27. This also is to be noted, that the palls of the altar, the priestly vestments, and ecclesiastical ornaments of this kind are to be blessed. For we have already read that Moses, by command of the Lord, consecrated the tabernacle with divine prayers, together with the table and altar, and vessels and utensils for performing the divine worship. If therefore the Jews, who served the 'shadow of the Law and of good things to come,' [Footnote 539] did this, how much the more ought we to do it to whom the truth hath been made known by Christ! Whence we read in the last chapter but one of Exodus, 'Moses blessed all the vessels of the ministry.' [Footnote 540] And should an additional piece or a fringe be attached to it, it is proved by the testimony of right that the blessing need not on this account be repeated. But the reason why these things and other like things are consecrated is evidently gathered from the forms of blessing them. Of the sacred vestments we shall speak in the introduction to the third book. [Footnote 541] And observe: That the blessing or consecration of a church, and of vestments, and of ecclesiastical ornaments is not performed as if they were capable of receiving grace, for they are inanimate: but this practice is introduced, because as men are, so also are these things, by the act of blessing and consecration rendered suitable and fit for divine worship, and are {151} made of greater holiness. Whereas on _persons_ greater grace is bestowed by unction and benediction. But some in the benediction of ornaments, let fall their hands, of which we shall speak in the second book under the head of the Deacon. [Footnote 542] [Footnote 539: Hebrews x, 1.] [Footnote 540: Exodus xxxix.] [Footnote 541: The history, use, and symbolism of the sacred vestments would themselves require a volume to be fully illustrated.] [Footnote 542: Observe that when a person in confirmation is blessed on the forehead, and when salt, and water, and palls, and vestments, and the like be consecrated, the hands are held over them, because there is a certain virtue in consecrated hands, which is as it were stirred up when benediction is poured out over anything with the hands suspended in this way. Whence the Apostle admonishing his disciple Timothy, saith, "I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee, by the laying on of my hands." So that devotion may be stirred up in the body by the suspension of hands, just as in the heart by the effect. For virtue existeth not only in animate things, but also in inanimate. Whence some do affirm that by the virtue of a church, if anyone entereth therein from devotion, his venial sins be forgiven. Again, the hands are thus held in cases of exorcism especially, as if the priest by the bodily act would put to flight and threaten the devil by the virtue of the consecration of his hands.'--Durandus ii, 9, 16.]