ACC ~ Hebrews 9 v6 - 7

THE HIGH PRIEST GOES ONCE A YEAR. OECUMENIUS: Above the ark there was, so to speak, a certain golden, rectangular table, which was called “seat of propitiation,” signifying Christ, who is called our “propitiation” and “redemption.” … In Exodus, in the passages concerning these things he says that the high priest enters the Holy of Holies twice during the day, as he sacrifices. For it is written as follows: “And Aaron will burn an offering of pleasant mixture of incense on it”—that is, on top of the golden altar which was in the Holy of Holies—“early in the morning. Whenever he trims the lamps, he will burn incense on it, and whenever he lights the lamps in the evening, he will offer a perpetual burning of incense.”How then does the blessed apostle say, “the high priest alone enters and that but once a year”? And we say that he enters only once a year with “blood,” as he says in the same passage of Exodus, making sacrifice twice that day. For also he says, “Not without taking blood,” that is, with blood, in order that it might be so. For once a year the high priest alone enters with blood, not with the fragrant offering of incense. FRAGMENTS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 9.5-7.

THIS CURTAIN IS INTERPRETED AS HEAVEN. BEDE: Figuratively, the curtain in the temple represents the same curtain that the apostle declares openly to the Hebrews, in the place where he also explains properly, according to the allegorical sense, the reason that “the priests go continually into the outer tent, performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people.” This curtain is interpreted as heaven. And the priests entered into the first tabernacle with sacrifices daily throughout the year, which further illustrates the circumstances of this life, in which the saints who serve the Lord as true priests of God and of his Christ ceaselessly atone for the daily errors of their frailty, without which they are by no means able to exist in this life through the daily sacrifices of good works and the daily libations of their own tears. But the apostle understands the high priest who went into the Holy of Holies with the blood of victims once a year to be the great high priest himself, of whom it was said, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”He who as both priest and victim had offered himself through his own blood once for our sins entered “into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.” ON THE TABERNACLE 2.8.71.

BLOOD ONCE FOR ALL. CHRYSOSTOM: And Paul well said, “not without taking blood.” … He signifies that there shall be a sacrifice, not consumed by fire but rather distinguished by blood. For inasmuch as he called the cross a sacrifice, though it had neither fire nor logs nor was offered many times but had been offered in blood once for all, he shows that the ancient sacrifice also was of this kind, offered “once for all” in blood. ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 15.2.

Heb