House of Treasures

The ark of the covenant is a type of Christ, Bede says ( Bede: On the Tabernacle (Liverpool University Press – Translated Texts for Historians) , 20). It is also a type of the church:

“the ark can also be taken figuratively as the Holy Church which is constructed from incorruptible wood (that is, from holy souls). Extended throughout the four quarters of the world, with faith in the holy gospel [the Church] expects from God the eternal crown of life. It contains in itself the tables of the covenant by continual meditation on the law of God; it also contains the golden urn with the manna as a guarantee of the Lord’s incarnation, and Aaron’s rod that budded as a sharing in the kingship and priesthood of the Lord . . . . Up above, it has the propitiatory to remind it that every good thing it possesses it has received from the generosity of divine grace; and on the propitiatory it has the glorious cherubim, signifying either the angelic assistance with which it is always aided by a gracious God, or the testaments in which it is taught how it ought to live and in what manner it ought to seek the aid of divine propitiation so that it may live properly.”