LIBER LEVITICUS

• 295D

(ISICHIUS in Levit. ) This book is called Leviticus, namely because in this name the argument of the whole book is made plain. The tribe of Levi obtained by lot the ministry of the tabernacle, in which it was commanded that sacrifices, and firstfruits, and 296Dthe offerings of the firstborn be offered, because all the sacrifices pertain to the Levites (Num. XVIII). From these this book has obtained by lot a fitting name, a book which sets all these things in order.

In Latin it is called Offertorius or sacrificativus, because 297Ait treats of sacrifices and ceremonies. It is rightly placed here after Exodus: for in that book the tabernacle is ordained, in this are contained the things which the Lord was speaking to Moses concerning the tabernacle, and the ceremonies of the tabernacle.

But if anyone should ask why the books of the law were divided, since the history is undivided in time, this must be answered: that the division of the books might take away weariness from the reader, just as a traveller too divides the stretches of the road, so that the labor, being as it were divided, may be lessened.

Rabanus gathered many things from Hesychius, bishop of Jerusalem, who expounded Leviticus fully enough, and from other Fathers too, who expounded some of his opinions, he added certain things to his own work, and out of the confused order of the opinions, by alternating the opinions of many doctors, he composed 297Ba certain order of exposition.

(ISICHIUS in Levit. ) Before all things it is necessary that the interpretation of the law be drawn to anagoge, and that the spiritual understanding be searched out within the letter. For this does not contradict the law, but defends it. That the spiritual understanding is to be diligently sought out Christ himself also shows, who in his parables (Matth. XIII) called the field, the world; the husbandman sowing the good seed, the just; the tares, the wicked; the reapers too, the angels; and the enemy oversowing, the devil. Who then forbids to call him who works justice an ox; as a sheep, the simple; and the innocent, a dove; and a turtledove, those who conduct themselves more loftily and are at leisure for contemplation? Did not Ezekiel call Jerusalem a lioness, and her whelp 297CEliachim, who was led into Egypt, and another whelp Joachim, led into Babylon? (Ezech. XIX.) That not only the things which are said in parables, but also the things which are according to the history, are to be led to a loftier understanding, Paul shows, saying: It is written that Abraham had two sons, etc.; after which he added: Which things are said according to allegory: for these are the two Testaments, etc. (Gal. IV). [Vulg. Gal 4:24 has per allegoriam, "by allegory," where Migne prints secundum] But perhaps the letter, stripped of the spiritual understanding, will be harmful, and liable to various reproaches. Whence through Ezekiel the Lord calls the law both good and not good, saying: I gave them my precepts, and I showed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them. And elsewhere: I gave them commandments not good, and judgments 297Din which they shall not live. [Vulg. Ez 20:25 has praecepta, "precepts," where Migne prints mandata, and the future vivent for vivant] It is plain, therefore, that they are good and not good; and that there are those in which they live and those in which they do not live: for he who keeps the Holy Spirit lives in them; but he who lives according to the flesh dies, because he does not know the life in them. Then the lawgiver willed the surface of the law to be kept not always, but for a set time, that he might restrain the hard neck of the Jews; whence: I know that this people is of a stiff neck (Exod. XXXII); [Vulg. Ex 32:9 has Cerno, "I perceive"] but Hosea calls the Jews a heifer that shies away, one namely that is in no way tamed. And elsewhere: Ephraim is a heifer taught to love threshing, I passed over the beauty of her neck (Osee. X); in which obedience is signified. For he imposed the yoke of the law, that being humbled they might willingly take up the light and sweet yoke of the Gospel (Matth. XII).

298A(ORIG., homil. 1, in Levit.) If, following certain men even of our own, we were to follow the simple understanding, and were to receive the voice of the lawgiver without any twist of the word (as they themselves are wont to laugh at us) and without the cloud of allegory, then I, a churchman living under the faith of Christ and set in the midst of the Church, am compelled by the authority of the divine precept to sacrifice calves or lambs, and to offer fine flour with frankincense and oil: the Lord himself, therefore, the Holy Spirit himself, is to be entreated, that he may deign to take away every cloud of sin which darkens the sight of our heart, so that we may behold the spiritual understanding, according to that saying: Open thou mine eyes, and I shall consider the wondrous things, etc. (Psal. CXVIII).

(ISID.) Every diversity of victims prefigured the victim of Christ. Whence, the truth being offered, the shadow ceased 298B(I Cor. XV), prefiguring the true sacrifice of the true and eternal priest. And therefore, when the victims of animals were offered for cleansing, the one true victim of Christ was promised, in which there should be made the remission of the sins contracted from flesh and blood, which shall not possess the kingdom of God: because the bodily substance shall be changed into a heavenly quality. Christ was offered in the calf, because of the strength of the cross; in the lamb, because of innocence; in the ram, because of headship; in the he-goat, because of the likeness of the flesh of sin; in the turtledove and the dove, because he is God and man. For the Mediator of God and of men was shown in the conjunction of two substances; in the sprinkling of the fine flour it was shown that the Church, that is, the body of Christ, has been gathered out of believers through the water of baptism. But we morally 298Coffer a calf, when we conquer the pride of the flesh; a lamb, when we correct irrational motions; a kid, when we overcome wantonness; a dove, while we are simple; a turtledove, while we are chaste, or while we keep chastity; unleavened loaves, when we feast not in the leaven of malice, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

(RAB.) He says that the several sacrifices, nay almost the several syllables, and the vestments of Aaron, and the whole Levitical order, breathe out heavenly mysteries.

Origen too says: That just as in the last days the Word of God, clothed with flesh from the Virgin Mary, went forth into the world, whose flesh was seen by all, while his divinity, known to few and to the elect, was covered over: so the word of God is brought forth to men through the prophets, 298Dthere covered by the veil of flesh, here by the veil of the letter. The letter is looked upon as flesh: the spiritual sense is perceived as divinity.

VERS. 1.-- He called, etc. (ISICH. in Levit. ) By a conjunction he joins what follows to what precedes; the beginning, namely, of this book with the end of the preceding: for the work of one and the same day is contained in both. The book of Numbers too, because it has nothing intervening between itself and Leviticus, obtains a like proem; that is: And the Lord spoke to Moses in the desert of Sinai, etc. (Num. I). Nothing, therefore, did the people do after the history of Leviticus and before the history of Numbers: for it had not changed its place, because it had not yet 299Adedicated the tabernacle, nor had much time gone by. For in the first month of the second year, at the beginning of that same month, they began to act. But in Exodus and Genesis, because much intervening time had flowed by, that of the death of Joseph and of the going forth of the sons of Israel, a conjunction does not hold the opening, but a beginning suited to their dispensation is dispensed: These are the names of the sons of Israel, who went into Egypt.

(ISICH.) According to the Seventy, He called back. Just as, according to them, God called back Beseleel by name, when he commanded the tabernacle to be made according to the figure which was shown on the mount: so now too he has commanded a certain image of the intelligible sacrifices to be described; for this calling back intimates 299Ba certain dispensation of things or of words looking to the things above.

(ORIG. hom. 1 in Levit.) And he called, etc. In the beginning, etc., as far as those who bring clean inward ears to the hearing of these things.

(ISICH. in Levit. ) That God does not love the sacrifices of the Jews, etc., as far as and openly this calling intimates the dispensation of words or of things looking to the things above.

(ORIG. homil. 1 Exod.) The man whom he first set to offer to the Lord, etc., as far as the sacrifice too is twofold, which saves both earthly things and heavenly.

(ID., ibid.) The man who, made to the image and likeness of God, lives reasonably, etc., as far as and his neck is as a turtledove's.

299C(ISICH. in Levit. ) He designates the simple man, etc., as far as salvation is granted even to beasts of burden.

(ID.) God requires sacrifice that it may profit us, not himself, etc., as far as which at the last may speak testimony for us or against us.

VERS. 3.-- Of the herd, etc. (ISID.) The first sacrifice is the calf, that is, Christ, of the herd, that is, begotten of the stock of the patriarchs, who with the plough of his cross subdued the earth of our flesh, and enriched the seed of the Holy Spirit with the fruit of the virtues.

(ORIG., ut supra. ) The proud calf, our flesh, etc., as far as but the oil of charity and of peace and of the other virtues they had not.

To appease, etc. But according to the Seventy he says this to be acceptable to the offerer, namely, if indeed it be to us 299Dtruly acceptable, and our heart, judging rightly and cleaving to no passion, shall have approved the gift as worthy to be received: then we can pray in the sight of the Lord, that is, obtain remission. Whence before him we shall persuade our hearts, because if our heart reprove us, we know that God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things, etc.

VERS. 4.-- And he shall put, etc. What we call a victim is in Greek called καρπώμα, in which the intelligible holocaust is signified. For he fructifies spiritually who by a spiritual manner of life is made a holocaust: for which cause he who offers puts his hand upon the head of the victim, which signifies the beginning of the aforesaid manner of life, of which he who offers is himself to himself the cause of the promise 300A. For he offers of his own accord, because it is a gift, and every gift is voluntary. For if he shall have transgressed trangressus his promise, he accuses himself, when he shall have paid the penalties. And so he will be acceptable, and profiting toward his own expiation, when by the placing of the hand he shall have made it manifest that he offered of his own accord, not of necessity.

VERS. 5.-- And he shall immolate, etc. (ISICH. in Levit. ) For not only our own conscience and manner of life ought we to offer to God, etc., as far as as Christ is called the door, so is the apostolic doctrine which he bestows.

The sons of Aaron. (ORIG., ubi supra. ) Of the race of Aaron were Annas and Caiaphas, and the others who pronounced Christ to be guilty of death, and poured out his blood 300Bat the base of the altar: for there was he slain, where the altar was and its base, whence: It cannot be that a prophet perish outside Jerusalem.

VERS. 6.-- And being drawn off, etc. (ORIG., ibid.) The priest draws off the skin, etc., as far as he joined earthly things to heavenly and human things to divine.

(ID) He commands the entrails with the feet to be washed with water, in signification of baptism. He washes the entrails who purges his conscience; he washes the feet who receives the consummation of the sacrament. For he who is clean needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean wholly (Joan. XV): [Vulg. Jn 13:10 has Qui lotus est, "he that is washed," where Migne prints Qui enim mundus est] nor can anyone have part with Jesus, unless he wash his feet.

(ISICH. in Levit. ) The skin is drawn off when we are despoiled of riches and of whatsoever things are worldly, etc., as far 300Cas imitating Christ so far as we can.

(GREG. lib. I Moral., cap. 40.) We draw off the skin of the victim, etc., as far as let him lay nothing slippery upon the altar of his prayer.

VERS. 10.-- But if, etc. (ISICH. in Levit. ) With a few things changed he says the same, etc., as far as whence: The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, etc.

A yearling, etc. (ISID.) The lamb offered is Christ the innocent crucified. Whence: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sins of the world. [Vulg. Jn 1:29 has the singular peccatum, "the sin of the world"] Well is a kid offered, because through the death of Christ the devil, the author of sin, is slain.

(ISICH.) This he did not command concerning oxen, etc., as far as therefore it is called a holocaust even without the working 300Dof justice.

VERS. 11.-- At the side, that is, the altar looks toward the Gentile world, because the passion of Christ was celebrated for the Gentiles. But we offer the sacrifice at the northern part of the altar, while we mindfully believe the passion of Christ to have been wrought for the Gentiles.

VERS. 13.-- He shall burn all things. He commands the offerer to place all these things upon the altar, that we may fit our whole man to the spiritual scriptures which have been spoken concerning the intelligible altar of the Lord's body, and may study to live to the imitation of him.

And the odor. When our sacrifice becomes a holocaust, and we offer all things upon the intelligible altar, as imitators of Christ conforming the manner 301Aof our life to him, then is there offered to the Lord a most sweet odor.

VERS. 14.-- But if. (ISID.) The turtledove, the flesh of Christ, according to that saying of Solomon: Fair are thy cheeks as a turtledove's: the dove signifies the Holy Spirit. Whence: Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending as a dove, this is my Son. [Vulg. Jn 1:33 continues et manentem super eum, hic est qui baptizat in Spiritu Sancto, "and remaining upon him, this is he that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit"] The turtledove, therefore, the dove, is the flesh of Christ joined to the Spirit: these three sacrifices man offers, that is, Christ, namely of oxen, of cattle, and of birds.

(ISICH. in Levit. Wonderful is the subtlety of the words, etc., as far as, they contemplate and savor heavenly things, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.

301BVERS. 2.-- A soul, etc. From the better part he signifies the whole man: for he requires a spiritual and perfect hearer, because the soul is capable of wisdom, not the flesh.

(ISID.) A soul, etc. The fourth sacrifice a soul offers. The fine flour signifies the Church, which is gathered out of many persons as out of grains, separated between the letter and the spirit by the millstone of the law and of the Gospel, made one through the water of baptism, anointed with chrism and made solid by spiritual fire; through humility it becomes an accepted victim.

(ORIG.) hom 2 in Lev. A soul. Which, namely, has neither a calf, etc.; as far as with the oil of the divine mercy or grace.

Mystically it signifies, as there: All the souls that went in 301Cwith Jacob into Egypt, etc. (Gen. XLVI.) But Luke says: And we were in the ship, all the souls, two hundred seventy-six (Act. XXVII). Perhaps by "soul" he signifies the Gentile. For above he commanded the sons of Israel to offer sacrifices with blood. But here, commanding him who is without the law to offer, he does not say "man," as above, but a soul. The Gentile was animal, not understanding the things which are of God, but he is called to the oblation by the mercy of God, that he may receive salvation; when he appoints sacrifices for sins, he who has neither sheep nor she-goat is commanded to offer a turtledove or a dove; he who has not even that, fine flour. For he is now saved not out of works, as one poor in virtues, but by the knowledge of God alone, which, though it be the beginning of salvation, yet frankincense and 301Doil must be laid under it, that grace may be mingled from alms and prayers. Whence the angel says to Cornelius: Thy prayers and thine alms are gone up unto the Lord (Act. X). [Vulg. Acts 10:4 reads ascenderunt in memoriam in conspectu Dei, "are gone up for a memorial in the sight of God"] In the frankincense the inward passions are cured, and by its smoke are healed the eyes that weep from infirmity. For prayer heals the passions of the soul, cures the inward eyes from ignorance, puts to flight the tears that kindle from the sickness of sin.

VERS. 2.-- The sons, the ministers of the Church; because whatsoever we offer, we ought to confer with the holy doctors of the Church. Whence Paul conferred the Gospel with the apostles, lest he should have run in vain (Gal. II).

Of which. The unity of the Church takes up a handful of the fine flour, 302Abecause according to the capacity of his understanding each of the faithful ought to seek after the knowledge of Scripture. Whence: Not to be more wise than it behoveth, but to be wise unto sobriety. Of which one, etc. (Rom. XII). It is to be noted that a handful of the fine flour and of the oil, but the whole of the frankincense, is commanded to be offered; because the wisdom which is signified in the fine flour, and the charity or mercy which is signified in the oil, cannot in this life be full. Whence: We see now through a glass in a dark manner: and, now I know in part, etc. (I Cor. XII). A part also of the oil is offered, because mercy is never fulfilled, since even if thou show mercy as much as thou canst, yet thou oughtest to will more. Charity too, which is figured by the oil, is begun in the present, and in the future shall be perfected. But the whole of the frankincense is burned, because prayer is always persisted in.

302BOf the fine flour. Of the knowledge or acquaintance of God. For that knowledge is accepted from God which faith can comprehend; and just as he who wishes to grasp more with his fist gains nothing, for the whole runs out: so faith is the measure of the knowledge of God. For he that cometh to God must believe, and whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Heb. XI). [Vulg. Heb 11:6 runs credere enim oportet accedentem ad Deum quia est; the second clause is Rom 14:23]

A memorial, etc., the perfect knowledge of the acquaintance of God, of which we shall be mindful, which is never destroyed; and that which now is it destroys not as contrary to itself, but shows it to be a least part through its own fullness: For when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away (I Cor. XIII).

VERS. 3.-- Of the sacrifice, etc. (ISICH. in Lev. ) Of that, namely, perfect knowledge hidden in the heavens and laid up in Christ, 302Cin whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. II).

Aaron is interpreted "mountainous," that is, understanding higher things concerning God; or "hidden," as it were having in himself the law and the oracles of God: he can offer the sacrifice. The holy of holies is of the oblations to the Lord: for that which is left over is a portion, yet surpassing all knowledges and exalting to perfection

VERS. 4.-- When thou shalt offer a sacrifice, etc. (ISICH., ibid. ) The sacrifice is Christ immolated for us.

Baked in an oven, namely in the womb of the Virgin. For an oven receives bread and fire: so the womb of the Virgin received the bread of life, that is, the Word of God, and the fire of the Holy Spirit from heaven. Whence: The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, etc. (Luc. I). If therefore thou offerest the gift 302Dof the incarnation of Christ, which was wrought in the womb of the Virgin, it is not accepted by God unless it be made of fine flour, that is, of the knowledge or acquaintance of God. Of this matter indeed we receive the utterance from the apostles and from the prophets, The words of the apostles are the loaves, the wafers those of the prophets. For by as much as loaves are fitter than wafers for nourishing, by so much do the words of the apostles excel the words of the prophets. Yet both are unleavened, without the leaven of secular knowledge. Both, however, are made in oil, for concordantly it has been written by them concerning the compassion of Christ, since both apostles and prophets wrote, but the apostles wrote more fully, who showed to be fulfilled what those were announcing as to come.

Wafers. A broad and thin bread, which signifies prophecy and 303Athe law; for as great as is the distance between the solidity of bread and the thinness of a wafer, so great is that between the Gospel and the words of the law and of the prophets: yet these are smeared with oil, because the law and prophecy foretold the charity of Christ, by which he came unto the salvation of the human race.

VERS. 5.-- If thy oblation shall be, etc. (ISICH. in Lev. ) The oblation of the frying-pan, etc., as far as and therefore he departed from the knowledge of him.

Of fine flour sprinkled, etc. Because he died and had mercy on us.

Without leaven, that is, without stain.

VERS. 6.-- Thou shalt divide it into little pieces: that we may divide the discourse of his passions, which went forward by parts, and may carefully mark off the buffets, that is, the blows, the spittings and the wounds 303B.

And thou shalt pour upon, etc., that as he mercifully died for us, so we too may have mercy on our brethren even unto death.

Of the frying-pan. For as the frying-pan is midway between the fire and the food, so in a certain manner is the cross between the impassible divinity and the humanity, which was roasted by the fire of the passion. And as in a frying-pan soft things harden and hard things soften, so in the passion of the cross stony hearts are softened, and soft and flowing ones made solid. To offer sacrifice, therefore, from the frying-pan is to dispute with veneration concerning the mystery of the cross.

VERS. 7.-- But if of, etc. (ISICH. in Lev. ) As on the frying-pan the cross, etc., as far as for out of mercy he underwent death, and dispensed the resurrection 303C.

But if, etc. Morally, he offers fine flour who studies to behave well in some of the usages of the common life. This is to be sprinkled with oil, because every soul needs the oil of mercy, nor can it escape the present life unless heavenly mercy shall have been at hand. But the oven expresses the weight of temptation, the frying-pan the constancy and strength of the mind, the gridiron the manifold assault.

VERS. 11.-- Every oblation. (ORIG. homil. 2 in Lev.) Let someone say, etc., as far as in this way thou offerest more truly and more perfectly according to the Gospel the sacrifices which Israel can no longer offer according to the law.

Of leaven and of honey. Nothing voluptuous, nothing sweet pleases God, but what has something of sharpness and 303Dof severity. Whence the pasch is eaten with bitter herbs.

And of honey. Of Gentile eloquence, which is sweet in voice, not in fact. Whence: A honeycomb distilling are the lips of a harlot (Prov. V). But what is said in the Canticles: Honey and milk are under thy tongue (Cant. IV), does not contradict what is here said. For it is said "under the tongue," not "in the tongue," that it may be shown that the wisdom of the pagans and the letter of the Jews are subject to the tongue of the Church, that is, to her doctrine. Of these he does not will the whole doctrine to be offered. Whence he says: It shall not be burned in sacrifice, that is, as a holocaust: ye shall offer only the firstfruits of them. For we offer the firstfruits of that wisdom, not the whole of it, as Paul to the Athenians says: As your own poet said: of him 304Awe also are the offspring. [Vulg. Acts 17:28 reads sicut et quidam vestrum poetarum dixerunt: ipsius enim et genus sumus, "as certain also of your own poets said"] For what he found agreeable to the knowledge of God, he did not reject: yet he did not multiply testimonies beyond this, because it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe; whence Moses says: But upon the altar they shall not be laid, and though it might have been said "they shall not be placed," he says: They shall not be laid for an odor of sweetness: signifying that if we shall have attempted to obtain the knowledge of the divinity from outward things, such a sacrifice does not ascend to the altar, but is pressed down among earthly things, because it is of the earth.

(BEDA. in Lev., tom. II). That honey should not be offered in the sacrifice of God, etc., as far as we omit whatsoever things are imperfect.

VERS. 13.-- Thou shalt season with salt, nor shalt thou take away the salt of the covenant. The apostolic wisdom. Whence: Ye are the salt of the earth, etc. 304B(Matth. V). As all food is seasoned with salt, so is the word of preaching by apostolic doctrine. Therefore it is commanded that salt be offered in every sacrifice, that we may live according to apostolic doctrine and instruction and the imitation of its work. Whence Paul says: Be ye imitators of me, as I also am of Christ (I Cor. IV). And elsewhere: Built up upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph. II). Whence also the lawgiver did not say simply "salt," but the salt of the covenant of thy God. For as the covenant is rational, so also the salt is rational. He willed, therefore, to admonish us of the evangelical Testament and of the apostolic salt. Oil is offered in sacrifice, if we offer with cheerfulness, not out of sadness or out of necessity. For God loveth a cheerful giver (II Cor. IX).

