Hebrews 13:12Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Do you see the clear type? There, he says, “outside the camp” (Heb 13:11), and here, “outside the gates.” Just as the sacrifices offered for sins were a kind of type and were burned outside the camp, so Jesus, who offered Himself for our sins, suffered outside the gates. Therefore we too must imitate Him who suffered for us and be outside the world, or rather, outside worldly deeds. [...] Then the Apostle explains the typological sacrifice and turns the discourse to the archetype: “For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people by His own Blood, suffered outside the gates.” Consequently, the first was a type of the latter.

so also Christ, having suffered for the sins of the world, brought His Blood to the Father in the sanctuary, as High Priest, while His Body was crucified outside the gate. Therefore, when our high priests commemorate that sacrifice, they bring the Blood of the Lord into our sanctuary and onto the altar, as into heaven. Therefore the high priests of the Old Testament law cannot eat from this altar, as foreigners and as those who do not think of what is above this world. But we are not such.

so also Jesus Christ, in order to sanctify His people by His own Blood, willed to suffer outside the gate of the city (cf. Lev 14:12; Mt 27:32).

Look at the type, compare it with the truth, and behold the likeness. The Law commanded that a red heifer be slain, that the high priest take some of its blood and sprinkle it seven times with his finger before the mercy seat. The heifer itself was burned outside the camp. Its ashes were taken, and by them those called unclean were purified (Num 19:2-9). This was a type of the saving Passion. Here also the body taken from Adam, whose name in Hebrew means “red,” was nailed to the Cross outside the gate. His Blood cleanses our souls, and the ashes are replaced for us by the very life-giving Body.

In accordance with this type, Jesus also was crucified outside the gate of the city, just as those sacrificial animals were slain outside the camp. Christ suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify His people by His Blood. For the blood of those typological sacrifices also cleansed from that for which they were offered, though not perfectly.

For Christ, our Pascha, has been sacrificed for us (1 Cor 5:7), as the apostle says. God the Son was crucified as the new and true redeeming sacrifice to the Father, but not within the Temple, whose worship had already come to an end. Nor was Christ crucified within the walls of the city, which awaited destruction for its crimes, but outside the camp. Thus, when the mystery of the old sacrifices was exhausted, a new sacrifice was offered upon a new altar. The Cross of Christ is the altar not of the Church alone, but now of the whole world.

The Redeemer and Lord most wisely and very well commanded the one who undertook to follow Him to strip himself and go out from the world (cf. Mt 19:21), because a man must first cast away everything that leads to slackness and only then approach the work. When the Lord Himself began the battle with the devil, He waged it in the driest wilderness. Paul advises those who take up the cross of Christ to go out of the city. “Let us go forth to Him,” he says, “outside the city, and bear His reproach” (Heb 13:12-13), because He suffered outside the city. For if a man separates himself from the world and from everything in the world, he quickly forgets his former habit and former manner of life. He does not labor over this for long.

This is said for those who ask in perplexity, “How do you say that you have an altar? What was offered on it?” This is Christ Himself, whom you despise from top to bottom and do not see that He was offered as a sacrifice. He is the Sacrifice accomplished for the whole world, and the offering, although He was not offered on your altar. For it is evident that He suffered outside the city of Jerusalem (Heb 13:12). Therefore Paul says to them: “Yes, He suffered outside. Yet precisely through this it came about that we have an altar. For among you also the bodies of sacrificial animals are not burned on the altars themselves, but outside the camp. For this further reason Jesus suffered outside the gates of Jerusalem, that all, and not only the priests, might be sanctified.

Why did Christ deign to shed His Blood on the Cross not in Jerusalem, but outside it? Augustine, in his homily on the Cross and the thief, speaks about this subject in this way: “Why is Christ put to death on the height of the Cross, and not under the roof of a building? In order,” he answers, “to cleanse the air. Second, the Redeemer dies not on an altar and not under a roof made above, but under heaven. This is because at the death of the Lamb on high, the air was cleansed, and the earth also was cleansed by the Lord’s Blood falling upon it.” Further. He dies not under a roof and not in the Jewish temple, lest the Jews appropriate this saving sacrifice to themselves or think that this sacrifice is offered only for that people. Finally, the Savior died outside the city and outside the walls so that you might understand that, just as the sacrifice offered for the human race is universal, so also the cleansing is universal.

To implant this truth in the hearts of his readers, the Apostle shows that Christianity and Judaism’s discrimination about foods exclude one another. He also shows that it is very fitting for Christians to renounce their former Jewish habits. We Christians, says the Apostle, have our own sacrificial altar, θυσιαστήριον, that is, the place where Christ was slain, namely the Cross on Golgotha. The people of the Old Testament have no right to share with us in the fruits of Christ’s death on this altar, that is, to eat. They served God by their sacrifices in the tabernacle and then enjoyed the right to eat from the remains of those sacrifices.