Bede states in the first chapter of this work ( De Templo ) that the building of the tabernacle and the temple signifies one and the same Church of Christ. Yet this allegorical exposition of the building of the Temple, a paradigm of the genre, is relevant not only to biblical exegetes but to readers of diverse interests, including iconographers, and those concerned with mysticism or merely desiring spiritual nourishment. Even to those primarily interested in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica , it affords an understanding of that work, for its ideas are there given flesh and blood - the two books, as it were, forming a diptych.