Salt, which has a styptic force and is contrary to 304Choney, is commanded to be added to the sacrifices: salt is the symbol of prudence, which restrains and dries up pleasure.

In every oblation, etc. For that will not be able to please God which shall not have been corrected to the rule of his will. For if in human affairs a certain one of the wise men of this world admonished that we must act with so great caution, so that he said: Every action ought to be free of rashness and of negligence: what is to be judged concerning the things of God?

But if thou shalt offer, etc. (ORIG., lib. I in Levit.) In the second place, of the firstfruits, etc., as far as because the letter was separated from the spirit.

(ISICH.) Thou shalt break after the manner, etc. Not only did he command them the knowledge of God, etc., as far as for through almsgiving and prayer the divine knowledge is perfected in us.

• 304D

VERS. 1.-- But if the victim, etc. (ORIG. homil. 3 in Levit.) The rest being passed over, he speaks of the peace-offering sacrifices, which are offered from animals, that is, from oxen and goats and sheep, and nothing further is substituted for immolation: not even birds, which above were substituted in the offering of gifts. For he who offers peace offerings is conscious of his own salvation: he has need, therefore, to offer great and perfect things, whence the Apostle: But solid food is of the perfect (Heb. V).

(ISICH.) But if the victim, etc. There are, according to the laws, diverse manners of life among men, etc., as far as for they must live worthily, that they may come to salvation.

305AMale or female, etc. (ISICH.) Above, for a holocaust, males only are offered, etc., as far as that is, weak works together with stronger.

VERS. 3.-- The fat which, etc. (ID.) The intelligible fat must be offered, etc., as far as and by deliberation let us sanctify the lump.

The vitals. The Seventy: The belly, that is, the heart, of which he makes mention a second time according to the Seventy, because it has a twofold operation according to the physicians, since through one part it draws nourishment, which they call the upper belly: through the other it separates off the purgation, which they call the lower belly. The kidneys are the ministries of the generative seeds, communicating with the belly and the thighs. First, therefore, he commands the fat which is above the belly, and the two kidneys, and the fat which is upon them, 305Bthat is, upon the thighs, which are near to the kidneys, to be offered: for they are set in the midst of the thigh and of the belly.

VERS. 4.-- The caul of the liver: That is, of the epar, in which is delight or concupiscence. Whence according to the Seventy the lobe of the epar shall be taken away with the kidneys: for the liver ministers in the kidneys the force of operation.

VERS. 6.-- But if it shall be of the sheep, etc. (ISICH). Whom he may command to offer an ox, etc., as far as in the loins also the operation of generation.

VERS. 9.-- And the tail. The Seventy: The loin whole and without blemish, that is, lest one thing be offered to God and another to the adversary. For it suffices this man, for pardon, not to do the things which are of virtue; but if he works evils, he does not obtain pardon. Whence: Be ye simple as doves. 305CFor doves have exceeding simplicity, and no malice. He who offers a sacrifice of oxen has no need to offer the loin to God: him he binds and exercises in good works. He who immolates of the goats has not an unspotted loin which he may offer, because he once stained it with sin. He therefore who has not been in sins can offer an unspotted loin, not he who has been a sinner. For this cause, in the sacrifice of the peace offerings, he distinguished the she-goats from the lambs.

VERS. 17.-- Nor the fat. We ought not to have our own concupiscence, that is, the carnal: For every one is tempted, being drawn away and enticed by his own concupiscence. He forbids blood to be eaten, that we may kill no one: for to eat blood belongs to beasts, 305Dthat is, to the cruel. Therefore either it is added altogether: that we may spare both our neighbors and ourselves. But the soul ought to be immolated to God, whence he commanded the blood to be poured out about the base of the altar.

VERS. 1-2.-- And he spoke etc. The soul that shall have sinned, etc. (ORIG., hom. 2 in Levit.) Rightly does he say "the soul," etc., as far as and the spirit is a leader unto virtue, if he be willing to follow it.

(ISICH.) When a soul shall have sinned, etc. The lawgiver omitted nothing necessary, etc., as far as whence, He who knew not sin was made sin for us. [Vulg. 2 Cor 5:21 reads eum qui non noverat peccatum pro nobis peccatum fecit, "him who knew no sin he made to be sin for us," where Migne's verb is passive]

VERS. 3.-- If the priest, etc. (ORIG. It is to be observed that in the sin of the high priest the lawgiver does not add 306Athat he sinned unknowing or unwilling: for neither can ignorance fall upon him who has been advanced that he might teach the rest.

(ID.) If the priest, etc. Terror and mercy together, etc., as far as who is gnawed by the consciousness of his infirmity.

(Id.) If the priest, etc. The high priest, the sense of piety and of religion, etc., as far as is repaired by the death of Christ.

VERS. 3.-- A calf without blemish to the Lord, etc. (ID.) In the second place we find a calf offered by the high priest for a holocaust, etc. as far as in which Christ suffered.

VERS. 5.-- He shall also take of the blood, etc. He bore the blood of the calf into the tabernacle, that is, into heaven: when after the resurrection, ascending the heavens, 306Bhe stood before the countenance of the Father, as it were offering the blood of the passion, making intercession for us.

VERS. 6.-- Seven times: for the remission, namely, of sins, and under the ministration of spiritual gifts. But the blood signifies the passion, according to that saying: I am clean from the blood of this just man. [Vulg. Mt 27:24 reads Innocens ego sum, "I am innocent"] And elsewhere: His blood be upon us, etc. Concerning this sprinkling Peter says: Unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Christ, etc.

The veil, the humanity of Christ. For as the veil was between the holy of holies and the outer tabernacle, so the flesh of Christ is between us, who are the outer tabernacle, and the divinity, which is signified by the holy of holies. Against the veil of the testimony, therefore, the priest sprinkled the blood of the calf, because Christ 306Cmade his own flesh bloody with the blood of the passion.

Against the veil, etc. By many names does he call the flesh of the Lord, because its operation is manifold. Whence the Lord himself named himself, now a sacrifice (Luc. XXI), now a shepherd, again a vine, then the bread of life and the grain of wheat, by transferred words. (Joan. X, XV, VI, XII) So Moses too called his flesh a veil. Whence Paul: He hath consecrated for us a way through the veil, that is, his flesh (Heb. X). The veil of the sanctuary too is named from this, because in it the flesh of the holy of holies is figured.

VERS. 7.-- Upon the horns. This altar signifies the seat of God, that is, the Seraphim; whence Isaiah: There flew to me one of the Seraphim, and in his hand a coal, which he took with the tongs from the altar (Isa. VI). The incense, according to 306Dthe Seventy, the compositions of all the virtues. For where does it befit the virtues to be composed, if not in the seat of God? for from heaven they descend to us. Whence James says: But the wisdom that is from above (Jac. III). But four virtues, wisdom, justice, fortitude, temperance, because they contain the kinds of the other virtues, are named horns: these God anoints with his own blood, strengthening them, namely with a greater and more perfect strength, that they may be able to prevail against the adverse powers and forces.

Of the altar, etc. Of the angelic powers. For if men render to God a pleasing odor of good works, how much more the holy angels, remaining in the purity of their nature? But if they did not commit the sin which was to be expiated by the blood of Christ, 307Ayet through his blood they were made at peace with us, and their number was repaired.

Unto the base. The base, the lower part of the altar, signifies weak men. For by the blood of Christ not only was the number of the angels restored, but man also redeemed: therefore Christ is called the redemption of the angels too (Col. I).

Of the altar of holocaust. Of the body of Christ. For he himself is the priest, he himself the sacrifice, he himself also the altar. For as he works many things, so fittingly is he called by many names. Whence Paul: We have an altar whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle (Heb. XIII): that is, the body of Christ, of which it is not lawful for the Jews to eat; this altar is at the entrance 307Bof the tabernacle, that is, of heaven, because through it we have entrance into heaven.

And the fat. Mystically, the delights and desires of the flesh; all of which, however, are not to be received into Christ, such as the desire of the gullet and of coition. But those which he had, he had from us, as thirst and hunger, and things of this kind. And these he offered to the Father, to whose glory he transferred them, and set them forth for us as an example, that we may refer our desires unto God.

VERS. 9.-- The two little kidneys and the caul that is upon them near the flanks. (ISICH.) Which things are done also in the sacrifice of the peace offerings, or of salvation. And he divides the sacrifice into two, that it may be permitted to all to imitate the sacrifice of Christ, both to those, namely, who are of a lower manner of life, 307Cto whom the sacrifice of the peace offerings is suited, and to those who follow after higher things, for whom it suffices if they imitate what follows.

VERS. 11.-- But the skin and all the flesh with the head and the feet and the rest. This he commands, that thou divide not Christ, as certain men divide him, saying: He who suffered was of Mary, he who was of God did not suffer; But to us there is one God Jesus Christ, through whom are all things (I Cor. VIII). [Vulg. 1 Cor 8:6 reads nobis tamen unus Deus Pater ex quo omnia … et unus Dominus Iesus Christus per quem omnia, distinguishing the Father from the Lord Jesus Christ] For the flesh in the Lord is the whole humanity, according to what is said: The Word was made flesh (Joan. I). Whence he says: His flesh with the head and the feet, or the extremities according to others, that by these words we may believe him who suffered for us to be the first and the last: for he is before all things, and in him all things consist. With the entrails and the dung, 307Dthe Seventy: with the belly and the excrement. But the belly signifies the mind; let us therefore in no wise doubt that he who suffered for us had a human mind, which certain of the heretics deny. The dung signifies the sin of the human race, which the crucified took upon himself. Dung, though it be unclean, does not pollute him who carries it; nor is it of our nature, although it be within us: so our sins, which the Lord bore, were foreign to him, nor did they pollute him.

With the entrails and the dung, etc. (ORIG.) Perhaps by way of comparison, etc., as far as the lawgiver figures his mystery more fully in what follows.

VERS. 13.-- But if all the multitude. (ISICH.) The same thing he commands in the sacrifice of the multitude and of the priest, etc., as far 308Aas for he prayed for his very crucifiers: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. [Vulg. Lk 23:34 reads Pater, dimitte illis, non enim sciunt quid faciunt]

VERS. 21.-- He shall carry the calf outside the camp (ID.) The conclusion of the law suffices us for making plain the present matters, for nothing is here commanded to be changed for the sin of the multitude. It is manifest that he understands the sin of the people and of the priest to be the same, and therefore in both he ordained the same sacrifice.

VERS. 22.-- If a prince shall have sinned and done. (ID.) As in the voluntary sacrifices, etc., as far as for the sabbath was given for rest from evils.

(ORIG.) This prince can be called the force of reason which is within us, which if it sin, so that we do something foolish, let us fear that sentence: Ye are the salt of the earth. But if the salt shall have become insipid, it is worth nothing 308Bbut that it be cast forth and trodden underfoot by men. (Matth. V.) [Vulg. Mt 5:13 reads quod si sal evanuerit in quo sallietur ad nihilum valet ultra nisi ut mittatur foras, "if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?"]

VERS. 23.-- A he-goat of the goats. Not a she-goat, that is, an easy or middling penance, but a hard and rough one. For by as much as a man excels in understanding, by so much, if he sins, does he undergo a greater punishment for a greater fault.

VERS. 24.-- He shall put his hand, etc., manifesting his sin through himself, and offering his own confession. But he himself, according to the Seventy, does not slay it, but others do; because the help of others is necessary to him, that his penance may be received, nor is the priest commanded to slay it, for he says:

And when he shall have immolated, etc., nor did he add who ought to immolate, for it is lawful in the sacrifice of penance 308Cto use the helps of another: whence James: Pray one for another, that ye may be saved.

Where it is wont to be slain, etc. Because there please God alike a worthy penance for sins and the strong works of the just.

VERS. 25.-- The horns of the altar, etc. Upon the cross are offered the firstfruits of the blood which is offered for sin, because the work of the cross and its effect is the perfect remission of our sins.

And pouring out the rest. Attributing, namely, all penance to the evangelical preaching, whose intention is that he who repents may correct himself and be saved. Whence in the beginning of the Gospel the Lord says providently: Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven draweth near. 308D(Matth. III.) [Vulg. Mt 3:2 reads the perfect adpropinquavit, "hath drawn near"]

VERS. 27.-- But if he shall have sinned, etc. (ORIG. hom. 2. in Levit.) Doing one thing out of all the commandments of the Lord, etc., as far as when he acknowledges it, to immolate a sacrifice of praise.

Of the people, etc. (ORIG.) For the distinguishing of him, etc. as far as he holds it necessary for our sake.

But if of the cattle. (ISICH.) To the oblation of the she-goat which those who are of the people offer, etc., as far as he commands like things concerning the she-goat and the sheep.

VERS. 1.-- If a soul shall have sinned, etc. (AUG. quaest. 1 in Levit.) He seems to say that a man sins, etc., 309Aas far as but he straightway subjoined: The soul that shall have touched anything unclean, etc.

(ISICH.) If he shall have sinned, etc. He does not repeat what he said above, etc., as far as because we ought not to consent to the sins or the error of another, but to reprove them.

VERS. 2.-- The soul who shall have touched. (ISICH.) Not of the body, etc., as far as but he can say with David: Our soul hath been delivered as a sparrow out of the snare of the fowlers (Psal. CXXIII).

(GREG. lib. XXXII Moral., cap. 4 tom. II.) To utter an oath is to bind ourselves by vow to the divine servitude, etc., as far as we burn with the fire of grief.

VERS. 4.-- The soul that shall have sworn, etc. (AUG., quaest. 2 in Levit.) What is it that for a perjury kept silent, or for a carcass touched, or for anything unclean, no sacrifice 309Bis enjoined? but that for the fact that anyone swears a falsehood unknowingly, he decrees a she-lamb or a she-goat to be offered? or is this sacrifice to be understood for all the things aforesaid? For when all had been set forth, he brought in the sacrifice of expiation.

He shall have understood his offence. (ISICH.) It is to be noted that an offence, etc., as far as as the following words show.

VERS. 7.-- But if he shall not have been able, etc. (ID.) Let us add this, that if a prince shall have sinned in any of these things, he should offer a he-goat of the goats, namely a penance worthy of himself, who ought neither to have sinned, nor to have shared it with others, nor to have provoked his subjects to sinning. What therefore ought not to have happened, he left undiscussed.

But if, etc. (ID.) He who cannot afflict himself continually, etc., as far as because he sacrifices himself most fully 309Cto God.

VERS. 8.-- He shall turn back the head (GREG., hom. in Ezech. ) The death of Christ unto the joining of his own body, etc., as far as he joined us all to himself more truly in that very death of his.

(GREG.) He shall turn back, etc. In the sacrifice of God we ought to be a turtledove, that our head may be turned back to the little wings, that is, the senses to the virtues. By the head we understand the mind, because as the head rules the body, so the mind rules the actions. But the head cleaves to the neck, and is not cut off utterly, because our mind is to be separated from the delight of the flesh, not from the necessary care of the flesh, and let us not make provision for the flesh in its desires (Rom. XIII). Let the head of the turtledove therefore be partly cut off, and partly cleave to the neck.

309DLet it be broken off, etc. He wills that we should not serve the body, but be broken off or turned back, lest the law of sin reign in our members. But because we ought not to hold our body in hatred, nor to reckon it, after the heretics, a making of the devil, but to set it under the mind, he does not command the body to be separated from the neck, for both are the creature of one and the same.

VERS. 9.-- The foundation, etc. LXX, the base, which is the Gospel, because, according to the intention of the sacrifice of Christ and of the Gospel, the sacrifice for sins ought to be offered. Whence he adds: Because it is for sin, for nothing so snatches a man from sin as the imitation of Christ and obedience to the Gospel preaching.

310ABut if he shall not have been able. Because not every time is easy for penance, when namely we abuse penance itself, and destroy its fruit by returning to sin, the lawgiver hints at this, saying: But if his hand shall not have been able, etc.

(AUG. quaest. 8 in Levit., tom. III.) It is asked whether what has been said is to be taken everywhere, etc., as far as that all the rest should pertain from these to that generality.

VERS. 11.-- An ephi. (ISICH.) It is a measure of three measures, etc., as far as that they should not perish who shall have been under his hand.

He shall not put upon it, etc. As if to say: this is not perfect penance, and therefore it has no oil, that is, the spiritual gladness of cheerfulness, nor frankincense, because neither 310Bought he to have confidence in his prayers: but let him who offers the oblation hand it over to the priest, that is, let him commit the hope of salvation to the divine mercy.

Which is for sin. Because he knows not whether the prayer of him who often transgresses is of a good odour. Whence: Who knoweth if God will turn and forgive, and leave behind him a blessing (Joan. III)? He does not therefore suffer them to despair, nor yet to presume, lest they be negligent again.

VERS. 12.-- A handful. In the handful Scripture is signified, wherewith it is written. And it is written: I say not to thee seven times, but unto seventy times seven times (Matth. XXVIII). By the handful therefore he hints that God is to be entreated, that he may remember his written mercy, that he may grant it to us: as he bids it be granted to our brethren; for this 310Cshall the great priest cleanse the one who prays.

VERS. 13.-- If a soul transgressing, etc. (ISICH.) From every sin abstinence must be had, but most of all from that which is committed against holy things: and how horrible it is, the oblation testifies. For nowhere from the beginning of the history, save in this place, is a ram commanded to be offered, in which the necessity and the usefulness of the sacrifice is set forth: here no he-goat is offered, no she-goat, no sheep, no pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.

The ceremonies, through, etc. (ORIG.) There are many kinds of sanctification. There is the oil, wherewith the tabernacle alone is anointed; and the incense, of which it is said: Whosoever shall make such a compound, shall perish from among his people: the loaves also of proposition only the males eat, who are of the stock of Aaron. But mystically he sins in 310Dthose things which have been sanctified, who usurps anything irreverently in a holy place, or handles divine things unworthily.

VERS. 15.-- With two sicles. Two sicles are the two precepts of charity, wherewith the sinner buys for himself the confidence of remission. For penance is worth nothing without the grace of remission; whence, according to the LXX, the ram is bought with fifty sicles, because through penance and the observance of the twofold charity perfect rest is acquired, when the remission of sins is given. LXX, with fifty sicles of silver, by the holy sicle. For no one obtains the sacrifice of the Lord save through the Holy Spirit, because no man can say the Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost (I Cor. XII). But fifty 311Asignifies the coming of the Holy Spirit, because on the day of Pentecost, that is, the fiftieth, he came to the apostles. LXX: by the holy sicle. In the holy sicle he signified the power and the working of the Holy Spirit. A siculus is of 20 obols, a man of twenty is not liable for sin: whence they who went out of Egypt, when they were of twenty years, did not undergo the punishment of the people's sin (Num. XIV); for the spiritual man is indeed clean from every sin.

VERS. 16.-- And the fifth part, etc. (ISICH.) He who with a holy vessel or food, etc., as far as for so shall he make entreaty for our sin.

VERS. 17.-- If a soul shall have sinned, etc. (ID.). He seems to have forgotten what he had commanded: for the sins for which he commanded a she-goat or a sheep to be offered, now he seems to command a ram to be offered; but he has neither forgotten 311Bthe former things, nor commanded contrary things: for there by the soul he signified the Gentile: but here him who through ignorance transgresses the commandments of the law.

(AUG. quaest. 7 in Levit.) It is asked how this offence is distinguished from those which he has generally embraced, etc., as far as or some things in sacred services.

VERS. 18.-- He shall offer a ram, etc. Above he commanded that the penitent should offer a she-goat, here he bids a ram be immolated, because it profits nothing to immolate the harshness of penance, unless thou shalt have determined to have full confidence in the immolation of Christ.

VERS. 1, 2.-- He spoke, etc. The soul that shall have sinned, 311Cetc. (ISICH.) It is the same sin which is committed against holy things, etc., as far as it is like to robbery.

(ORIG. hom. 4 in Levit.) The soul that shall have sinned, etc. I think that our soul, etc., as far as: For no man putteth new wine into old bottles.

The thing lost, etc. (ORIG.) LXX: perdition. The heretics labour to find perdition in the Scriptures, whence they may build up their error: but perhaps, hearing the words of the Church, they come to their senses, and understand that what they had found is perdition, and restore it, that is, they let it go back to its own author.

VERS. 5.-- And the fifth part besides, etc. The tongue, namely, in which is one of the five senses: this is offered, that for the rest he may not sin, because through it each one of the things aforesaid was committed.

311D(ORIG.) LXX: not the fifth part, but fifths, as twice five, etc., as far as we may refer them to the one God.

VERS. 8.-- And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying. (ISICH.) Here he speaks of the continual sacrifice, etc., as far as and let him frame his whole life unto perfection.

VERS. 10.-- Of linen, not of wool: he wills the tunic and the drawers to be of linen, not of wool (Exod. XXVIII). For a linen garment is fitting and soft, and clinging to the body; but a woollen one is rough, because justice and chastity are fitting to the soul and cleave much to it. A linen garment also can easily be had, so also the virtues, if anyone shall wish to attain them.

312AAnd he shall take up the ashes, etc. The ash is the consummation of a good work. Aaron shall carry the ashes outside the camp: they who after this life present their good works to God the Father through Christ the great high priest. And there they are reduced to embers, while he stands before the face of God for us. For the camp is the present life, in which we always fight against spiritual wickednesses (Heb. IX). They are placed beside the altar, while the consummation of good works is laid up in the ark of the heart. For the altar in this place signifies the heart. Our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience, etc. ( Eph. ult. )

VERS. 11.-- And being clothed with others. (ORIG.) It is to be observed that the priest uses certain garments in the mystery of the sacrifices, and others when he goes forth to the people. Whence: We speak wisdom among the perfect 312B(II Cor. I). And elsewhere, clothed in a far lower robe: Nothing did I judge, he says, myself to know among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified (II Cor. I).

