who are perfect in the faith of the holy Trinity, because it is most appropriate for teachers. — Of the Temple of Solomon 1.3.1
1 Reis 5:17
But it seems to be in accord with the solemn celebration that we are observing to recall something about the building of the temple and to search out how appropriately its adornment suits the significance of the church. Scripture tells how Solomon ordered that "they should take very great costly stones for the foundation of the temple and should square them off." These great and costly stones that were laid as a foundation and that supported the entire bulk of the temple built on them suggest the extraordinary teachers of the holy church: "great" because of the outstanding quality of their merits; "costly" because of the splendor of the signs that those who heard the word from the Lord himself produced by their preaching as the fabric of the growing church. — Homilies on the Gospels 2.25
1 Reis 5:18
"Furthermore the men of Biblos [i.e., the Giblites] prepared wood and stones to build the house." Biblos is a city in Phoenicia that Ezekiel mentions: "Your skilled men, Tyre, were your pilots. The elders of Biblos and its skilled men," for which [city] in Hebrew is written Gobel or Gebal, which means "defining" or "limiting." This word is very appropriate to those who prepare people's hearts for the spiritual edifice that is built of the virtues of the soul. For they are only equal to the task of teaching their hearers faith and the works of righteousness when they themselves have first been instructed by the sacred page and thoroughly learned from a clear definition of the truth what belief one must hold and on what path of virtue one must walk. For one who does not know what is definitely catholic faith is wasting his time assuming the office of teacher, and those who try to teach others the norm that they themselves have not learned do not build a sanctuary for the Lord but ruin for themselves. — Of the Temple of Solomon 1.4.3