VERS. 12.-- Fire on. (AUG. quaest. 12 in Levit.) He does not will the fire to be wholly extinguished, but that, when the holocaust shall have burned until morning, the remains being taken away, it be again renewed, whereby the other things which are laid on may burn.

Which the priest shall feed. Allegorically. In the morning Christ was judged, in the evening crucified. Fire therefore is laid under morning and evening: because the charity of God is nourished in us, while we call to mind Christ judged in the morning and crucified in the evening.

(GREG. lib. XXV Moral., cap. 7.) Our heart is the altar of God, etc., as far as that the more God is seen, the more he may be loved.

312CAnd the holocaust being laid on above he shall burn it, etc. (AUG., quaest. 13 in Levit.) It is to be seen whether no day was passed over, etc., as far as which is a wonder, if he were silent and did not admonish that such things be offered in the evening.

VERS. 14.-- This is. The lawgiver seems to repeat what he has said, renewing the memory by the repetition of the commandment, and showing the usefulness and the necessity of the law. Yet he inserts something new, in which he hints that the commandment is necessary and inexcusable. As therefore he repeated the sacrifices concerning the holocausts, mingling assiduity with them, as is that: Let the fire on the altar always burn and never fail: [Vulg. Lv 6:12–13 has the futures ardebit … numquam deficiet, "shall always burn … shall never fail"] so in the sacrifice of fine flour, that is of theology, he adds that it must be eaten only in a holy place, and by a male.

And before. According as Christ shall have revealed, 312Dwho is the true altar. In these things therefore let us establish theology which Christ incarnate delivered to us, that we may think of the Father in him, and of him in the Father, and that the Spirit is of the Son and proceeds from the Father.

VERS. 16.-- The remainder, etc., that we may not wholly cease from theology, because the sum of knowledge is conversant with the world to come.

In the place. The Church, which is the entrance and the vestibule of heaven; in it one must speak of the Godhead, whence in Psalm LXVII: In the churches bless ye God, each man is a household church to himself, while he ceases from earthly business: here he can speak to himself of God and exercise theology. Such are they to whom a part of the sacrifice is given, namely, to meditate and to speak of God.

313AVERS. 17.-- As for sin. He hints that this sacrifice is like to that which is both for sin and for offence: for discourse concerning God is had chiefly unto the expiation and the cleansing of the soul, when to oil and frankincense, that is, to almsgiving and prayer, the sacrifice of the word of God, that is, of theology, is joined.

VERS. 18.-- The males only. It belongs not to all to dispute of God, but to those who have nothing womanish, nothing flowing, in their thoughts or their works. It is lawful and everlasting. For we ought not to presume to dispute of God, while through worldly imaginings we turn aside from the dignity of males.

Everyone that shall touch. (ISICH.) This cannot stand according to the letter: for shall a murderer or a profane man be sanctified if he shall have touched? for none is excepted. But 313BChrist, in whose figure these things went before, is immolated: he who shall have touched his flesh, that is, who with a faithful heart shall have placed the whole hope of salvation in his passion and resurrection, shall straightway be sanctified.

(ID.) Everyone who, etc. Every commemoration of God bestows sanctification. Whence: But it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. But when he says that the one touching is sanctified, he plainly shows that in disputing of God, that is, in theologizing, it is enough for us only to touch: for he who wishes to be warmed, if he shall have put his hand into the fire, shall suffer burning instead of warming.

This is the oblation. (AUG., quaest. 14 in Levit.) Other are the sacrifices which he commemorated in Exodus, by which through seven days the priests are sanctified, that they may discharge 313Cthe priesthood. Another is that which he commemorates, which the high priest offers when he is appointed, that is, when he is anointed: whence he adds: In the day in which he shall anoint him, not "them," although he commands the second priests also to be anointed; this sacrifice is everlasting by succession, namely of priests. Or because that which it signifies is everlasting.

This is, etc. Aaron is the mountain of strength, that is, Christ; his sons are all the faithful; the day of anointing, the time of the incarnation, in which he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows.

An ephi. The humanity of Christ. An ephi indeed, holding three measures, signifies the Trinity, if however the ephi is the flesh of the Lord, so that the eminence of the divinity may be shown, and the inseparability of the Lord's flesh with it; none the less 313Dthe sacrifice is perpetual. For by one oblation he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified: whence also he is able to save for ever.

In the sacrifice. (ORIG.) The law of Moses is the sacrifice of the priest, etc., as far as in which there is nothing slack, nothing wanton (Matth. XVI).

In the morning. In the morning the passion of the Lord began, from when in the hall of Caiphas he was smitten with blows, and it was drawn out even to the evening; for since the darkness interposed, from the sixth hour to the ninth hour it is divided into morning and evening.

VERS. 21.-- Which in the frying-pan. (GREG. hom. 12 in Ezech.) No such sacrifice is to God, etc., as far as it is reckoned a holocaust to God.

VERS. 22.-- The priest. LXX: The anointed priest for 314Ahim, of his sons, shall do these things. For Christ is for Aaron, not in his place, because he transferred the priesthood into himself, and took it away from Aaron. Of his sons, because he descended from Jacob through Mary and from the same tribe.

Who to the father. One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things (Rom. XI). For the Lord of glory was crucified, and it is the passion of the incarnate Word, which was in the flesh of Christ: Who wholly emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and obedient to the father even unto the death of the cross. [Vulg. Phil 2:7–8 has neither totum, "wholly," nor patri, "to the father," and reads factus obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis]

VERS. 23.-- For every. Whatsoever things are in the sacrifice of the peace offerings, these also he bids to be done herein.

Nor shall any one. What is eaten is broken small: he breaks small the sacrifice of Christ who says that he died for sins, whereas he did not commit sin.

314B(ORIG.) Nor shall any one eat. The sacrifice in this place is to be taken as the Word himself, and the doctrine, of which none eats, that is, disputes or handles it over again; but it is a holocaust. For whatsoever he said, whatsoever he appointed, endures by an eternal consecration.

The priest who, etc. (AUG. quaest. 18 in Levit.) Not that he lays on, etc., as far as this too he now briefly commemorates.

(ORIG. homil. 5 in Levit.) Certain of the victims are of God alone, etc., as far as better do we reserve these things for the fire.

VERS. 27.-- Whatsoever shall touch. Although the oblation be another's, that is, the penitent's, it shall be sanctified even if he do not repent. Likewise if a little one shall have been baptized, 314Cwho has not yet sinned of himself, he is cleansed from the original

If of the blood, that is, if the substance of the flesh shall have been stained with sins. Whence: A garment mingled with blood shall be for burning, and food for the fire (Isa. IX) of hell, namely: it shall be washed in a holy place, that is, he shall have hope in baptism, which not only washes away things past, but instructs him that he may be able to repent of things to come.

VERS. 28.-- But the earthen vessel, etc. The infirm: namely, the feeble, who after penance is performed slips back to sins; he must be shattered by these, by the terror of judgment.

VERS. 29.-- Every male, etc. The priest offering and eating the whole sacrifice is Christ, who offers our penance and eats the salvation of sinners. But the flesh of the sacrifice, because it pertains 314Dto penance, every male among the priests eats, the strong, namely, and the vigorous, to whom it is said: Do manfully, and let thy heart be strengthened, and wait thou for the Lord (Psal. XXVI).

VERS. 30.-- It shall not be eaten, etc. Because it pertains to Christ, who by his own authority and by the proper power of his divinity grants remission. For his passion, through which remission is procured for us, was not that of a mere man, but of God incarnate. Therefore it is not eaten by men, but is consumed by fire, because to give remission belongs to God alone, who is signified by fire, for our God is a consuming fire (Deut. IV).

• 315A

VERS. 1.-- For an offence. (ISICH.) He sometimes calls it an offence, etc., as far as but the oblation of the reins and of the little fin of the liver and of the thighs is holiness.

(ORIG. quaest. 5 in Levit.) Certain men say that it is an offence when we do not do what we ought: but a sin when we do not do what we ought not, yet this is not everywhere observed.

VERS. 2.-- His blood, etc. (ISICH.) Whatsoever things are done in the sacrifice of the peace offerings, he bids to be done in this also.

VERS. 7.-- As for sin, etc. (AUG., quaest. 20 in Levit.) Sin is the perpetration of evil, an offence the desertion of good. For as it is one thing to turn aside from evil, 315Band another to do good, so also it is one thing to abstain from good, and another to do evil, and let the former be an offence, the latter a sin. Or an offence is what is committed unknowingly, a sin what is committed knowingly.

(ORIG., ubi supra. ) As for sin, etc. In like manner the fat of the ram is commanded, as far as that is, the things which turn the sinner from the way of sin.

To the priest, etc. Christ, who was made a propitiation for us. In him therefore every sacrifice is ministered and carried out, and what is obtained from penance is referred to him. For he himself, that he might save us, came saying: I came not to call the just, but sinners (Matth. IX).

The victim of the holocaust. (ISICH.) Not good, namely, or of sheep, etc., as far as in regard of whom we have 315Cpatience in sufferings.

VERS. 9.-- He shall have the skin. The compass of riches, which they ought to offer to the true priest who wish to become a holocaust. Satan named the compass of riches a skin, saying: Skin for skin, and all that a man hath he will give for his life (Job II). This Job gave, that he might keep the skin, that is, patience, which is called a skin out of which many useful things are made.

And whatsoever in the gridiron, etc. Because these things are nearest to the theology of the incarnation, they are of necessity the offering priest's, that is, of Christ born, suffering, and who rose again.

VERS. 10.-- Or sprinkled with oil, etc. (ORIG. hom. 5 in Levit.) The saving sacrifice is commanded to be made in oil, etc., as far as another in the frying-pan, a third in the gridiron.

315D(ISICH.) He calls the sacrifice of fine flour sprinkled with oil, etc., as far as he assigned to the sons of Aaron.

VERS. 12.-- If the oblation shall be for thanksgiving. According to the letter the oblation is made for thanksgiving, when anyone delivered from great tribulation gives thanks, as Moses after the passage of the Red Sea (Exod. XV). Mystically too, he who shall not have committed the greater crimes pays the praises of God's mercy, who has kept himself untouched by horrible crimes.

And unleavened wafers anointed with oil. Bread, namely, thin and broad, which signifies the knowledge of the prophets. And by as much as there is a distance between the solidity of bread and the thinness of a wafer, by so much is there between the knowledge of the Old Testament and of the New; the loaves therefore are sprinkled with oil, the wafers 316Aare anointed, because the light and the grace of the New Testament is greater than that of the Old.

And fine flour baked, and little cakes of oil, etc. The divine wisdom, namely, which is baked by the fire of charity. For Christ, the wisdom of God, on account of his exceeding charity delivered himself to death.

VERS. 14.-- It shall be offered to the Lord, and it shall be the priest's, etc. LXX: And he shall offer of all his gifts a praise of God to the priest that poureth out the blood of the peace offering; it shall be his. For it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy (Rom. IX). But to Christ ministering and perfecting the sacrifice the firstfruits are to be offered.

VERS. 15.-- Whose flesh shall be eaten the same day, etc. (ORIG., ubi supra.) Another food of the soul is of milk, 316Betc., as far as: Let there be, he says, new things and old.

Until the morning. The world to come, where there will be the true day which follows upon the night of this world: he does not will our life, through which we must be saved, to be left imperfect: for in the world to come it will not be lawful to work.

VERS. 16.-- If by vow or of free will, etc. Every sacrifice of the peace offerings, or peace offering, is voluntary, whence it was set above among the gifts. But the sacrifice of thanksgiving or of praise, although it be a kind of it, because it is reasonable, is not called voluntary: because, since we are rational, we owe in a manner a chief debt to the Creator, a reasonable sacrifice.

The same things in like manner. Because certain men after the end of this life have described another such life, bringing in a certain 316Cage of a thousand years in which Jerusalem is built and its temple, and the holy of holies shall be restored, and sacrifices shall be offered. But if anyone believes this, and in a manner eats it in his mind, hoping that he shall eat at that time, which is impossible, his oblation is not received, because it is polluted, and he also contracts sin, whence he says: Whatsoever soul shall have defiled itself with such food, etc.

But if anything, etc. (ORIG., ubi supra. ) The two days, on which it is lawful to feed on the flesh of the sacrifice, etc., as far as let us not therefore take to ourselves the knowledge of all things.

VERS. 17.-- The third day shall find. The world to come, in which is the general resurrection, which the resurrection of Christ signified. When the morning of the third day is come, then what is left over shall be consumed by fire: for whatsoever 316Dpeace offering we shall have left imperfect, or evil we shall have done, as wood, hay, or stubble, shall be consumed by fire: but we shall suffer loss (I Cor. III).

VERS. 19.-- The flesh which, etc. (ORIG., hom. 5 in Levit.) By the holy flesh the divine words are understood, as far as and he is polluted by another's uncleanness.

VERS. 21.-- Or of a beast. Unclean beasts are they who are intent on unclean and earthly actions, whence fornicators are called stallion horses.

VERS. 23.-- The fat of a sheep, etc. That is, neither of the strong, nor of the innocent, nor of the penitent is the good intention or desire to be depraved by a sinister interpretation, as though it were done through hypocrisy, lest anyone wish to destroy another's merit, 317Aand as it were by eating to lessen it.

(AUG., quaest. 21 in Levit. tom. III.) He said above, etc., as far as they chose for themselves the death of sin.

VERS. 24.-- For various uses. Not only by imitating the works of the good, but also by drawing those of the wicked to ourselves for an example. For we read that Herod celebrated the day of his birth, and defiled the banquet with blood (Matth. XIV): such a desire we have in use that we may beware of it, but on the contrary let us remember with mourning and affliction the day of our birth, in which we were in paradise. The Pharisee, growing proud, said: I give thee thanks, that I am not as the rest of men, etc. (Luc. XVIII.) Let us on the contrary say: God, have mercy on me, because I am not like thy servants, who lead an angelic 317Blife on earth.

VERS. 25.-- If any man the fat, etc. (ORIG.) As if to say: let no man scandalize one of these least ones, who believe in me, etc. Blood is forbidden to be eaten, as if: boast not against the broken branches, lest thou too be cut off, and they, if they shall not have continued in unbelief, be grafted in (Rom. XI). [Vulg. Rom 11:18 has noli gloriari adversus ramos, "boast not against the branches," without fractos, and 11:23 the future inserentur, "shall be grafted in"] But by the blood the people of the Jews is rightly understood: for it descended not from the faith nor from the spirit of Abraham, but only from his blood.

VERS. 29.-- He that offereth the victim. (ORIG. hom. 5 in Levit.) Another reading, etc., as far as and, conscious of his own salvation, he renders thanks to the Lord.

(ID., ibid. ) The sacrifice which is called a peace offering, etc., as far as who bear the vessels of the Lord.

VERS. 30.-- He shall hold in his hands, etc. (HIERON., epist. 317Cad Fabiolam, tom. I.) Of the peace offerings the priests offer the fat, etc., as far as that he may learn to despise what he sees himself cast out into the privy.

LXX: He that offereth the sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, shall offer his gift to the Lord of his peace offering. Expounding which he adds: He shall hold in his hands the fat of the victim. Or according to the LXX: his hands shall offer of it to the Lord: for he himself must work the things which pertain to his own salvation: because the justice of the just shall be upon him, and the impiety of the impious shall be upon him (Ezech. XVIII).

But the little breast shall be, etc. (ISID.) The breast is given to the priest, that he may have a clean thought and the knowledge of doctrine. The right arm, that he may have good works, and may go forth to the battle against the devil with armed hand, and what he shall have conceived in his heart, may perfect 317Dby the example of works. There is given also of the private part the jaw, that he may be strong in eloquence: there is given also the belly, that he may extinguish wantonness, and despise gluttony.

VERS. 32.-- Of the priest. (AUG.) Of Christ, figured in the priest. Whence the priest alone can perfect this sacrifice. For to begin the good is ours: to perfect it and to bring it to its end belongs to divine grace. It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy, to direct our actions: whence he is also called the arm of God. Whence rightly he received the shoulder, or, according to the LXX, the arm.

VERS. 33.-- He that hath offered the blood, etc. It is Christ, who offers the true blood of the peace offerings and the fat, that is, the souls and the desires of those who are saved, who is 318Aof the sons of Aaron, a priest namely singular and in all things chief, to whom the right shoulder falls for his portion, that is, every good and perfect action.

VERS. 35.-- This is the anointing. (ISICH.) These things therefore seem to pertain to the anointing of the priests, etc., as far as but what he understood by the aforesaid anointing he shows in what follows.

VERS. 37.-- This is the law of the holocaust, etc. (ORIG., hom. 5.) When the lawgiver shall have set forth, etc., as far as in which the truth of the figures is preserved.

This is the law, etc. (ISICH.) Thou seest the differing ways of life which join men to God, namely honour, the perfect thing of wisdom, which is signified by the holocaust; or middling justice, which works the things that are unto salvation. For the law understood that the sacrifices of the peace offerings, whether by holocaust 318Bor by oblation, are rightly useful unto the priestly dignity. Whence on the day on which he gave commandment of the law of anointing, he added the things which are concerning the sacrifices, and at once briefly recounted them all.

VERS. 28.-- In mount Sinai. Which is interpreted a bramble or a temptation: and temptation is like to a bramble: for it is a rough shrub and is grasped with difficulty: so the crown of a good life is scarcely had amid temptations and tribulations. Whence: Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, because, when he shall have been proved, he shall receive the crown of life (Jac., II). [Vulg. Jas 1:12 has suffert, "suffereth," and quoniam for quia]

VERS. 2.-- Two rams. The passion of Christ is signified, who is the leader of the people. And rightly two rams are immolated, 318Cbecause Christ twice committed to us the mysteries of his passion: first when he ate the mystical lamb at the supper, secondly when he established the same mysteries in the consecration of bread and wine.

VERS. 3.-- And thou shalt gather together. Moses called together the whole synagogue, although the Lord had chosen and commanded, yet the synagogue is called together: for in the ordaining of a priest the presence of the people is required, that all may know and be certain that he who is more excellent out of all the people, more learned, more holy and more eminent in virtue, he is chosen to the priesthood. He washed him therefore and clothed him. With what garment? with a tunic, and he girded him with a girdle. And again: He clothed him with an ankle-length tunic (Eccli. XLV), or, as we read elsewhere, with an inner one (II Reg. XV). But I see the high priest clothed with two tunics 318D. Yet Jesus forbids the apostles to be clothed with two tunics, whereas Moses and Jesus, that is the law and the Gospel, ought to agree (Matth. X). Others say that Jesus's commanding them not to have two tunics is not contrary to the law, but more perfect than the law: as also when the law forbids homicide (Exod. XX), but Jesus cuts away anger (Matth. V); and when the law forbids adultery, but Jesus cuts off concupiscence. I do not shut up the pontifical sacraments within the narrowness of this understanding: something further seems to me to be shown by that form. That high priest, whom Moses was then ordaining, knew that circumcision was spiritual: yet he kept also the circumcision of the flesh, because he could not be uncircumcised; he had habeba 319Atherefore two tunics, one of the carnal mystery, another of the spiritual understanding. For he could not be the high priest of those who then were, unless he offered carnal sacrifices, although he knew that they ought to be spiritual. Fittingly therefore he had two tunics. But the apostles, who were to say: If you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing (Gal. V), and who were utterly to reject the literal observance, are rightly forbidden to have two tunics; one suffices them, and this the inner one, but that which is outside, the tunic of the law, they will not have, because Jesus permits them to have one, and that the inner one.

VERS. 6.-- And when he had washed. (HIERON., ubi supra. ) Even then the cleansing of the world, etc., as far as that what we conceive in mind, we may carry out in deed.

(ORIG., hom. 6 in Levit.) Let Moses wash thee, etc., 319Bas far as in what order a high priest is appointed.

VERS. 7.-- He clothed. (HIERON., ibid. ) Let us learn first the common vestments of the priests, etc., as far as because a work of this kind cannot be made on the loom.

(ID.) The second is the poderis of linen, that is, the ankle-length garment of a double linen cloth, which Josephus calls the byssine; this clings to the body, so close and with sleeves so tight that there is no wrinkle in the garment, and it comes down to the legs. Such linen garments soldiers are wont to have, which they call shirts, fitted to the limbs and drawn tight, that they may be unencumbered for all things. This tunic the priests use, having the beauty of the clothed and the swiftness of the naked, and it is called the linen one.

The third is the girdle, most like to the skin which a serpent puts off in summer, as a long pouch woven into a round 319Cshape, under a covering of scarlet, purple, hyacinth and fine linen: for the sake of comeliness and of strength, so marked with embroidery that you would think the various flowers and gems were not woven in by the craftsman's hand, but added. By this belt the linen tunic is drawn tight between the navel and the breast, which belt, having the breadth of four fingers and coming down for the greater part to the legs, when there is need of dispatch for the sacrifices is thrown back over the left shoulder.

(HIERON.) The fourth is round, etc., as far as about to die at once.

(ID.) The sixth in Hebrew, etc., as far as he may bear on his shoulders.

(ID.) The seventh is a little one, etc., as far as and it would be thought by those who saw it to be one weaving.

319D(ID.) The eighth is the golden plate, etc., as far as and let the name of God crown and protect the whole beauty of the high priest.

But the pomegranates and the little bells set in the lower parts show forth lightnings and thunders, or the earth and the water and all the elements sounding together among themselves, and so interwoven with one another that all are in each.

(HIERON.) The Hebrews the four colours, etc., as far as his providence penetrates all things.

(ORIG., hom. 6 in Levit.) In Exodus, where command is given concerning the priestly vestments, etc., as far as lest the holy be given to dogs and pearls be set before swine (Marc. VII).

And bringing in, etc. LXX: He put on him the tunic and girded 320Ahim with the girdle and clothed him with the epomis. He follows out the incarnation of Christ. For he took up the whole man, that is, body and soul; the tunic he called earthly, because it is of the earth; the epomis heavenly, because ὑπωρίς is the poderis. And of hyacinth, which is the heavenly colour: for he took up both, and saved both.

(HIERON.) On the hyacinthine tunic, pomegranates and little bells: because so great ought the knowledge of the high priest to be, that his steps and his motions and all things be vocal, and that he sound forth by his bearing the truth which he has conceived in mind; whatsoever he does, whatsoever he speaks, let it be doctrine. Without little bells, without divers colours, gems and flowers of the virtues, he neither enters into the Church, nor is he a high priest.

320BThe shoulder-piece, etc. (ORIG.) Moses laid upon the high priest the ephod, which is the adornment of the shoulders from the drawing round of the vesture: but the shoulders are the tokens of labour and of work. He wills therefore that the high priest be adorned in works: for knowledge alone does not suffice, but he that shall do and teach, he shall be called great (I Tim. III; Matth. V).

The ephod. (HIER.) The ephod and the two stones of emerald or of onyx, which cover the shoulders from above, are interpreted the two hemispheres, of which one is above the earth, the other beneath the earth; or the sun and the moon which glow red from above.

(ID.) The two stones on the ephod are Christ and the Church, containing the names of the twelve apostles who were sent to preach, or the letter and the spirit 320Cin which are all the mysteries of the law; on the right the spirit, on the left the letter (II Cor. III). Through the letters we come to the words, through the words to the sense. A beautiful order, signifying the sacraments by the very garb: on the shoulders works, on the breast reason, whence also the priests eat the little breast.

VERS. 8.-- Which binding fast. (ORIG., ubi supra. ) He girded him according to the making of the shoulder-piece, etc., as far as because according to his works he uses the girdle of virtue.

He fitted to the rational, etc. (HIERON.) The rational, set in the midst, points to the earth, which, after the manner of a point, though it have all things in itself, is walled about by all the elements.

(ORIG., ubi supra. ) He laid upon him the logion, λογίον, etc., as far as for nothing after these things is added to the head 320Dof the high priest.

(HIERON., ubi supra. ) The rational is twofold, open and hidden, etc., as far as and let doctrine and truth follow upon these which go before.

(ID.) Twelve stones, etc., as far as showing knowledge to us.

He put the plate. (ID.) The learning of all things profits nothing, unless it be crowned by the knowledge of God, which is always his with the Father: whence he set the plate above the tiara.

(ID.) All things are imperfect unless a charioteer be sought for the chariot, and unless he himself who founded them, standing over the creatures, rule them. What was once shown in the plate is now shown in the sign of the cross: more precious is the blood of the Gospel 321Athan the gold of the law; then, according to Ezekiel, the sign thau was fixed on the forehead of them that mourned (Ezech. VIII): now, bearing the cross, we say: The light of thy countenance is signed upon us, O Lord, etc. (Psal. IV)

The plate of gold on the forehead of the high priest, and the name of God inscribed, signify that all things which are upon the earth are governed by the will of God. For it was just that the priest of God, bearing on his vestments the figure of all creatures, should declare that all things stand in need of the mercy of God, and that, when he sacrificed, the universal creation should be expiated: where he should pray by voice and by bearing not for his children, his parents, and his kindred, but for every creature.

VERS. 10.-- He took, etc. He himself is the Son of God, who anoints and who is anointed: anointing by the word of the divinity, according to 321Bwhich he has all things in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit. By the Father he is anointed according to that: God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness, etc. (Psal. XLIV). The Holy Spirit anointed him according to Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me (Isa. LXI). But the things which the Father and the Holy Spirit do, these same the Son also does. He anoints therefore according to the divinity, he is anointed according to the humanity. Whence also Daniel sees him offered, and does not see the one offering, because he offers himself. Moses therefore anointed and offers, bearing the figure of Christ.

VERS. 11.-- They sanctify. (ORIG.) It signifies the creature above enriched by our sanctification: that is, through the Lord's flesh taken from us. Whence: that it might be made known to the princes and powers through 321Cthe church, etc. [Vulg. Eph 3:10 has ut innotescat principatibus et potestatibus in caelestibus, "that the manifold wisdom of God may be made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places"]

VERS. 12.-- Pouring, etc. The head of Christ is the divinity. For as the head is not divided from the feet, so neither is the divinity of Christ from the humanity after the anointing (I Cor. XI). Whence he says: God, thy God, hath anointed thee, etc. (Psal. LIV.) For thus God is anointed and sanctified.

VERS. 13.-- The sons, etc. (ORIG., ubi supra. ) Mark the difference of the lesser priests to the greater, etc., as far as even if he shall have received the name of the first.

And he clothed, etc. Like tunics and girdles or belts and tiaras or mitres are put upon the sons of Aaron, for they put on him, are girded with him, bear him on the head; for the loins are girded with truth, which is Christ, and they are clothed with the breastplate of justice: and Christ is justice, as also the helmet of salvation, for he himself 321Dis the salvation of God.

VERS. 14.-- He offered, etc. (ISICH.) What the power of this law is, etc., as far as but of necessity the sons of Aaron, as sharing with him in the sacrifice, lay on their hands.

(AUG., quaest. 23 in Levit.) When he was recounting the sacrifices for sins, etc., as far as and the blood poured out at the base of the altar of the sacrifices.

He offered, etc. (ISICH.) The law, the priest figuring Christ in many things, etc., as far as he commanded for sheep.

He offered, etc. The handing down of the mysteries, and the mystical pasch, which Christ celebrated with his disciples (Matth. XXVI), is signified by the ram: the second he is named, 322Abecause after the lamb immolated at the supper he offered himself; whence Aaron laid his hands upon the head of the ram together with his sons, because Christ celebrated the common supper with his disciples; but Moses in a special manner offered this sacrifice, because more than the others he expressed the figure of Christ, who chiefly made his own sacrifice.

VERS. 24.-- He touched the tip of the ear, etc. If by Aaron we understand Christ, the tip of his ear was touched with blood, because he obeyed the Father even unto death. If the priests of the Church, their ears are to be touched, and the thumbs of their hands and feet, that they may consecrate to the Lord the eminence of their actions and of their steps. He touched the tip, etc. What the effect of this sacrifice is, the anointing of the ears and of the hands and feet 322Bshows: for it is celebrated on account of our obedience and our good actions and our manner of life, that, lacking the disobedience of Adam, we may attain to the obedience of the Only-begotten.

His hands, etc. That we may be strengthened in good action. For the things that are anointed are strengthened, the things that are not anointed are destroyed. For where the anointing of the immolated blood was not, Egypt was struck. But first the priest, and afterwards his sons, were anointed with the blood, because Christ first received the blood at the supper, then gave it to the disciples.

He poured out upon the altar. For when he drank, and gave the apostles to drink, he poured out the intelligible blood upon the altar, that is, upon his own body. But the Church is the body of Christ; whence Mark: And taking it, giving thanks he gave 322Cto them, and they all drank of it, and he said to them: This is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many (Marc. XIV).

But the fat. What these things signify has been said in the peace offering, or in that of the pacific victims. But the LXX gave, for the tail, the loin; for the entrails, the little belly; and for the caul of the liver, the fin of the liver: and not in vain are they even now commemorated in the ram.

VERS. 26.-- The basket. LXX, the basket: of the consummation, which is the tongue of the Lord, which brought in the chief and perfect doctrine. For he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it (Matth. XIII). This is rightly called a basket because of the weave of his doctrine, since he had said many things in parables. And it was 322Dboth the dish and the table of the whole doctrine. Rightly therefore he sets forth the mystical bread out of the basket of the consummation.

The bread. The apostolic doctrine, and the legal, and the prophetic. For the law, and the prophets, and the apostles make his memorial. For the law says: This is the bread which the Lord hath given you (Exod. XXVI). And the prophet: His bread shall be given, etc. (Isa. XXXIII.) [Vulg. Is 33:16 has panis ei datus est, "bread is given him"] But the prophetic and the legal doctrine nourish less than the apostolic. Whence Paul: God hath set in the church first apostles, then prophets (I Cor. XII). But the apostles draw the testimonies of the law and of the prophets, by which the little cakes and the wafers are set beneath them.

323AAnd the shoulder (GREG. lib. I Regist., ep. 24.) The priest by the precept of the law the right shoulder, etc., as far as and Moses says in what follows.

VERS 39.-- He took the little breast. (AUG., quaest. 23 in Levit.) Above, because he was commanding generally, etc., as far as for from the beginning it is said: Let him be to thee for the things which pertain to the people, thou to him for the things which pertain to God.

VERS. 30.-- And thou shalt take of the ointment. (ID., quaest. 24.) It is asked who anointed the priest after the death of Moses, etc., as far as by serving, not by excelling.

He sprinkled, etc. Whatsoever good things are in us are to be led back to him as to our head; whence: For them do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. Openly therefore he called his passion sanctification, 323Bwhich sanctification is given to us.

And upon the sons (AUG.) It did not appear which of the sons should succeed the high priest. For Scripture does not appoint the firstborn or the elder, unless it was done in some divine judgment, although it seems to have come of contention, so that afterwards there were made several high priests, because, when the more excellent were contending, for the sake of ending the strife the honour itself was bestowed on several.

VERS. 31.-- The loaves also. He commanded the flesh to be eaten with the loaves, that we may understand the body of Christ, who is flesh, and the bread which came down from heaven (Joan. VI), and that this ought to be celebrated only in the Church.

VERS. 32.-- But whatsoever. We see this to be done in the Church, and the things which shall have remained unconsumed to be given to the fire. But he does not say, for however many days they shall have remained unconsumed, 323Cso that always, if they shall have remained, they be given to the fire: hinting that, if we fall short of the eating of the sacrifice, and are not able to search out whether the things which we see are the very body of the Lord, we should nevertheless not leave them, but give them to the fire, that the Holy Spirit may eat what we cannot. And he eats, when we consider that the things which we cannot do are possible to him.

VERS. 33.-- Of the door. It signifies that during the whole time of the present life one must not depart from the tabernacle, but must persevere in the service of God.

(AUG., quaest. 24 in Levit.) At the door of the tabernacle of the testimony, etc., as far as for the dwelling received this name.

For seven, etc. (ISICH.). The fiftieth, the number seven 323Dbeing multiplied into itself, etc., as far as keeping the watches of the Lord, etc.

VERS. 36.-- And they did, etc. Aaron is joined with his sons, and does not go out from the door of the tabernacle. For he himself was to be preached, and was to preach in them, as he himself consecrates and is consecrated in his members.

VERS. 1.-- On the eighth day, etc. The eighth day after the dedication signifies the day of Pentecost, on which the Holy Spirit came (Act. II). But the seven days from the dedication intimate seven times seven days, which were from the resurrection until Pentecost, namely 49, the very day of Pentecost being added as an eighth.

Pentecost, which fell on the day of the resurrection, 324Abears the figure of what is to come, and of the consummation of the present age, because it is rolled round through seven days. For it behoved that the Spirit should come on the same day on which Christ rose. Then he bids Aaron and his sons and the elders be called: for then was the assembly of the Church convoked, in which is Aaron, that is, Christ, and his sons who are of a lofty manner of life, and therefore ministers of the priesthood, and the elders, that is, the presbyters: for of these the body of the Church consists.

VERS. 2.-- Take of, etc. Aaron takes a calf for a holocaust, and a ram, and offers them to the Lord. For then Christ made his sacrifice known, when the Spirit, coming, gathered Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and the firstfruits of all nations to the upper room of the apostles (Act. II).

324BAaron offers a calf and a ram when the doctors of the Church announce the mysteries of the passion, and make known that they were celebrated for the salvation of the human race.

Take ye. The apostles offered the he-goat on the day of Pentecost, when Peter, announcing repentance, said: Be ye converted and do penance. [Vulg. Act 2:38 has Poenitentiam agite; these are the words of Ez 18:30]

(AUG., quaest. 26 in Levit.) Take ye one he-goat of the goats, etc., as far as but where all are, there also are the individuals, though it is not convertible.

VERS. 6.-- This word, etc. The word, that is, the thing commanded. Do this in commemoration of me (Luc. XXII). But he says the word, because more is looked to in the word, or because in the word stands the dispensation of this mystery, and chiefly by the Lord's word transferring the things which 324Cappear into something else, greater and intelligible. Whence of the manna also he says: This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat, this is the word which the Lord hath appointed (Exod. XVI). [Vulg. Ex 16:15-16 Iste est panis quem Dominus dedit vobis ad vescendum … hic est sermo quem praecepit Dominus] In these things, therefore, he signifies that the Holy Spirit came upon them as they were performing the holy mystery and celebrating the Lord's supper. For it was the Lord's day, on which the apostles were bound to celebrate the sacred mysteries: whose traditions we follow in appointing the Lord's day for the divine assemblies. In like manner we find Christ made manifest after the resurrection through the mystical supper and the breaking of bread.

VERS. 7.-- And offer for sin, etc. (AUG., quaest. 27 in Levit.). Another reading, etc., as far as it is not necessary that it be laid upon the holocaust.

324DOffer the holocaust, etc. He does not say the holocaust of consummation, as above, when it was offered that he might be consummated by sanctification, that he might exercise the priesthood which he was exercising. It is indeed to be noted that when sacrifices are offered for the people, sacrifices were commanded to be offered both for sin, and a holocaust, and a sacrifice of peace offerings. But for the priest there was offered a sacrifice for sin, and a holocaust of consummation, not of peace offerings. But that of consummation was offered when the priests were sanctified. And these things Moses offered for Aaron and his sons; but afterwards Aaron, now exercising the priesthood, is commanded to offer for himself a calf for sin, and a ram for a holocaust not of consummation; for then it was offered that he might be consummated by sanctification, and might be able to exercise the priesthood, 325Awhich, when he was exercising it, there was no need to consummate again.

VERS. 8.-- And forthwith, etc. (ISICH.) For what cause these sacrifices also are performed here we have said above, etc. as far as whence in the person of the priest we discern both to have been offered.

(AUG., ubi supra ). It moves one also that, when Aaron was performing the gifts of the people which are recalled above, etc., as far as both from each living creature, as though he had said little breasts.

VERS. 15.-- And for sin, etc. (ISICH.) Of what these bear the figure, etc., as far as and they ceased not to meditate the things which they were teaching the Church.

Stretching forth his hand, etc. (AUG., Quaest. 28 in Levit.) Standing at the altar he was serving, etc., as far as who there 325Bforbade there to be steps.

VERS. 22.-- And so, these being completed, and the rest. (ISICH.) Plainly he wishes to set forth the whole figure of the Church, etc., as far as the things that follow show.

VERS. 23.-- And Moses and Aaron entering into the tabernacle of the testimony, etc. (ID.) Because concerning the intelligible tabernacle, etc., as far as he is fit to bestow the blessing.

And entering in. He set entering in first, and subjoins going out, because the priest enters the tabernacle when he prays for himself or for the people, or gives himself to divine contemplation; he goes out when he teaches, or blesses the people, or when he returns to his conscience by searching himself, lest perchance he give offence in his preaching.

And the glory of the Lord appeared. In the form of fire, as 325Con the day of Pentecost, whence he subjoins: And there went out a fire from the Lord. Whence Luke also: There appeared to them parted tongues, as it were of fire.

To all the multitude, etc. To which Luke says the like: And this voice being made, the multitude came together, and was confounded in mind (Act. II); not only came together, but was terrified. Whence here there follows: And they were astonished and wondered, etc.

Which were upon the altar. He finds that it is necessary to set the aforesaid sacrifices, and the expositions of them, upon the intelligible altar of the body of Christ, that our intention may sigh thither, and then the nourishments of the intelligible fire, that is, of the Holy Spirit, will be at hand, of which it is said: The Lord our God is a consuming fire (Deut. IV). [Vulg. Dt 4:24 Dominus Deus tuus, "thy God"; the form with noster is Heb 12:29]

• 325D

VERS. 1.-- And Nadab having taken. (AUG. quaest. 31 in Levit., tom. III.) Fire going out from the Lord, the sons of Aaron died, etc., as far as they will suffer torments.

And having taken, etc. (ISID., quaest. in Levit., tom. V.) They offer strange fire, etc., as far as lest we burn with vices.

(ISICH.) Here those who teach strange things, etc., as far as whereby they were able to earn life.

(AUG., ubi supra. ) Another reading, etc., as far as through whom he gave us the Scripture.

VERS. 4.-- And Moses having called Misael and Elisaphan. מישאל Misael, the touching of God. אלצפן Elisaphan, 326Aor Elzaphan, the illumination of God, or the mirror of God. To these it is with right commanded that they take up Nadab and Abiu outside the camp. For these signify the saints, who, being illumined by God, touch him with the hands of faith, and contemplate God with perfect faith. Whence they are well called the sons of Oziel, which signifies the Gospel: whence he is said to have been Aaron's cousin on the father's side, because great is the kinship of the Gospel and of the Law. For the Gospel is the exposition of the Law: and the sons of the Gospel thrust heretics, truly dead, from the camp of the Church. Or Misadai and Elisaphan: the first, the touching of God, that is Misadai; Elisaphan is interpreted the watchtower of my God. Whosoever knows how to touch God, and to behold, namely, the flesh and the divinity of Christ, as Thomas who, handling the flesh with his hand, said: My God and my Lord (Joan. XX), [Vulg. Jo 20:28 Dominus meus, et Deus meus, the order reversed] is able to take away the fire 326Bof strange doctrine from the face of the saints, that is, of the priests. The tunics of the priests: the manner of life and the life by which they are clothed with the habit of the priesthood. They are cast out therefore, together with the priesthood, from the fellowship of the priests and also of the people. Whence he adds, outside the tabernacle, that is, the church of the people: the sons of Aaron's uncle do these things.

Aaron, that is David, through whom the prophecies are understood, which make Christ manifest, and in a manner bring him forth to those who know him not. But the brother of prophecy is the Gospel; for the things which were done in the Gospels were foretold by the prophets. The sons therefore of the brother of Aaron's father, that is, of the Gospel, cast out such men. Whence: If any man come to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house (II Joan.).

VERS. 6.-- Heads, etc. According to the letter. Because they had lately 326Cbeen consecrated to God, he commands that they lay not aside the holy vestments, but stand ready to serve God.

But allegorically, that they make not a division of persons in Christ. For the head of Christ is God, but Christ consists of divinity and humanity; for the tiara of the head, that is of the divinity, is the humanity, by which the divinity was covered as with a cap; this is not to be taken away, nor is a division of persons in Christ to be preached, but one person of two substances.

Your heads, etc. (AUG., quaest. 32 in Lev.) That is, lest they lay aside the mitres, etc., as far as whence he adds:

Let your brethren and all the house of Israel bewail the burning. (ISICH.) We are not ignorant what the mitres signify, 326Detc., as far as of which: His unction teacheth you of all things.

VERS. 9.-- Wine, and every thing that may make drunk. (ID.) Until now the Church keeps this law, etc., as far as that is, to have breathed spiritually.

Wine, and every thing that, etc. They are bidden to abstain from those things which cast down or overturn the state of the mind, when they enter the tabernacle. But let us never be made drunk, but let us always be sober in mind and in body.

When you shall enter. (AUG., quaest. 33). When therefore it was lawful for them to drink, etc., as far as that this may be the lawful office of the priests for ever in their generations.

327AVERS. 10.-- That you may have knowledge to discern. (AUG.) This too is set down ambiguously, etc., as far as or is it rather to be referred to both?

VERS. 12.-- Take the sacrifice, etc. (ISICH.) That the little breast is confidence, etc., as far as but the things that belong to the peace and welfare offerings are of the whole people.

Take ye, etc. The hidden things, that is, and the deep sacraments of Scripture, which the common sort does not grasp, are to be kept and eaten by the perfect; beside the altar, that is, beside the faith and the authority of the Lord's passion.

VERS. 14.-- The little breast, etc. (AUG., quaest. 34.) The little breast. Although several names have been given to the several things, etc., as far as it was laid upon the altar from the little breast.

327BVERS. 16.-- Among these. (ISICH.) Because every sin is blotted out through penance, and they who committed the aforesaid sin of another doctrine and of blasphemy were not saved, the lawgiver sets forth the cause of their death.

Among these the he-goat, that is, because the sons of Aaron did not eat that which was for sin in the holy place, that is, they did not cause the penance for the sin committed to be performed in the church. To whom this is commanded, whom Christ appointed as his vicars in the Church. For he himself offered the blood of his own oblation, which was offered for our blood, into the holy place, that is, into heaven, in the sight of the Father. But this sacrifice sacricium ought to be eaten in the holy place, that is, in the church, unto the propitiation of sins, whence he adds: As it hath been commanded 327Cto me, that is, as I have commanded. For Moses bears the person of Christ. He finds it burnt up, because they had sinned against the Holy Spirit: by the intelligible fire of the Holy Spirit the oblation for penance was taken away. For to them that sin wilfully there is not left a sacrifice for sin (Heb. X). For as true penance earns pardon, so feigned penance provokes God: because the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee the feigned (Sap. I). But this the holy Fathers have called the unremissible sin, and the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: to persevere in crimes unto the end of life, to despair of one's own salvation, to distrust the power and the mercy of the Redeemer.

(ADAMANT.) Not to sin belongs to God alone, etc., as far as save what is true and sincere.

327D(AUG., quaest. 36 in Levit.) Indeed, since six beasts are commanded to be offered for the people, etc., as far as all which had been for sin.

VERS. 19.-- Aaron answered, etc. In the person of the Church, whose figure he bears, as also that of Christ, Aaron seems to say this. As it were, because after the coming of the Saviour they were appointed to minister, and to offer for penance, and to set forth the prophetic life. Otherwise: The teachers perished, and in them these things befell the Church, so that it mourned the death of the priests and the masters, whence it could not eat to-day for sin, nor pray: but it was displeasing to the Lord.

(AUG.) Aaron answered, etc. If to-day they offered the things which are for their sin, etc., as far as But 328Awhy this was done, Aaron answered, and it pleased Moses.

To-day. As if he said: if they had sinned this before the remission of the Saviour, perhaps it would be pardoned, since knowledge was not yet made manifest to the world: whence, If I had not come, and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin (Joan. XV).

VERS. 1.-- The Lord spoke. (ISICH.) Whatsoever was made by God is clean by the very authority of its institution. In the animals, therefore, are depicted the manners of men, and their acts, and their wills, from which they become clean or unclean.

328B(ID.) The Lord said to Noe: Every thing that moveth and liveth shall be meat for you (Gen. IX), etc. In Genesis also it was said: God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good (Gen. I). But here certain things are forbidden as evil, and are decreed unclean. Yet these things are not contrary to one another: for the Lord both restrains for a little the gluttony of the Jews, and the spiritual exposition of the precepts instructs what manner of men they ought to be. For the Law is the nourishment of the rational soul when it is understood in a reasonable way. And as in the passages above he figured those who offer by the oblations, so now by the things that are eaten he expresses those who eat.

VERS. 3.-- Every thing that hath, etc. (ISID.) Among fishes whatsoever hath not fins and scales 328Cis abominable: rough things are held for clean. For bristly and shaggy, firm and grave manners of men are approved. They who are without these are called unclean, to whom smooth and slippery, weak and effeminate manners are attached. He joins fins also and scales; for whatsoever fishes are finned are also scaly. If to any their ignorance can be dissolved, to these belongs also lofty knowledge and a heavenly life: but they who are not such, with these not even to take food.

Morally. (GREG.) Fishes which have fins and scales are wont to give leaps above the waters. In finned fishes, therefore, are figured the elect souls, which alone pass over into the body of the heavenly Church; which, upheld by the fins of the virtues, leap through heavenly desire to contemplation, although they slip back into themselves through the frailty of the flesh. 328DThose alone, then, pass over into the body of the elect as chosen food, who, while they serve the lowest things, ascend to the things above by the leaps of the mind, lest they always lie hid in the depths of cares, where they have no care of the highest love, as of the free air. They therefore who are occupied with temporal things dispose their outward affairs well then, when they anxiously flee back to the inward ones, and love not the din of disturbance, but rest within themselves in the bosom of tranquillity.

VERS. 10.-- Whatsoever fins, etc. There are also fishes having a shell for a skin, whose scale cannot be taken away, because they neither lay aside the scales of ignorance at the word of God, nor receive the knife of the spirit: and although they be found in the sea of baptism, or 329Ain the rivers of penance, they are nevertheless abominable among those things which move and live in the waters, because by living ill they corrupt the regeneration and the life which they received in baptism.

VERS. 11.-- Flesh. (RAB. in Levit. ) When he forbids the swine, etc., as far as seeking the darkness of night.

VERS. 13.-- These are they which of the birds, etc. (ISICH.) He adds the things which belong to the life of contemplatives, etc., as far as little women laden with sins.

VERS. 14.-- The vulture after its kind. (ID.) Which rejoices in wars. Whence it follows an army, awaiting the carcasses of the dead: for he who gives his labour to contemplation ought not to be fed on another's grief.

VERS. 16.-- The ostrich. The ostrich is a bird, but it cannot fly, and is always about the ground, like 329Bcertain men who serve God and entangle themselves in secular businesses (Job XXXIX; II Tim. II).

The owl. They say that this sees keenly by night, and little by day. Such are they who glory in the contemplation of the Law, and are not able to receive the light of the Gospel. The night-raven. It seizes prey only by night. Such are the nations that gape after the works of night, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty (Gal. V).

The gull. The gull is an animal dwelling as much in water as on land: for it both flies and swims. To this are likened they who venerate both circumcision and baptism.

The hawk. The hawk is among the birds of prey, but it grows tame, and works its rapine together with men. Him do they imitate who seem gentle, but strive to seize together with the powerful and the covetous and the ravening.

329CThe didapper and the ibis. These are of long neck, and draw their food out of the depth of the earth or of the water (as it is said), and are not to be imitated. For he who gives himself to contemplation ought to stretch towards the higher things, and not to be solicitous about the lower.

VERS. 19.-- The hoopoe. This is mournful and loving of grief. But the sorrow of the world worketh death. But he who loves God ought to rejoice, to pray without ceasing, in all things to give thanks (I Thess. V).

The bat. Which flies about the ground, uses its wings for feet: which is foreign to those who contemplate, lest their contemplation be occupied in earthly things.

VERS. 20.-- Every one of the winged things that goeth upon 329Dfour feet, etc. They who seem to be like the contemplatives, but cling like creeping things to earthly concupiscences, even if they walk upon four feet, that is, if they feign the evangelical preaching, which calls to penance; because they do not truly embrace the social life, serving pleasures, they are abominable.

VERS. 21.-- But whatsoever walketh, etc. Because, although they are in the flesh, they walk not according to the flesh (II Cor. X), but leap away from filthy actions, and mingle with earthly men, that they may instruct and teach: as the Lord with sinners and publicans (Matth. IX). We ought to have legs loftier than our feet, lest we halt on either foot, as 330Athe Jews in the law and the prophets; but let us have straight legs, like the Cherubim, of whom it is said: Their legs were straight, and their feet winged (Ezech. I). [Vulg. Ez 1:7 et pedes eorum, pedes recti, et planta pedis eorum quasi planta pedis vituli; no received verse reads crura eorum recta]

VERS. 22.-- The bruchus. Which leaps, but less than the attacus, or the locust, which leap more. Such are they who associate with sinners, for association, not for consent or imitation.

The ophiomachus. Which fights with serpents; but for us the fight is with the ancient serpent and his angels (Apoc. XII).

VERS. 25.-- That he bear. Like one who calls evil good, and bitter sweet (Isa. V): for by praising the evil from which he ought to have restrained, he makes it his own and bears it.

VERS. 26.-- Every beast that. (ISICH.) The law passes over no sin; whatsoever things are forbidden in the Gospel 330Bare expressed by the riddles of the Law, that in the mouth of two witnesses every word may stand (Matth. XVIII), [Vulg. Mt 18:16 duorum, vel trium testium, "of two or three witnesses"] and that in both laws thou mayest praise God, and, as it forbids, mayest flee evil.

VERS. 27.-- That walketh upon hands, etc. He who transgresses the evangelical manner of life, but walks upon his hands, laying on hands, that is, for the sake of filthy lucre (I Tim. IV), is rightly compared to all beasts, so that thou mayest call him either an adulterer, or covetous, a murderer and the like: for by a wicked imposition of hands he communicates with them all.

VERS. 28.-- Whosoever shall carry carcasses of this kind. By speaking false testimonies, by calling the worthy unworthy, and the clean unclean.

VERS. 29.-- The weasel. Voracity. For the mouse for the 330Cvoracity of its belly shuns no dangers.

The crocodile. Which, of hard skin and malicious, is fed on mud.

VERS. 30.-- The chameleon. It shows pity, and out of weakness feigns itself tame, though it is cruel.

The mole. A blind animal begotten of the earth. For it is created, as they say, of earth rained upon and muddy, but first corrupted.

VERS. 31.-- He that toucheth, etc. If they were unclean by nature, he would be unclean who touched them even living. The carrion of such are their actions, that is, guile, theft, duplicity, and things of this kind, in which is the death of the soul.

VERS. 32.-- And upon what, etc. (ISICH.) The lawgiver uses a wonderful division, etc., as far as as well 330Da wooden vessel as a garment.

VERS. 34.-- All food, etc. By food and drink he understands good works, therefore he said: The food which you shall eat, and the liquid that is drunk, etc. Because both the food and the drink of evil actions is forbidden, lest anyone partake of them. If therefore any carrion whatever fall upon good actions, which are in every vessel, that is, in every man, the action will necessarily be unclean. For if upon a good action there fall pride, guile, hypocrisy, or any carrion whatever, that is, anything bringing death to him that partakes, this man also will be unclean: for an evil intention falling upon a good action defiles it.

VERS. 34.-- If water be poured upon it. (AUG., quaest. 37 in Levit.) Concerning the vessel, that is, which 331Awas made unclean by unclean carrion, if perchance it held water.

Water. Of baptism: for the discourse is about the baptized; but of the unbelieving he makes no mention. Whence Paul: I have written to you not to keep company with fornicators (I Cor. III), not indeed with the fornicators of this world, etc.

VERS. 35.-- Or ovens. By this the masters are designated, in whom the foods of sacred doctrine are cooked by the working and the fire of the Holy Spirit. Nor is it a wonder: for Moab is called a cauldron: Moab is the pot of my hope (Rom. II).

Pots with feet, etc. Because they who teach not to steal, steal; and they who preach not to commit adultery, commit adultery: yet the doctrine is clean. Whence fountains and the rest.

331BVERS. 37.-- If it fall. (ISICH.) He leaves nothing unexamined, etc., as far as if any carrion whatever fall upon them, they become unclean.

VERS. 39.-- He that toucheth its carcass shall be unclean. (ISICH.) We ought to abominate the life of the wicked, to imitate that of the just. For he who touches the life of the evil shall be unclean, until he has done penance.

VERS. 40.-- He that eateth. That is, has defended it as an advocate, and by helping has transferred it upon himself: let him wash his garments, that is, his wicked actions, until he has done penance.

VERS. 41.-- Every thing that creepeth upon the earth. This the lawgiver set forth above, but he repeats it, admonishing the hearer to the frequent meditation of the law.

VERS. 47.-- And that you may know what to eat. These foods 331Cdo not cleanse or pollute us, but we ourselves: for we quicken the things that are eaten, and as every food is good (I Petr. II), and nothing is to be rejected which is received with thanksgiving; so the things that are eaten, that is, which nourish the soul, namely good actions, we quicken, if we use them well: if ill, we mortify them. For he who makes an alms out of rapine mortifies it, and takes away its power; and they who abstain from foods, but disparage their brethren, mortify their abstinence.

VERS. 2.-- If a woman having received seed. (ISID., quaest. in Levit., tom. V.) The week is the present life, etc., as far as nor shall she be purged in the world to come.

331DShe shall be unclean. (ISICH.) Because, that is, the sower is unclean, as the heir of Adam, who through his transgression was unclean, and so was mingled with his wife. For after he went out of paradise he knew his wife, and so is the human race propagated.

Seven days. (ID.) Because Adam, etc., as far as when Adam, separated from paradise, fell down into this misery.

On the eighth day, etc. (ID.) The eighth day, etc., as far as But disobedience contracted for us uncleanness and filth.

VERS. 4.-- Three and thirty days, etc. (ID.) seven being added, etc., as far as for it is uncertain whether they will bear a female or a male.

332A(AUG., quaest. 40 in Levit.) What difference there is between the seven days, etc., as far as to eighty in the case of a female.

She shall touch no holy thing. What does he wish to be understood as the sanctuary, since none but the priests ought to enter the tabernacle, and that as far as the veil of the second: but beyond the veil, where the ark was, the high priest alone entered? Perhaps that before the tabernacle, where the altar of sacrifices is, could be called the sanctuary. For often the court also is called a holy place, when it is said: In the holy place they shall eat them. Thither perhaps the women entered, offering their gifts, which they were to lay upon the altar.

VERS. 6.-- And when they shall be expired. He opens his intention, namely, that natural motions do not make pollution, but sin, of which David says: For behold I was conceived in iniquities (Psal. L), etc., 332Bcalling nature the mother, and signifying that the uncleanness of the sin of Adam and Eve has come down into the whole human race. Therefore Moses, the days of purification being completed, commanded a holocaust, and a sacrifice for sin, to be immolated; plainly showing that the image of God bestows perfection upon our race. For the days of cleansing show the formation, the holocaust the perfection.

(AUG., ubi supra. ) Is it a sin to have borne a child? etc., as far as not that they should say over a son or over a daughter, but for a son or a daughter.

But it is to be noted how poor the Lord willed to be born, so that there was not offered for him a lamb and a young pigeon or a turtle, but a pair of turtles or two young pigeons according to the Gospel, which the scripture of Leviticus then commanded to be offered, if the hand of the offerer had not 332Ca lamb, which is great enough.

(BEDA, in Lev., tom. II.) Our Lord not only man, etc., as far as and afterwards it shall come into the heavenly Jerusalem, commended to the Lord by the victims of good works.

VERS. 7.-- From the issue, etc. As though someone should ask, from what shall she be cleansed who has brought forth lawfully? he says, from the issue of her blood, that is, from disobedience, whence uncleanness and punishment flowed forth, by the meditation and contemplation of the law, the neglect of which brought uncleanness upon men.

VERS. 1.-- And the Lord spoke. (ISID.) God speaks once, and two things are heard: Moses hears the Spirit, 332Das the loftier; Aaron the letter, as the lower, who announces the letter to the people. Whence he shall speak to the people, and shall be thy mouth, but thou shalt be in those things which pertain to God (Exod. IV). [Vulg. Ex 4:16 ipse loquetur pro te ad populum … tu autem eris ei in his quae ad Deum pertinent, "he shall speak for thee" and "thou shalt be to him"]

VERS. 2.-- A man. (ID.) Sometimes it is taken in an excellent sense, of him who keeps the image of God and the dignity of his nature. Sometimes of a sinner, in whom that dignity is deformed, as here.

In whose flesh, etc. He bears leprosy in flesh and skin who strives to persuade to carnal or outward things, as the Corinthians, who thought that the resurrection would be in the pleasure of the flesh: and that to those who remain in the faith, although they live carnally, sins are not imputed.

Or as it were shining. One leprosy is exceedingly, or moderately, 333Adark, the passion not yet boiling up, which needs much deliberation. Another is exceedingly clear and manifest, whose recognition is open.

The plague of leprosy. (ISID.) Leprosy is false doctrine; the lepers are heretics, who, not having the unity of the true faith, profess various errors of doctrine, mixing true things with false, and by their spreading defile the Church, as leprosy defiles bodies.

He bears leprosy in the body who disparages the Church, as the Carpocratians, who deny the resurrection of the flesh, and the Novatians, who condemn marriages, and take away penance from those who sin.

Or to any one of his sons, etc. Of kinsmen according to the spirit, from whom he has the priesthood, in whom there is a perfect and full prophecy, that they may be able to discern 333Bsubtle things and the hidden motions of the soul.

VERS. 3.-- The hairs. Thoughts, by which the soul is adorned and the mind is covered, and by which they are begotten, as the head begets the hairs of the head, by which it is adorned and covered. Whence the hairs of your head are all numbered (Matth. X). [Vulg. Mt 10:30 Vestri autem capilli capitis omnes numerati sunt; this word order is that of Lc 12:7] Hence the Nazarites do not shave the head (Num. VI), because they have no superfluous thoughts; but to lay aside holy ones is a loss to a holy man.

Lower than the flesh, etc. Lower than himself: whence rightly he does not merit pardon. For to be overcome by another and a greater is bearable; but not to work the good commanded by God (for the Lord divides as he wills), so that a man becomes worse than himself, this is unbearable.

VERS. 4.-- He shall shut him up. He is shut up a second time, that he may be diligently inspected, and, a double trial being gone through, 333Ca strict judgment may be made. For the sin was manifest to the priest, but he did not know that the mind consented to the passion, but conjectured it: therefore he inspected again. Hence the Lord, after the denial, asks a third time how Peter's mind stands (Joan. XI), that we may not judge quickly, but may inquire often. He is shut up for seven days. For the number seven marks the fullness of the present life, which is passed in seven days; and when it is fulfilled, sin and servitude shall cease. Whence in the divine Scriptures the seventh is named rest.

VERS. 6.-- He shall cleanse him, because it is a scab. So Paul removed from the tabernacle of the saints him who had committed fornication at Corinth (because the passion was manifest), and delivered him to Satan; and when he had inspected him a second time, and had seen him repent, he commanded him to be received (I Cor. V).

333DVERS. 10.-- And when the colour shall be white in the skin. A manifest transgression of the letter of the law, which is proper to the Jews, as in sacrifices and purgations and things of this kind. For there is also one common to the nations, concerning adultery, rapine, avarice, and the like.

VERS. 12.-- But if it shall flower forth. (ISICH.) He shows the Jewish people to be leprous in part, as being in part a transgressor of the law: whence the priest casts him out as unclean. But the Gentile, leprous in his whole body, who transgresses the whole law, he does not cast out; but judges him clean, because he was not subject to the yoke of the law.

(HIERON.) But if it shall flower forth, etc. In this leprosy, as it were flowering and white, he designates diverse crimes. Because 334Awhen the pleasure of worldly life is esteemed as white and flowering, then the grievous contagion of vices rages in the body. For either the spots of avarice or those of lust break out. But the crime of avarice can easily be cut away, whence: Give alms, and all things shall be clean unto you. [Vulg. Lc 11:41 et ecce omnia munda sunt vobis, "and behold, all things are clean unto you"] Lust also is cleansed by fastings and abstinence. But to all of them a remedy is applied through the priest. For one is cleansed by the oblations of sacrifices; another there is which is cleansed more easily; another which is cleansed after being placed outside the camp; another which is not cleansed at all.

VERS. 14.-- Living flesh, etc. (ISICH.) The Jewish commandment, which is said to live so far as regards the commandment, or because, well understood, it brings life.

VERS. 18.-- For the flesh, etc. (ISID.) He bears leprosy in living flesh 334Bwho judges anything false concerning the soul, which is the life of the flesh. As the Luciferians, who say that the soul is propagated from the substance of the flesh; and the Arabici, who think that the soul dies together with the body.

VERS. 19.-- A scar, etc. (ID.) They bear leprosy in the scar of a healed wound who, after the acknowledgment of the faith and the medicine of God which they receive in Christ, again show some token of error or of the perfidy of the old doctrine.

White. Because it comes from the wound of the transgression of the law; for the law is white and not warmed by the sun of justice (Act. XV).

Somewhat reddish. Because it comes from an evangelical prevarication, as to eat what is offered to idols, or blood, or what is strangled; and both are done against Christ, whose are the Law and the Gospel.

334CVERS. 20.-- It shall defile. Because the sin is in a settled habit, and the evil consuming of the soul has settled in through the ulcer. Whence he called it a leprosy flowering forth out of the wound.

The flesh and the skin which the fire had burned, etc. (ISICH.) He seems to repeat the things said above, but partly he says the same, partly he adds; for he sets down another passion, but the same indication. For he treated of the ulcer which is begotten by some sickness of neglected flesh, and grows. The ulcer, then, of our flesh is pleasure, drunkenness, gluttony and things of this kind, which come forth when the body runs riot and itches within itself. But now he treats of a greater plague, that is, of the burning of fire. Of which it is said: The fire shall consume the adversaries (Isa. LXXIV). [Vulg. Is 26:11 ignis adversarios tuos devoret, Heb 10:27 ignis aemulatio, quae consumptura est adversarios; no verse reads as printed, and Isaiah has sixty-six chapters]

VERS. 25.-- Because the plague, etc. In the scar of a burning the Manichees have leprosy, who in the torment of abstinence 334Dburn up their own bodies, and through unbelief beget thence not cleanness, but leprosy.

VERS. 29.-- A man or a woman. That is, who errs concerning the divinity, as the heretics, who not only deny the Father to be the maker of the world, but even affirm him to be the author of evils, as Manichaeus.

Or the beard, etc. (ISID.) They bear leprosy in the beard who think perversely of the apostles and disciples of Christ, and feign that they preached false things. For the beard is the ornament of a man, and the apostles are the teachers of the body of Christ.

(ISICH.) We find that the lawgiver set down six kinds of leprosy, etc., as far as because they defend the perfidy of their error with open depravity.

(ID.) He sets down diverse colours of leprosy, etc., as far 335Aas it signifies a lying tongue and weakness.

VERS. 31.-- He shall shut him up seven days, and on the day, etc., not so much for punishment as for the sake of a strict trial; for the time is to be observed in all cases, more strictly in those whose tongue runs unbridled about the divinity.

VERS. 34.-- If on the seventh day. Because the word in which one offends, if he who has sinned once denies it, ought not to be adjudged. For who judges a man guilty by that which he has confessed with his tongue, when he denies that he uttered it with his will?

And his garments being washed he shall be clean, etc. (HIERON.) Some things committed before baptism, etc., as far as of which it is said: He that sinneth against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, etc. [Vulg. Mt 12:32 qui autem dixerit contra Spiritum sanctum, non remittetur ei, "he that shall speak against"]

VERS. 37.-- Black hairs, that is, if he has mourned his impiety, and has done true penance. For they that mourn 335Band do penance are disfigured with a black habit.

VERS. 38.-- A man or a woman, etc. (ISICH.) In the prevarication of the divine doctrine, etc., as far as: whereby they may not live.

VERS. 40.-- He is bald and clean. Simple, not to the foolish; for there is no one to whom at least a few hairs do not remain.

VERS. 44.-- Whosoever therefore is spotted, etc. (ISID.) Heretics are cast out of the Church until they be purged. With their tunics unsewn, that is, their secrets made manifest, they are commanded to sit. With the head bared, that their nakedness may be seen by all. With the mouth closed, that they may not speak impious things any further.

VERS. 46.-- He shall dwell outside the camp. So John shuts out the intelligible leper from the intelligible dwelling: 335CHe that bringeth not this doctrine, receive him not into the house, and say not God speed to him (II Joan. 10). [Vulg. 2Jo 10 Si quis venit ad vos, et hanc doctrinam non affert, nolite recipere eum in domum, nec ave ei dixeritis]

(ISICH.) These things are ridiculous when interpreted according to the letter, etc., as far as lest it be said to him, Thou that preachest that men should not steal, stealest; but to the sinner God hath said: Why dost thou declare my justices? (Rom. II.)

VERS. 47.-- A woollen garment, etc. (ID.) Woollen, precious, and warming the mind, etc., as far as namely, and good works.

VERS. 48-- In the warp, etc. (HIERON.) The warp is the soul: which, when it is twisted by the spindle of temptation into the fineness of sons, is bound together by the solidity of a firmer virtue. The soul, then, stands, yet as erect; the sense of the body lies beneath as the woof; but some sins are 335Dof the body, others of the soul.

(ISICH.) They who attend to the letter alone, etc., as far as but also of that which is wont to come about concerning the virtues.

(ID.) Leprosy, in a linen garment, etc., as far as in the manner of life of this life.

A skin or whatsoever, etc. (ID.) The temptation of tribulation, etc., as far as nor let him rashly receive it as clean.

VERS. 49.-- If white, etc. (ID.) LXX: Greening and growing yellow, that is, pride, which flowers for a little: whence, As the herbs of the field they shall quickly fall (Psal. XXXVI), or vainglory. For Christ wills the virtues to be without vain glory.

VERS. 56.-- He shall break it off. Through penance 336Ahe shall cut off the passion; pride is broken off when humility is brought near; vain glory, when flattery and vain praise are taken away.

VERS. 57.-- A flying leprosy. (GREG., hom. X in Ezech.) Sometimes we recognise that we have done evil, and we avoid it, etc., as far as through immoderate continence he passes over to the vice of wrath.

VERS. 1.-- And he spoke. (ISICH.) Because stains, etc., as far as for he himself healed every sin.

VERS. 4.-- Two sparrows. (ID.) The divinity, namely, and the humanity of Christ. Which are clean, because he had no sin; and alive, because out of sin he was not liable to death.

336BWhich to eat, etc. Because, The Word was made flesh, and unless we shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, we shall not have life in us. [Vulg. Jn 6:54 nisi manducaveritis carnem Filii hominis, et biberitis ejus sanguinem, non habebitis vitam in vobis, second person plural, and with the drinking of his blood]

Cedar wood. (ISICH.) The cross, which is strong against all things, as the cedar is strong and cannot rot.

Scarlet. The LXX: twisted crimson, that is, the passion; namely because crimson is red, and twisted, woven together of passibility and of impassibility.

Hyssop. The grace of the Holy Spirit, which works together toward our cleansing. Whence: Thou shalt sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed, etc. (Psal. L.) [Vulg. Ps 50:9 Asperges me hyssopo, et mundabor, without the vocative Domine]

VERS. 5.-- Over the waters, etc. Of baptism. Whosoever of us have been baptized in Christ, have been baptized in his death (Rom. VI).

VERS. 6.-- He shall dip in the blood, etc. Because all things are comprehended 336Cin the power of baptism. The living sparrow is dipped in the blood of the slain sparrow, because we are baptized not in the passion of a man only, but of God and man.

VERS 7.-- Seven times, that he may be rightly purged. For the sevenfold Spirit, in whom is all cleansing and remission; or that the soul may be purged of the seven demons.

And he shall let the sparrow go. Because in a certain manner he is held under the contemplation of the human understanding.

VERS. 8.-- His garments. His works, and whatever virtues he shall have had, because sin has defiled these too.

And being purified, truly. Yet above the leprosy was said to be cleansed; but it is to be understood thus: fit to be cleansed.

Outside the tabernacle. The fellowship of the saints, from 336Dwhich sinners are shut out. Whence with such a one not even to take food (I Cor. 5).

VERS. 9.-- The hairs. The thoughts, which furnish a man with adornment as a rational being and one that debates many things: even as the hairs of the head.

And the eyebrows. Which set a man in contemplation of things sublime and more divine, which the eyebrows, placed higher up, signify.

Of the whole body. Even of the parts of shame, that none of the old thoughts may remain, that being wholly new and as it were newly born he may put off the old man and put on the new. For just as, when the hairs are shaved, new ones follow, if new thoughts sprout up toward better things when the old have been shaved away.

337AVERS. 10.-- On the eighth day. On which the Lord rose, on which the leper enters the camps which the patriarch Jacob saw when the angels met him: whence he called the place the camps of God (Gen. XXXII).

After that. On the first day, on which the priest goes out, he commanded a sacrifice to be offered outside the camps for the cleansing of the leper; on the eighth day he appointed other sacrifices. For these have the same force as the first, because all time is bounded within weeks. The eighth, therefore, is also the first that follows. And it is to be noted that he shows leprosy, that is, sin, to be shunned with the utmost care, in that he commanded it to be purged so diligently.

Unspotted lambs, etc. All these things figure the sacrifice of the Savior, who was a victim for us. The sacrifice is made of either sex, because he saved 337Bboth sexes.

(HIER.) In the two lambs are the two comings of Christ, by which we must believe that we are cleansed from the leprosy of sins: for first he came and suffered; secondly he is to come in glory.

A yearling. He bids the sacrifice be a yearling, as being perfect: for among the aforesaid animals the yearlings are perfect, whence also they are then fit for generation.

And three tenths. For he who is cleansed by the sacrifice of the Only-begotten ought to be marked with faith in the holy Trinity: three tenths of fine flour, that is, the Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, having perfection in each several person: for ten is a perfect number.

Of fine flour. Of the Only-begotten. For although it was the passion of the Only-begotten, 337Cyet it is the work of the whole Trinity: whence we are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, while we are baptized into the death of Christ.

(ISID.) There is a leprosy of sin, etc., as far as and to obtain pardon.

A sextary of oil. Because by faith each of the aforesaid is understood and done. For the sextary is a measure, holding neither more nor less: for what is over is poured out; if it is less, it is not a sextary. So faith is given to the measure of our mind, and it holds neither more nor less than is distributed by God: for what is more or less is outside faith.

A sextary of oil, the rich mercy and grace of God: and if a man has not been able to display the most shining face of holiness, let him not put out the lamp of faith.

337DVERS. 14.-- Upon the tip. That he may fortify the hearing and make it wary, lest it hear the serpent's voice any more.

And of the foot. That in the sight of God our motion and our way may be directed. For when these aforesaid things are kept through the blood of the Lamb and faith in him, which is given us through his mercy and compassion, the intelligible leprosy is put to flight.

VERS. 16.-- And he shall sprinkle, etc. For such a priest presumes with God that he may be able to cleanse and remit sins: whence he sprinkles seven times, because it is the number of remission and of grace.

VERS. 17.-- But that which, etc. That the faith of the priest may be shown in works. For it does not otherwise put forth its own force 338Aexcept when the hand is taken up, that is, when it is confirmed and sealed by action. But he pours the oil into the left hand, and dips the right finger in the oil, that he may walk by the arms of justice on the right hand and on the left, by glory and ignobility, by ill fame and good report.

VERS. 19.-- And he shall make a sacrifice, etc. From the things that have been said of trespasses, those that are for sin may be gathered: for they are neighbouring and common, as being in a common matter.

A holocaust, etc. The sacrifice of Christ first cleanses us from trespasses and sins, and then our holocaust is completed. For when by the intelligible cleansing we have been made spiritual, sanctifying our body and our soul, then we are made worthy 338Bof the ascent of the altar: for then we receive full cleansing, and we need no other. For there are degrees of cleansings: one frees from the pollution of leprosy; another brings into the camps; another presents to the altar those who are most fully cleansed.

VERS. 21.-- But if he is poor and his hand is not able, etc. (HIERON.) That is, if he has not the riches of the heavenly graces: for example, if he has not been able to keep virginity, let him keep the marriage bed unspotted; if he could not carry off the trophy of martyrdom, let him at least keep himself unconquered.

But if he is poor, etc. Wonderfully he condescends, and granting pardon to poverty he appoints sacrifices suited to the poor man, lest he be struck dumb if sacrifices beyond his strength 338Cwere required. Yet he who has neither bread nor money, whence should he buy a lamb or a dove or a turtledove? By the occasion of these things, therefore, we are called to spiritual matters, that we may understand leprosy as malice, and penance as cleansing. The works of penance are necessary, such as have power to blot out sins. Whence: Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of penance (Luc. III). But there are many who cannot pay what the strictness of penance requires. For it requires assiduous prayer, almsgiving, watchings, holy fasting, and that a man be able to say: My tears have become my bread day and night; [Vulg. Ps 41:4 Fuerunt mihi lacrimae meae panes die ac nocte, "my tears have been my bread"] and, I will wash my bed every night, with my tears, etc. (Psal. XIV.) And, Because I did eat ashes like bread, etc. (Psal. CI.) He pardons those who will, but cannot; he seeks out another way of penance, 338Dthat is, other kinds of sacrifices.

VERS. 20.-- He shall put upon the tip of the right ear of him who, etc. (ORIG., hom. 8 in Levit.) Thou seest how of the last and highest purification, etc., as far as and that in all things the Son of the Father may be restored.

VERS. 34.-- Chanaan. (ISICH.) The land of the Chanaanites was promised to Abraham, etc., as far as which is plain there: Salute Nympha and the church that is in her house (Col. IV).

VERS. 40.-- Outside the city. Not only outside the house, because they are to be cast out of the universal Church, which is the city of the living God.

VERS. 42.-- And other stones. The doctrines of truth, of which it is said: Living stones are rolled upon the earth 339A(Zach. IX) [Vulg. Zech 9:16 lapides sancti elevabuntur super terram ejus, "holy stones shall be lifted up upon his land"]; and elsewhere: Whosoever shall have built upon the foundation gold and silver, etc. (I Cor. III) [Vulg. 1 Cor 3:12 Si quis autem superaedificat super fundamentum hoc, aurum, argentum, lapides pretiosos].

VERS. 44.-- The leprosy returned and the walls, etc. That is, if, when the depraved doctrines have been cast out, the teaching of impiety is found sprinkled over it again by a subtle exposition.

VERS. 48.-- But if going in, etc. Remember what thou hast read in the cleansing of the leper. For it plainly appears that it expresses the church of the heretics, which acts against the dispensation of the incarnation of Christ: and therefore for the cleansing of the house he adds such sacrifices as those in which the mysteries of the flesh and the passion of Christ can be expressed, and the sins committed in it healed.

VERS. 54.-- This is the law. Because he had set out the laws of leprosy at large, he necessarily recapitulated, expounding first the kind, 339Bthen the parts.

Of leprosy. Of impious teaching, which befalls laymen also, and therefore it was added: A man or a woman in whom shall be the stroke of leprosy, and let him go. [Vulg. Lv 13:29 Vir, sive mulier, in cujus capite vel barba germinaverit lepra] For if he had understood priests only, he would not have added the woman. After these things he set down the leprosy which is in the virtues, for these are the garments of the soul. Then that which is in the doctors of the Church, who are the walls of the house. Last of all he makes mention of the scar and of the breaking-out pustules, describing the true leprosy, namely that which is in sins, whether doubtful or manifest.

(ISICH.) The LXX thus, etc., as far as unto a perfect man, etc.

339CVERS. 2.-- (GREG., lib. XXXIII Moral., cap. 15, tom. II.) The man that suffers, etc. What is speech but seed? etc., as far as than the fruit of an everlasting reward.

(ISICH.) Because there are many kinds of depraved teaching, etc., as far as if he shall have been a partaker of his teaching, following his disciples.

VERS. 9.-- The saddle upon which, etc. (ISICH.) The LXX ἐπίσαγμα ὄνον, that is, the coverlet of an ass. By which is understood the more negligent disciple, and one to be changed in his soft heart. For saddle-cloths are soft.

VERS. 13.-- He shall number seven days. (ID.) Because through the sevenfold Spirit remission of sins is given, of whose seven gifts they have need who are to be perfectly cleansed 339D.

VERS. 14.-- Two turtledoves. (ID.) A sacrifice worthy of doctors. For the turtledove signifies meditation, and the dove, frequently bearing young and simple, signifies the Holy Spirit. For a doctor must beget spiritually: worthily therefore did he dedicate this sacrifice to priests and to masters.

VERS. 15.-- Before the Lord, that he may be cleansed. According to the will and the law of God, against which he has sinned, he is cleansed by repenting, by offering the sacrifices of prayers, and thereafter by living rightly and by being perfectly wise.

VERS. 16.-- The man from whom there goeth out, etc. (ISICH.) Unless a man, etc., as far as he cleansed the human race.

(ID.) Because many, etc., as far as by the traditions of their teachers.

340AVERS. 17.-- The garment and the skin. He expresses the misery of original sin, by which the human race, being defiled, defiles even things without sense. He expresses the women who for lust's sake are mingled with men for the temporary use which they afford; and the garment and the worn-out skins are cast away, and the custom of women is spat out when the friendship grows old.

VERS. 19.-- The woman, etc. By the monthly courses depraved thoughts are signified. For she who suffers the monthly courses does not touch another's flesh, and defiles her own. So iniquitous thoughts and wills, although they are not fulfilled in deed, are accounted before God as deeds and are punished.

The woman who at the return. (ISICH.) He aims at women as well, etc., as far as which is the corruption of the human race 340B.

Seven days, etc. It signifies the whole of times, up to the completion in which the Gospel was declared: for men were separated from God until the evangelical preaching should join them.

Whosoever shall touch her garment, shall wash, etc. So must a man abstain from idolatry: that we touch neither idolaters nor their disciples or supporters, whom they use as beds or as vessels, nor have communion with them.

VERS. 25.-- The woman who, etc. Because we have said that the man suffering an issue of seed is he who teaches obscene and corrupting things, and that he who uses Judaic teaching is he from whom the seed of coition goes out; there remain those who scatter the teaching of the Gentiles, 340Cwhich is fitly called an issue of blood, being as it were the seduction of idolatry: for the demons rejoice in blood.

VERS. 29.-- He shall offer. Above he commanded that the man suffering an issue of blood take two turtledoves or doves for a sacrifice, because he had occupied the place of a master; and here likewise him who suffers an issue of blood, because he was a master of idolatry too.

VERS. 31.-- Ye shall teach. This he ordained neither of lepers nor of those who touch carcasses.

Uncleannesses. Every sin is an uncleanness of the soul, but idolatry most of all.

The tabernacle. The inward man, in whom is the image of God. The Word also was made flesh, and shall dwell in 340Dus. [Vulg. Jn 1:14 et habitavit in nobis, past tense, "and dwelt among us"]

VERS. 32.-- These. Things which cohere with one another and have a common purpose he is wont to bind together, that he may show how they ought to be understood, and which things are joined with which by kinship of understanding.

And he who, etc. He who teaches the Judaic precepts, and teaches good things badly, is unclean, while he brings forth out of season the things that pertain to the letter, just as he uses clean things as unclean, whence: All things are clean to the clean, etc.

VERS. 32.-- And she who, etc. These are they who teach impiety, since the human race is held in its monthly courses by the error of idolatry, that is, in the separation of malice.

• 341A

VERS. 1.-- And the Lord spoke, etc. (ISICH.) He makes one body of the law, etc., as far as whence after their death the Lord speaks these things to Moses.

VERS. 2.-- Speak to Aaron, etc. (ID.) How greatly God spares us, etc., as far as which is guarded against by the present words.

Before the propitiatory. (ISICH.) The LXX: Before the face of the propitiatory, etc., as far as or which we receive from the Lord's flesh.

VERS. 3.-- He shall offer a calf for sin. (ISICH.) A wonderful order. For when he had said that entrance into the holy places is not always to be made, lest we presume to approach rashly and without circumspection, he shows when and how 341Bwe are to enter.

He shall offer a calf for sin. The beginning of the divine preaching is Christ, and his passion; and if this had not been, and had not freed men from error both Gentile and Judaic, one could not speak of the divinity of the Father. For no man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom he shall be pleased to reveal him (Matth. XI). [Vulg. Mt 11:27 neque Patrem quis novit, nisi Filius, et cui voluerit Filius revelare, prefaced by nemo novit Filium, nisi Pater]

VERS. 4.-- He shall be clothed with a linen tunic, etc. He who is to speak of God, and to see him according to what is possible, must be armed with all the virtues, of which four are general: justice, chastity, fortitude, wisdom.

With linen breeches. (HIERON. epist. ad Fabiolam, tom. I.) Where it is related how Moses clothed his brother Aaron, etc., as far as let us die the death.

341C(ID.) According to the Hebrews, etc., as far as therefore with linen breeches the thighs or the loins are veiled.

When he shall have been washed. (ISICH.) With the water of baptism, etc., as far as but desiring to understand the dispensation of Christ.

VERS. 5.-- And he shall receive from the whole multitude, etc. (ID.) Christ was immolated for us, etc., as far as whence Paul: Ye are made dead by the body of Christ (Rom. VIII). [Vulg. Rom 7:4 mortificati estis legi per corpus Christi, "made dead to the law by the body of Christ"]

VERS. 7.-- Two he-goats, etc. (ISICH.) Because both for sinners and for the just, etc., as far as saying: There shall not be to thee strange gods (Exod. XX). [Vulg. Ex 20:3 Non habebis deos alienos coram me, "Thou shalt not have strange gods before me"]

(AUG., quaest. 55 in Levit., tom. III.) Two he-goats, The goat to be immolated, etc., as far as the allegorical signification.

(ISICH.) He shall make two he-goats to stand. Because Christ is 341DGod and man, etc., as far as and the other to the scapegoat, Christ.

VERS. 10.-- Into the wilderness. That is, into the bosom of the Father, to which none draws near save he himself and the Holy Spirit. He went away, therefore, that is, he restrained the power of working, and bore our iniquities, not that he might have them, but that he might consume them. For God is a consuming fire.

Into the wilderness, of which it is said: In a desert land, without way and without water, etc. (Psal. LXII.) There the enemy has no place, where God abides. For the divinity is said to have gone away into heaven at the time of the passion; not changing place, but in a certain manner restraining its power, that the impious might be able to accomplish the passion.

VERS. 11.-- A calf. When Christ is offered for the deliverance of the Judaic 342Apeople, he is called a calf: because he observed the justification of the law. Whence he says: I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil (Matth. V); who was made of a woman, that he might redeem them that were under the law (Gal. IV). [Vulg. Gal 4:4-5 factum ex muliere, factum sub lege, ut eos qui sub lege erant, redimeret; Migne drops factum sub lege, which is the very clause the gloss's conclusion rests on] Rightly therefore is he called a calf, as being brought under the yoke of the commandments of the law.

(ISICH.) The lawgiver makes manifest that the sacrifice of Christ is indeed of the flesh, through the power of the divinity, and in the good pleasure of the Father, and a propitiation for our sins: and that it is accomplished unto the ministration of the Spirit.

VERS. 12.-- Of the coals of the altar, etc. With the spiritual words which John, when Judas had gone out, wrote down at the supper, in which he sets forth how he himself, being in the Father and the Father in him, sends the Spirit; how the Father is the husbandman, he himself the vine, the apostles the branches, and many other things which kindle to piety 342Blike coals of fire (Joan. XVIII).

Taking up with his hand. The LXX: He shall fill his hands with incense of fine composition, praying, that is, for things fine and spiritual, not earthly.

Incense, prayer. Whence: Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight. For Christ prayed for his disciples.

VERS. 13.-- That, being put, etc. Aaron, by the dignity of the priesthood, signifies Christ and the other priests. Christ puts the spices, that is, prayer, upon the fire, that is, upon doctrine; and the vapor of the cloud, that is, the power of prayer, covers the oracle, that is, the flesh, out of which comes to us the propitiation of sins in Christ, who is also the testimony. And every priest speaking of Christ also puts upon the fire of spiritual doctrine the spices 342Cof prayer, whose power covers the oracle, which is above the testimony, and does not permit him to inquire concerning the passion of Christ into things that are above the power of the inquirer, and he shall not die of immoderate questionings, that is.

And he shall not die. His flesh saw not corruption, because it was covered by the vapor of the spices, that is, by the power of prayer, of which it is said: Thou shalt not give thy holy one to see corruption (Psal. XV).

VERS. 14.-- Toward the propitiation. Because for our propitiation and enlightenment Christ suffered, who is called the propitiatory, and the East. Whence: Behold a man, the East, etc. (Psal. XV.) And elsewhere: and the East hath visited us, etc. (Zachar. VI). Or toward the propitiatory, that is, in the sight of the Father, seven times, because 342Dhe gave us the remission of sins and the Holy Spirit.

VERS. 15.-- And when they shall have slain, etc. Because Christ was made of the common mass of men, he is rightly called a he-goat, because this animal is rough and shaggy with hairs, and because the human race is for sin. Whence he fitly says: And when he shall have slain the he-goat for the sin of the people (Ose. I), that is, of the human race: which once was not a people, but now is a people, from which Christ took his firstfruits. That he might show, therefore, that Christ bears the firstfruits chiefly of the Jews, but also of every nature that is in sin, he took at once both the calf and the he-goat; and because there is one sacrifice and one effect, necessarily 343Athings common are done in the he-goat and in the calf. For thou seest that the he-goat is slain before God, that is, before the Father: and the blood is carried within the veil, that is, to the same Father. And the sanctuary is expiated, that is, the mass of the human race, which from the beginning was holy, and the tabernacle of the Holy Spirit.

VERS. 16.-- The tabernacle of the testimony, etc. What above he called the sanctuary, here he calls the tabernacle of the testimony. For by the same reasoning the mass of the human race is called both the holy place and the tabernacle of the testimony. For thus the tabernacle of the testimony is heaven, and is rightly named holy: heavenly is our man, of whom Paul says: As we have borne the image of the earth, etc. (I Cor. XV). [Vulg. 1 Cor 15:49 sicut portavimus imaginem terreni, "the image of the earthly man"] Here is he rightly named holy who is in the midst of uncleannesses, because Christ is assaulted by the passions of the flesh 343B.

The sanctuary. The race of mankind, by taking flesh, that in the proper sanctuary of his flesh he might make petition through the cross.

VERS. 17.-- Until he go out. After a human manner, that is, giving up the spirit, and leaving his flesh in the sepulchre.

VERS. 18.-- And having taken the blood. Because by his passion he sanctified the horns of the altar, that is, the four principal virtues.

VERS. 19.-- Let him expiate. They are expiated by the sacrifice of Christ. Whence, but the heavenly things themselves are expiated with greater victims (Heb. II), than these. [Vulg. Heb 9:23 ipsa autem caelestia melioribus hostiis quam istis, "with better victims than these," and with no verb expiantur]

From the uncleannesses. So far as concerns the powers of the heavens, they have no need to be expiated, being in perpetual sanctification 343C. But because the smoke of our sins frequently ascends, of which it is said: There went up a smoke in his wrath (Psal. XVII); and of Nineveh, Its malice is come up before me (Jonae I), he rightly expiates the choirs above from our uncleannesses, that he may take away the abominable odor. Therefore he does not sprinkle simply, but seven times, because by the pardon of our sins the heavenly things are cleansed.

VERS. 20.-- After that. (AMBR. epist ad Simplicianum. )

As there are two in the field, etc., as far as which makes the tranquillity of the mind.

VERS. 21.-- And having laid both hands, etc. The imposition of the hand ministers in the sacrifice either blessing, or 343Dthe remission of sins, or the Holy Spirit; which things cannot be in him upon whom the lot of the devil falls. There are also many circumstances which contradict that opinion.

And having laid. That it may be shown that the Word of God, impassible, immortal, took upon himself in the flesh a sufficient sacrifice for us: upon him rightly are all sins laid, because he bore our sins in his own body. The LXX: He shall lay them upon the head of the living kid. In which is signified the crown of thorns pressed upon his head, for by thorns sins are signified.

By a man, etc. Christ, who is all things, the priest of his own sacrifice, the sacrifice, the worship, and the altar. Prepared according to that word: But I do not contradict, I went not backward: I gave my body to the strikers, 344Aetc. (Isai. L). Christ therefore, immolating himself by the living kid, sends by the man prepared, that is, by his own power, the living he-goat into the wilderness, the immortal, that is, and impassible divinity, into places without way for us, and deserted by all malice. Whence: Jesus knowing that the Father had given him all things into his hands, and that he came from God and goeth to God (Joan. XIII).

ORIG., in homil. super Leviticum, says that the he-goat which is immolated to the Lord signifies those who are destined to the Lord's lot, as that Lazarus who is carried by angels into Abraham's bosom (Luc. XVI). But the he-goat which is let go into the desert signifies the reprobate, or the Judaic people, who are cast away from the face of the Lord for their sins, as the rich man clad in purple was buried in hell. And the man prepared signifies Christ 344Bor his angels, whence each receives what he deserves.

VERS. 26.-- But they who shall have let go. (ORIG., hom. 9 in Lev.) Has concupiscence come up into thy heart? etc., as far as and here in the washing of garments the same figure can be kept.

VERS. 29.-- In the seventh month. (ORIG., ubi supra. In which is the solemnity of re-propitiation, etc., as far as that is, cast away and refuted.

VERS. 1.-- And he spoke, etc. By the present law it is shown that the Lord speaks not to Moses only, but to all in common. He desires all to know what is expedient for all: namely, that the law is temporal, and that, its time being fulfilled, it is observed to no purpose. 344CBut the perfect fulfilment of the time is the destruction of the place in which he commanded the sacrifices to be offered, by intimating that he who shall have sacrificed outside the camps, or without, only outside the tabernacle of the testimony, shall perish from among his people: namely, that when the tabernacle and the place are destroyed, the sacrifices may have an end. But holy actions, and those which build up the human mind, such as to honor father and mother, and to love one's neighbours, and the like, he did not circumscribe by place, because they always profit, and agree with the Gospel. Whosoever therefore now enact the figures of the destroyed place, shed blood, and stain the common manner of life, and sin in what is common; and just as they shed blood, they shed also the blood of those 344Dwhom by their example they send into error.

VERS. 3.-- Any man whatsoever, etc. Inasmuch as the figures of the law are temporal, and are in a fixed place, which being destroyed they cannot remain.

If he shall have killed a sheep. (AUG., quaest. 56 in Levit.) He does not say this of those, etc., as far as whatever he did in this matter could not be against the law, because he is the giver of the law.

VERS. 7.-- And they shall no more immolate their victims to demons, etc. Whereas it had been said by the Lord (Exod. XX): Thou shalt not make to thyself an idol, nor any likeness of those things which are in heaven above, and in the earth beneath, and whatsoever is under the earth; [Vulg. Ex 20:4 Non facies tibi sculptile, neque omnem similitudinem quae est in caelo desuper, et quae in terra deorsum, nec eorum quae sunt in aquis sub terra] they made a molten calf, and offered sacrifice to it, desiring to lick up the sacrifice. The law therefore, as their schoolmaster, commanded them to sacrifice to God (Exod. XXXII), 345Athat being occupied in this they might abstain from the sacrifice of idolatry. Yet he ordained such sacrifices as signify future mysteries.

With whom they have committed fornication. He calls idolatry fornication, because God has betrothed our souls to himself. Departure from him is therefore called fornication. He terrifies also those who commit fornication in the flesh, when he compares the sin of fornication to the worship of idols and to the oblation offered to demons.

VERS. 8.-- A man of the house of Israel, etc. (AUG., ubi supra. ) If the same commandment is repeated, etc., as far as in vain do they boast themselves Israelites or Jews.

VERS. 10.-- Of the strangers. The Gentiles, who are not joined to the Jews, but are among us. For among them we were, as having their law and the prophets and the promised 345Binheritance, yet cleaving not to them but to God: therefore, according to the LXX, man, man, he said, that he may show that both those who are in circumcision and those who in uncircumcision cleave to God ought to keep this commandment.

If he shall have eaten blood, etc. By blood we understand murder; hatred of a brother is murder: For he that hateth his brother is a murderer (I Joan. III). We must therefore abstain from all hatred of the brethren, because against such a soul as eats such blood (according to that word: They who devour my people as the food of bread (Psal. XIII) God sets his face firmly, that is, Christ, who is the image of the Father. For he that seeth the Son, seeth the Father also (Joan. XIV). [Vulg. Jn 14:9 qui videt me, videt et Patrem, "he that seeth me, seeth the Father also"] For he himself is the judge, of whom it is said: But the countenance 345Cof the Lord is upon them that do evil things, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth (Psal. XXXIII). And he destroys the eater of blood from his people, that is, from the common race of men: because as one without mercy and impious he sends him with the malignant spirits into the everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Matth. XXV). And that he might show how merciful we ought to be to one another, how loving, he shows that for our expiation he poured out his own blood, saying: I have given it to you, the blood, namely, of Christ.

VERS. 11.-- The soul of the flesh. (AUG., quaest. 57 in Lev.) There is something vital in the blood, etc., as far as for whom it was acquiring so great a merit.

345DVERS. 13.-- Any man whatsoever. (ISICH.) God has much care of us, that we harm not one another: therefore he bids a man give the other cheek to him that strikes it; and to leave his coat to him that takes away his cloak; and not to contend in judgment, lest out of contention we should wish even to do harm (Matth. V), but by suffering to correct the man himself. Therefore the lawgiver recapitulates the commandment concerning blood, that he may take away the various frauds and cunning devices of doing harm, saying: Whether by hunting or by fowling, etc.

By hunting. By fraud, which touches blood and life. Whence: They hunted after the soul of the just, and condemned innocent blood (Psal. XLIII). [Vulg. Ps 93:21 future Captabunt … condemnabunt, "they will hunt … will condemn"] And again: Our soul, as a sparrow, hath been delivered out of the snare of the fowlers (Psal. CXXIII). That is, if he shall have seen sinning 346Athe man who through weakness or simplicity lies open to hunting and to guile.

Or a sheep, etc. Him, namely, who withdraws himself from earthly things, on which it is lawful to feed: for such men the violent and the greedy devour. Whence: If ye devour one another, take heed lest ye be consumed one of another (Gal. V). Or, because they were formerly just, they are rightly counted among clean things.

Let the earth cover it, etc. The earth covers the sins of those who confess, as things remaining beneath and mortified by penance: whose cry is forbidden to ascend to the heavens, whither the cry of the Sodomites ascended, who would not repent (Gen. XVIII).

VERS. 15.-- The soul that shall have eaten, etc. Above it was said: Whosoever shall touch the carcasses of beasts taken by wild beasts, 346Bthat is, whoever shall have had part in such things; but here it is said: The soul that shall have eaten; that is, who shall have made the whole sin his own, and shall have fulfilled his own will out of it.

VERS. 2.-- I am the Lord. As if he said: Know ye your creator; keep his commandments diligently.

VERS. 3.-- According to the custom, etc. He opens the purpose of the whole law, namely that we abstain from evils and hold fast to good things.

Neither in their ordinances, etc. For he commands them to abstain not only from fornication, avarice and pride, but also from divinations, and auguries, and the superstitions of all the nations 346C.

VERS. 5.-- He shall live in them. I am the Lord. Because in them is the true life for those who believe in Christ: because he that seeth the Son and believeth in him hath life everlasting (Joan. VI). This he did not add in the former judgments and precepts: for the law does not give life, unless the Gospel come upon it.

VERS. 6.-- No man to her that is near, etc. He forbids us to approach craftily, on the occasion of kinship, those who sin against the law, so that at last, knowing their shameful deeds, we should betray them; whence he adds: I am the Lord.

No man. The LXX: Man shall not approach to any that is of the household of his own flesh, etc. For as man is twofold, so the precepts are twofold, teaching the inward and the outward man. The outward law forbids that men be mingled with those of their own blood, 346Das the nations did, whose inheritance Israel was to receive — Israel being so dissolute and given over to the pleasures of the flesh that one man would take many wives, so that at least in this way they might abstain from women of another race. The lawgiver therefore goes through the generations in order, from which they ought to refrain, lest the generations be confounded and the inheritances perish. The conjunction of such persons he calls a shameful thing, that he may show it to be abominable and dreadful. And it is to be noted that, whereas at the beginning of this law he had said: I am the Lord your God, he repeated I am the Lord, signifying that he is joined to us in the flesh, and is a partaker of our kindred: to offend so great a kindred, therefore, is damnable.

347AI am the Lord. Not making manifest the sins of men, but blotting out and covering what has been blotted out or uncovered by confession

Shamefulness, etc. (AUG., quaest. 58 in Lev.) He forbids to lie with a mother, etc., as far as for he sins against charity, which is the fulness of the law (Rom. XIII).

VERS. 9.-- She is born abroad. (ID., quaest. 59.) Of the mother, if by a former husband, etc., as far as what he had said obscurely above.

VERS. 11.-- Of the wife's daughter, etc. (AUG., ubi supra. ) Let it not seem to forbid intercourse with the stepmother's daughter by a former husband, since she is not a sister to him to whom it is forbidden, either by the father or by the mother, he added that she is by the same father.

347BVERS. 14.-- The shamefulness of the father's brother, etc. (AUG., quaest. 61.) It is asked whether this, etc., as far as for someone might think that he was allowed to marry such a woman and need not fear adultery.

Neither shalt thou approach, etc. The LXX: And thou shalt not go in to his wife. Accordingly they say that this shamefulness is that of his father's brother, that is, of the uncle's private parts, namely of his wife.

VERS. 16.-- The shamefulness of thy brother's wife, etc. In the mother is understood concupiscence, in the daughter the act, in the granddaughter death. For concupiscence bringeth forth sin, and sin death (Jac. I), [Vulg. Jas 1:15 concupiscentia cum conceperit, parit peccatum: peccatum vero cum consummatum fuerit, generat mortem] or another sin; as David out of concupiscence committed adultery, and for the adultery killed.

VERS. 17.-- That thou mayest discover her disgrace. As it were, 347Csin is familiar and akin to us. Whence we ought to grieve with one another, and to bear our burdens, that we may fulfil the law of Christ, who bore our sins.

VERS. 18.-- The sister of thy wife, etc. (AUG., quaest. in Lev. ) He does not forbid, etc., as far as lest he should make her commit adultery.

Thou shalt not take for her rival, nor discover, etc. The LXX: For her jealousy, as if this were jealousy between sisters, as though it were not also between those who are not sisters. Or rather, lest it be done with this mind, that a sister be brought in upon a sister for jealousy? God hath called us in peace; let us have peace with all men (Rom. XII), [Vulg. 1 Cor 7:15 in pace autem vocavit nos Deus, conflated with Rom 12:18 cum omnibus hominibus pacem habentes] and chiefly with those nearest us. In the Judaic manner of life also it is not fitting 347Dto take up the ecclesiastical, nor to celebrate the typical pasch with the true, nor circumcision with baptism. Whence Paul: If ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing (Gal. V). When the Judaic manner of life has been mortified, therefore, she ought to be joined to the Church, who is the sister of the law, has the same doctors, the same prophets. But the Judaic manner of life is jealous, because its riches have passed over to the Church. Whence Paul says: They are zealous for you not well, but would exclude you, etc. (Gal. IV). For the first wife is jealous, because a second comes in. Whence Lia says: Doth it seem a small thing to thee that thou hast taken away my husband from me? (Gen. XXX.)

VERS. 19.-- To a woman, etc. (AUG., quaest. 64 in Lev.) Since he had sufficiently forbidden this above, 348Aetc., as far as but what is harmful to the offspring to be conceived is forbidden.

VERS. 20.-- With the wife, etc. (ISICH.) Here adultery is again forbidden, which is forbidden in the decalogue also: whence it appears that those women are so forbidden that, even when their husbands are dead, men may not marry them, whose shamefulness he forbids to be uncovered.

VERS. 21.-- Of thy seed, etc. (ID.) Fittingly are these things subjoined, etc., as far as nor are we mingled in the error of the Gentiles.

Neither shalt thou defile, etc. Not only by living wantonly, or by sacrificing to idols, but also by bringing the philosophy of the Gentiles into the Church. For what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?

VERS. 23.-- A woman shall not, etc. Not for men only, 348Bbut for women also is the law laid down (II Cor. IX). Whence: Who shall find a valiant woman? (Prov. XIII.) For as the male signifies a soul strong and constant in the virtues, so the woman designates one that keeps her own dignity: for she was made for the help of the man (Gen. II): and she who is such ought not to be stained by the coupling of beasts.

VERS. 24.-- Neither be ye defiled in any of these things, etc. (ISICH.) How great a defilement there is in the aforesaid things, the punishment of the defiled shows. Nor is it to be passed over incautiously that he gathers into one those things which are joined to one another, that he may show that he who shall have been defiled in one, offends in all (Jac. II).

All the nations are contaminated, etc. The demons, who because of their multitude are called all the nations. 348CAnd though they rejoice in every sin, yet chiefly in fornication and idolatry, because in these both the body and the soul is stained, and the whole man, who is called earth. But God has visited the earth, that is, the race of men.

VERS. 29.-- Every soul, etc. For they who after the evangelical preaching commit such things find no other medicine for their evil; nor shall they be in the lot of men, but of demons.

VERS. 30.-- Keep ye my commandments. As if to say: Mine are the commandments, not a man's; to whose image ye were made; which ye ought not to defile: because ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you (I Cor. III).

348DVERS. 1, 2.-- The Lord spoke . . . Be ye holy. (ORIG., hom. 12 in Lev.) What this name which is "holy" signifies, etc., as far as namely, that ye may have your manner of life in the world.

VERS. 3.-- Every one. He builds upon the foundation: as if to say, be ye holy, that the Holy One may dwell in you; and pay the kindness of nature by honouring father and mother.

Keep my sabbaths. (ISICH.) Wishing to recapitulate the commandments of the law, that is, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, etc., etc., he says: Keep my sabbaths. For the true sabbath is to cease from every evil. Whence Moses: Ye shall do no servile work therein (Exod. XXXI).

Keep my sabbaths. God, wishing to teach us concerning the intelligible 349Arest, and concerning the consummation of the world, when it is impossible to prepare food or to work, nor to be occupied about anything bodily, says through Moses: Sabbaths today to the Lord, ye shall not find it in the field (Exod. XVI), etc. [Vulg. Ex 16:25 sabbatum est Domini: non invenietur hodie in agro, the singular "sabbath" and a passive "shall not be found"] Note that he does not say, sabbath, but sabbaths, because the intelligible rest is quiet and set free not from one thing, but from all carnal things: therefore in this place the name of sabbaths is first set down in divine Scripture, that thou mayest know that the sabbath is a full and perfect rest.

VERS. 5.-- If ye shall offer, etc. He goes over again almost all the chapters of the law, that he may fix the memory of them in his hearers; but especially the most necessary ones, such as this commandment which he set forth above, when he was treating of the sacrifices. He took the saving sacrifice, in which it is necessary to work the things which pertain to 349Bsalvation; and that it may be acceptable, piety and chastity must be offered up. For this, according to the Apostle, is good and acceptable before God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved (I Tim. II). But to eat on the day of the offering and on the next is to work, in the present life, whatsoever pertains to salvation: for today and tomorrow are taken for the present age; whence James: Ye who say: Today and tomorrow we will go into the city, etc. (Jac. IV). [Vulg. Jac 4:13 hodie aut crastino ibimus in illam civitatem, "today or tomorrow ... into that city"] The third day, because on it the Lord rose from the dead, bears the figure of the age to come and of the resurrection, in which it will not be lawful to work, but to receive the recompense of works. He therefore who lives here as though he were to work there, as though he were to eat the sacrifice on the third day, is forbidden by the lawgiver to do this, 349Cbecause he leaves virtue imperfect, as though he could perfect it there.

VERS. 9.-- When thou shalt reap, etc. It is enjoined in the present chapter that we have love one toward another, that we be lovers of the poor and merciful toward them. For we ought to give to the needy, and not to exact debts by violence, and to grant the leavings of our goods, imitating God the giver of all things. Therefore he wills that they who reap or gather the vintage should leave something for the poor man and for the stranger, lest he seem ungrateful to the giver of all, who gave riches to some, and willed others to live upon the leavings of others; that so he might prove the stewardship of the rich, and the patience of the poor. For he does not cast off the poor and the strangers, for whom even in this way he has provided food. 349DWhence he adds: I am the Lord your God, namely, who make men rich, who for you become poor, who because of the misery of the needy and the groaning of the poor will one day arise.

When thou shalt reap, etc. He plainly shows that the doctors of the Jews do not take in the interpretation of the whole law, but leave certain things to the poor man and the stranger, that is, to the Gentiles, to whom it is said: Blessed are the poor, etc. (Matth. V). Who are also strangers, because they thrust themselves into the kindred of Abraham. What therefore is said: Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, let the doctors of the Jews reap; but the things which have a spiritual interpretation, such as the cleansings, the sacrifices and the like, let them yield to the doctors of the Church, and the things which fall from those reapers, that is, the things which they themselves do not understand.

350AVERS. 10.-- Neither in the vineyard. (ISICH.) The vineyard of the Lord of hosts, etc., as far as that the divine utterance may be proved by experience.

VERS. 11.-- Ye shall not commit theft, etc. (AUG., quaest. 86 in Levit.) This is set down in the Decalogue, etc., as far as and detestable things follow such an error.

Ye shall not lie. He shows the kinship of sins. We reckon many things small which are greatest, such as lying, perjury; which are joined to theft, and rightly, because these work together with theft.

VERS. 12.-- Thou shalt not forswear thyself, etc. LXX: Ye shall not lift up, etc., as far as such oaths ought not to be made, or, if they are made, to be kept.

Neither shalt thou pollute, etc. By cursing, because thou canst not 350Btransgress an oath. For God, by whom thou swearest, so far wills good things that, if he threaten evils, he nevertheless does not bring them, if he see men repenting, that he may bestow his mercy.

VERS. 13.-- Thou shalt not do calumny. (AUG., ubi supra. ) All the things which are forbidden to be committed against a neighbour are to be referred to this one thing which was said: Thou shalt not hurt thy neighbour. For as to what follows: Thou shalt not seize, unless it be referred to this, that no hurt be done by seizing, it comes about that a man does hurt by not seizing, for the sword must be seized from a madman.

VERS. 13.-- Neither shalt thou oppress by force, etc. Little by little he instructs the hearer, and joins the things which seem small to great ones: so that they who are terrified by the appointed penalty of evils may abstain from the lesser. For they who are associated in the commandment, 350Care so also in the penalty. For he who has offended in one is guilty of all (Jac. II). Therefore he joins force to calumny. Nor does it make a difference in what way a man loses his goods, whether by fraud, or by power, or by any other way whatever.

It shall not tarry, etc. The wages, namely, on which perhaps he lives with wife and children and parents. If it is deferred, his living fails; even if he receive it on the morrow, he has suffered force and calumny, because meanwhile he had not that whereon to live.

The work of the hireling, etc. The wages of the preacher are from the word of preaching: which ought not to tarry with us, that is, to be idle, until the morning, namely in the age to come, which succeeds this night, in which there is unquenchable light. For from the increase of the disciple 350Dgrows the wages of the master.

VERS. 14.-- Thou shalt not curse the deaf. To curse the deaf is to disparage one who is absent and does not hear. To set a stumbling block before the blind is to do a thing that is indeed discreet, but to offer occasion of scandal to him who has not the light of discretion.

VERS. 15.-- Thou shalt not do, etc. (ISICH). The highest and perfect justice, etc., as far as and to mock the deaf and the blind belongs to the rich and the powerful.

VERS. 16.-- Thou shalt not be a slanderer. (ISICH.) LXX: Thou shalt not walk in the house, etc., as far as who is joined to so great a crime.

Thou shalt not stand against. As if to say, thou shalt not join thyself to those who lie in wait for their neighbours, as many do who, being allied with others, do what by themselves they cannot.

351AVERS. 18.-- Seek not revenge. That is, be not carried away by the lust of avenging while thou reprovest, so as to wish to rejoice or to be consoled at another's evil, but rather to take counsel for him whom thou reprovest. Whence according to the LXX it follows: Thou shalt not be angry with the children of thy people, etc. For thus has anger rightly been defined, as that which is the lust of avenging.

VERS. 19.-- Thy beasts, etc. [Vulg. Lv 19:19 Jumentum tuum, in the singular] These things to the letter seem to be ridiculous, nor were they observed by the prophets and by spiritual men. Whence David says: Set my son Solomon upon my mule (Eccli. XIX). [Vulg. 3 Rg 1:33 imponite Salomonem filium meum super mulam meam] But it will be needful, according to the letter, to abominate the things which were born of such mingling. Whence: The valiant woman also shall find wool and flax, and hath wrought a useful thing with her hands (Prov. XXXI). [Vulg. Pr 31:13 Quaesivit lanam et linum, et operata est consilia manuum suarum, "She sought wool and flax, and hath wrought by the counsel of her hands"]

VERS. 20.-- If a man shall sleep, etc. (ISICH.) Since 351Bhe had forbidden beasts to be mingled with beasts of another kind, that is, that those who are under the yoke of Christ should take up the yoke of the law: he opportunely subjoined this, showing that even before the coming of Christ whosoever was outwardly mingled with the Jews had need of the sacrifice of the true ram.

Note how great is the difference between liberty and servitude. For in a free woman betrothed the penalty of adultery is death, but in a bondwoman of marriageable age, and, according to the LXX, kept for a man, that is, betrothed, a sacrifice is commanded to be offered, not death to be inflicted. Yet these things are to be understood spiritually.

Of marriageable age. LXX: Kept for a man, that is, the Synagogue kept for the law, which could not be betrothed to Christ before the letter of the law died. Whence: Ye are dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye may be another's (Rom. VII). [Vulg. Rom 7:4 mortificati estis legi, "ye are made dead to the law"] 351CThe bondwoman is the Synagogue, according to that: Abraham had two sons, one of the bondwoman, and one of the free (Gal. IV).

They shall both be beaten. LXX: There shall be a visitation for them, that is, they shall be freed from the servitude of the law, according to what is said to the children of Israel who were to be freed out of Egypt: Visiting I have visited you.

And they shall not die. For although they acted according to the letter, not according to the spirit, because they were ignorant of the lawgiver's intention, yet they the more easily obtained pardon.

VERS. 23.-- When ye are entered, etc. He continues in his purpose, showing that the Jews had not good fruit before the coming of Christ, when he says that the fruit is not to be eaten in the three years, nor is it clean, but 351Dis to be cleansed in the fourth year, nor is it said what the cleansing is. Spiritually therefore is that to be understood which is said.

When ye are entered into the land. By the land he means the divine Scripture, which the Jews first received. Whence they were commanded to plant fruit-bearing trees. But the planting of trees is the meditation of the law and preaching, according to what is said: I planted, Apollo watered, etc. (I Cor. III). The commandments were indeed good, like fruit-bearing trees, but they did not do what they owed, following only the letter. The fruit therefore, that is, the working of the law, was unclean for three years, from Abraham to David, from David to the transmigration of Babylon; thence to Christ, as 352AMatthew distinguished (Matth. I). In the fourth year he commends the fruit of the law as holy and praiseworthy, yet not as being edible for the Jews as yet. For the fruit of the law in the fourth year, that is, in the coming of Christ, is holy and praiseworthy, which the Holy of holies made, whose works are praiseworthy and glorious. Whence also, over the paralytic carrying his bed, they glorified God (Matth. VIII), who gave such power to men: but the Jew did not yet eat, because he was not converted. But in the fifth year, that is, when the apostles preached, whosoever believed ate the fruit of it.

And ye shall plant, etc. (GREG., lib. VIII Moral., cap. 35.) Fruit-bearing trees, etc., as far as to rejoice in the night of the present life.

VERS. 26.-- Ye shall not eat, etc. He shaves away the whole leaven of the Jews 352Band of the Gentiles. Whence now he forbids the servitude of the law, now the error of the Gentiles.

(AUG.) Not to eat upon the mountains is not to be fed with proud thoughts, of which Isaiah says: Every mountain and hill shall be brought low (Isa. XL). Not to augur by birds is not to attend to those things which snatch away the seed of piety. To shear the hair round is to consecrate one's thoughts to the demons. To shave the beard is to corrupt the perfection of virtue by working feignedly. Not to cut the flesh is not to take up delights, which both harm the soul and corrupt the body. The stigmata are wicked doctrine, which is fixed in the soul and is with difficulty done away.

Ye shall not augur, etc. By the part he signifies the whole, condemning all superstitions of this kind. For he who takes care to observe such things seems to defame God, 352Cas though he had conferred more knowledge upon birds than upon men.

VERS. 27.-- Neither shall ye round off the hair, etc. As the barbarians do: every man ought to be content with natural ornaments, lest he seem to accuse the Creator, as though unable to perfect his own work, nor in honour of the demons to nourish and cherish ringlets, as the pagans are eager to offer the heads of their boys to the demons, which he seems here chiefly to forbid.

VERS. 28.-- Stigmata. The lawgiver takes care also for our comeliness, that we may not misuse the flesh even in those things which disfigure the body.

VERS. 29.-- Prostitute not thy daughter. The carnal one, or the soul. Whence Psal. XXI: Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword, and my only one from the hand of the dog. These, 352Dby withdrawing from God, commit fornication with the demons.

VERS. 30.-- Keep my sabbaths. From the one sabbath every lawful rest is called a sabbath. So from one general abstinence the lawgiver is at pains to run through the particulars, commanding us to abstain from every evil. Whence he adds: And fear my sanctuary. For as they who approach worthily sanctify it, so they who presume wickedly, and approach unclean, so far as in them lies, pollute it, as Nadab and Abiu. Whence the Apostle: Among you are many weak and feeble, etc. (I Cor. XI.) Thence it is added: I am the Lord, holy, namely, and also dwelling in the holy ones and avenging the wrong done to the holy ones

VERS. 31.-- To the magicians. LXX: Ventriloquists, that is, 353Apythons, or false prophets, who out of the belly of their heart bring forth certain fables and stinking doctrines.

Neither to the soothsayers, etc. LXX: Poisoners, who, namely, invoke the names of the demons, and sometimes heal the body, that they may kill the soul.

VERS. 32.-- Before the hoary head, etc. In old men is wisdom, and in length of time prudence (Job XII). [Vulg. Job 12:12 In antiquis est sapientia, "In the ancients is wisdom"] Hence Paul says: Let the priests be accounted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine (I Tim. V).

VERS. 33.-- If a stranger dwell, etc. The land given us by God is the cultivation of the virtues, namely, and good doctrine. If therefore any man will be converted to our faith, and be enrolled a citizen of our land, let us not afflict him, nor lay upon him a heavy yoke, as the Pharisees did, 353Bof whom it is said: They bind heavy and insupportable burdens, but with their own finger they will not move them (Matth. XXIII). Let him be to us as one home-born, who, namely, has been nourished in the faith, and has grown in piety. Hence Peter says to those who wished to circumcise the believers of the Gentiles: Why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples? (Act. XV.)

VERS. 35.-- Do not, etc. In the foregoing he commands that justice be kept in judgment, here in weights and measures, and that we do not misuse to injustice the boundary-stones of justice: for these are the boundary-stones of sellers and buyers, as the laws are of judges; that men may beware of every injustice against a neighbour. For what to the rich man are the possessions of fields and the treasures of money, that to the poor man is a measure of wine and of wheat, and the like.

353C(ISICH.) Do not, etc. In the judgment of the mind we ought not to act unjustly, nor to corrupt the measures of natural justice, judging our own sins in one way and our neighbour's in another. For with what judgment we shall have judged, it shall be judged also of us; and with what measure we shall have measured, it shall be measured again to us (Matth. VII). [Vulg. Mt 7:2 judicaveritis ... judicabimini ... mensi fueritis, remetietur vobis, in the second person: "with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged"]

VERS. 36.-- A just balance, etc. (ID.) Let us have divine balances also, and just divine measures; that is, let us keep the laws of divine Scripture holily and justly: bringing in nothing of our own, taking away nothing of theirs, lest this be said to us: Why do you transgress the commandment of God for your traditions? (Matth. XV).

VERS. 1.-- The Lord spoke, etc. Frequently 353Dthe law repeats the same things, that it may fix the memory of them in the reader: yet it inserts certain new things, lest it should seem superfluous. But by inquiring into the new things, the things already said are inquired into more studiously. Whence above, in forbidding certain things, it kept silence as to the penalty, so that we, asking what or of what kind it is, should diligently investigate it in what follows. For since above he forbade sacrifice to be made to Moloch, he repeats that same thing by adding the penalty: the people, namely, of the land shall stone him, not the princes alone. Nor content with these things he adds: I will set my face against him, etc.

VERS. 4.-- But if being negligent, etc. He stirs up others against him, and terrifies them, if they shall have neglected a penalty so studiously enjoined, God himself being angry and passing sentence.

354AAnd will not, etc. (ISICH.) It is an evil to allow even those who are without to commit fornication away from God and to cleave to the devil: but much more from the midst of the people, for this is to yield the whole flock to the wolf. But those who consent, who, namely, are able to accuse, or to reprove, or to admonish, and do not do it, shall not escape judgment. God sets his face upon him, of whom it is said: But the countenance of the Lord is upon them that do evil, etc. (Psal. XXXIII).

VERS. 6.-- The soul that shall turn aside to magicians, etc. It is a great sin to turn aside to magicians and soothsayers: for this is to withdraw from God. But there are intelligible magicians, who prophesy false things in the name of the Lord; there are soothsayers, deceivers and flatterers, who with poisonous words corrupt the hearing of many and turn them away 354Bfrom the truth.

VERS. 9.-- He that curseth his father, etc. (ORIG., hom. 11 in Lev.) Concerning these he gave commandments above, etc., as far as that he may not punish the contemptuous servant.

(ID.) The name of father or of mother, etc., as far as do they turn it, with depraved senses, to some earthly city?

His blood, etc. Because he himself is to himself the cause of death. If he is so punished who has cursed a carnal father, how shall he be punished who has blasphemed Christ, and did not obey him who says: Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, etc. (Joan. III), he shall die the death, namely, and being estranged from the kingdom of heaven he is guilty: for nothing heavy, nor toilsome, or laborious has been enjoined upon him.

354CVERS. 10.-- If any man commit adultery, etc. (AUG., quaest. 73 in Lev.) Here he willed something to differ, etc., as far as than man to man.

If any man commit adultery, etc. (ISICH.) Adultery is a bodily evil, etc., as far as who committed this charge to him.

VERS. 11.-- He that sleepeth, etc. These things have been said and expounded above, where it was said: Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father, etc. But here he openly touches him who does the same as his neighbour, and, not blushing at the fellowship of the sin, betrays it; in which the lawgiver has established the penalty of death. But he joined the husband to the stepmother, because what is done wrong against a father by a son, this is committed against a son by a father, and the impiety is alike on either side.

(ORIG., ubi supra. ) It was said above, etc., as far 354Das not only according to the quality, but also according to the quantity.

VERS. 13.-- He that sleepeth with a male, etc. This sin is an injury to nature: whence also it was decreed that it be punished with death. But spiritually let us beware of making effeminate by wicked words or actions him who is strong in mind and male (for a man, in divine Scripture, is named one perfect in virtues), lest we be dissolved together with him and die together.

VERS. 14.-- He that upon his wife, etc. He decrees a savage penalty for this offence. For as to those who are begotten of the mother, and those whom the daughter has borne, since the father is one, it is uncertain whether they are brothers or uncles. Let so uncertain a mingling therefore be guarded against. But because concupiscence is the mother of every sin, 355Aif there be any concupiscence in us, let us not join action to it. For he who does this is burned with fire, both his concupiscence and his action. For if by the spirit we shall have mortified the deeds of the flesh, we shall live (Rom. VIII). [Vulg. Rom 8:13 si autem spiritu facta carnis mortificaveritis, vivetis, in the second person: "if you mortify ... you shall live"]

VERS. 15.-- He that with a beast, etc. Excessive strictness is exercised against those who were so wicked and given over to lust that they lusted after unheard-of crimes: whence upon men or women mingled with four-footed beasts he laid the penalty of death. Nor will this law be superfluous for the faithful, if by four-footed beasts we understand depraved wills bent down to the earth: which have not hands as men have, because they lack all human action, whence they have no kinship with us. A man therefore or a woman, who not by the weakness of nature but by deliberation 355Bshall have cleaved to them or come together with them, is guilty of death. They too are said to die when those are dead, for neither do they subsist by themselves, nor is there any substance of sin, but it works in sinners.

(AUG.) He that with a beast, etc. It is asked: how is the beast guilty, since it is neither rational nor capable of law? or is it as metaphorical words are transferred from one animal to another, as a wind is called wicked, or the sea angry, so here too a transfer is made from the rational to the irrational? For therefore were the beasts commanded to be killed, because, defiled by such an outrage, they rub up again an unworthy memory of the deed.

VERS. 17.-- He that taketh his sister, etc. (ISICH.) This seemed tolerable, because Abraham says of Sara: She is my sister by the father, and not by the mother: 355Cbut Moses, enumerating those who were begotten of Thare the father of Abraham, nowhere made mention of Sara. But if Abraham married his own sister, yet he did it before he knew God. Rightly therefore did the law forbid such a union.

He that taketh, etc. Tropologically, he sees and takes the nakedness of a sister by the father and not by the mother, who admires and imitates a base action of his father or of his mother (in which, namely, they went wrong): not only searching out the things which he ought not, but joining himself to the depravity of his parents, which is called his sister, as though begotten of the same parents. But because sons publish their parents' sins by doing the like, rightly is the penalty inflicted in the sight of the people; or according to the LXX: In the sight of the sons of his own race, namely of those who think to 355Dimitate such things: that the affliction of one may be the correction of many.

He shall have seen the nakedness, etc. (AUG., quaest. 75.) That is, shall have known her by lying with her, as in that place: Adam knew his wife (Gen. IV), that is, was mingled with her. But as to his saying: They shall bear their iniquity, that is, the sin itself was the penalty.

VERS. 20.-- He that shall come together, etc. The lawgiver intends to urge continence, that we may not after the manner of cattle be continually mingled with women, but that, as it were constrained, we may come by little and little to the habit of containing. But it is a wonder that he now commands such to be destroyed from among his people, when above he had appointed for the same a law of purification. Let us therefore contemplate the menstruous wisdom of the Gentiles, far from God, disputing of the flight of birds, and the course of the stars, 356Aand the measures of heaven. To sleep with her, that is, to take delight in her, or to uncover and bring forth openly her nakedness, and to listen to her setting forth the fountain of all error, is impious. Therefore let such a one be killed from the midst of his people, lest he be named a man who, by not knowing the image of God and himself, has estranged the Creator from himself. She too shall be killed, lest she be named wisdom, because the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God (I Cor. III).

The nakedness, etc. He forbids sons to be mingled with the sisters of their parents, that generations be not confounded, and that reverence be shown to parents. But according to the spirit we ought both to veil the sins of our parents, and those of them who are associated with them as brothers and sisters, since, when these are stripped bare, the parents cannot lie hid. Whence he adds: He shall uncover the shame of his own flesh. LXX: He shall die 356Bwithout children, that is, without virtues, which is the worst barrenness.

He that shall come together, etc. (ISICH.) He shows that for the sake of children, etc., as far as it is like the things above.

(AUG., quaest. 76. in Lev.) He that shall come together with his father's wife, etc. Whosoever shall have slept with his kinswoman, etc., as far as that is, let them by no right succeed their parents.

VERS. 22.-- Keep my laws, etc. It is not enough to keep a part of the law; we must needs observe all the precepts and judgments.

VERS. 23.-- Walk not, etc. Not to the Jews only, but to all nations are these things to be observed, if they will serve God.

VERS. 24.-- With milk. With the delights of blessedness, than which nothing is sweeter, nothing more pleasant, and they shall be without all labour and 356Csorrow, like honey and milk, which are prepared without our labour.

VERS. 26.-- I am the Lord. Think not, saying: What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be covered? for after all these things do the nations seek (Matth. VI). [Vulg. Mt 6:31 Nolite ergo solliciti esse, dicentes: Quid manducabimus, "Be not therefore solicitous, saying: What shall we eat"] But they who follow a loftier manner of life and recompense ought to be separated from the rest of the nations. Separate, etc. Beasts of burden or cattle the law calls the common people: winged creatures, the contemplative. Every common man is judged clean by most, because of his simplicity. Likewise the contemplative, but it is not so: for the common man ought to be prudent in good, simple in evil, for he alone is clean. The contemplative also ought to have a clean conscience, and 356Dfaith unfeigned. They who have not these turn aside to vain talk, understanding neither the things they say, nor whereof they affirm (I Tim. I). Diligently therefore are the clean to be separated from the unclean, that we may follow the clean, and flee the unclean. But it is to be noted how discreetly this lawgiver distinguishes among the four-footed beasts and the winged creatures, and not among the creeping things of the earth. For all the things which move upon the earth are unclean, and they savour of earthly things, whose God is their belly (Philip. III).

And the things which, etc. (AUG., quaest. 76 in Lev.) He seems to say that these things are not by nature unclean, but for the sake of some sign of a mystery, because he says that he showed them to be unclean, as though they would not have been unclean to them unless they had been shown.

357AWith stones. Because with vain errors they seduce the simple people; whence they nourish the belly, and desire to please their hearers: such as many are today in the Church, of whom Paul says: For these serve not Christ, but their own belly, and by sweet words and blessings seduce the hearts of the innocent (Rom. XVI).

VERS. 1.-- The Lord said also to Moses. . . . Let him not be defiled, etc. (ISICH.) That is, let him omit nothing of those things which it is expedient for a priest to teach, etc., as far as for he will not be able to be ignorant of the sin of those who dwell with him.

VERS. 2.-- But only in his kinsfolk. (HIERON., epist. ad Fabiolam, tom. I.) Over every soul that is dead, etc., as far as but to the lesser ones something is 357Ballowed.

VERS. 5.-- They shall not shave the head. (ID., ibid. ) But the high priest, etc., as far as to whom Christ granted that they should be light.

They shall not shave the head, etc. (ISICH.) The law forbids priests to grieve too bitterly over the dead, etc., as far as that he may be able to exhort, to reprove, to rebuke.

They shall not pollute the name, etc. (ID.) Which is great among the nations. But you, says Malachias, have polluted it in that you say: The table of the Lord is forsaken (Malach. I). [Vulg. Mal 1:12 Mensa Domini contaminata est, "The table of the Lord is defiled"] For in the sin of the sacrifice the priests pollute the name of God.

VERS. 7.-- A harlot, etc. Any priest whatsoever, for of the high priest he will speak afterwards, that he take to wife none but a virgin. 357C

Who is put away, etc. Because she is found blameworthy, the priest ought not to take her to wife, nor to preach beforehand the literal observance of her.

VERS. 8.-- Let them be therefore holy, etc. If the priests keep the sanctification already given them by God, they sanctify God himself: who, since he is holy in his nature, willed to be sanctified by the partakers of his glory.

VERS. 9.-- The daughter of a priest, etc. It is grievous that the daughter of anyone should commit fornication, but most of all of a priest, who ought to have sons subject in all chastity.

The daughter of a priest. The Synagogue is called not only the wife but also the daughter of God; but depraving both, she became an alien. Whence: The daughter of Sion shall be left as 357Da covert of a vineyard, etc. (Isa. I). And elsewhere: Their mother hath committed fornication (Ose. II): that she was burned with fire, the traces of the burning show.

VERS. 10.-- The high priest, etc. Christ, our great Lord, and great is his power, who for us was made priest and victim.

Are consecrated. Other priests used to consecrate, or consummate, in the blood of a calf and of a ram, namely, their own hands: but he in his own blood, with his hands crucified.

He shall not rend his garments, etc. (ISICH.) For from the time that the Word was made flesh, etc., as far as these are truly holy vestments.

VERS. 11.-- To any dead man, etc. (ISICH.) 358ALXX: A dead soul. The soul that shall have sinned, the same shall die (Ezech. XVIII; Isa. LIII). By this death the nations chiefly perished, which had neither law nor doctrine; but Christ bore the sins of all, and yet remained undefiled.

(AUG. quaest. 81 in Lev.) To any dead man, etc. LXX: Over any dead soul he shall not go in. How he calls it a dead soul, etc., as far as which he did not forbid according to the second.

VERS. 12.-- (ID., quaest. 82.) He shall not go out from the holy places. While, namely, their funerals are being celebrated, he was forbidden to go out from the holy places, etc., as far as that on some days the incense was not laid on.

Over his father. (ORIG., hom. 14 in Lev.) Every man is polluted in father and mother, etc., as far as or 358Bthey stain the liberty of their heavenly mother with the unworthy servitude of sin.

(AUG., quaest. 85 in Levit.) It can be asked, etc., as far as as Scripture testifies of Aaron himself.

I am the Lord. (AUG. quaest. 84.) Of Moses also it was said, etc., as far as nor was the visible sanctification judged superfluous, because the invisible went before.

VERS. 13.-- He shall take a virgin to wife. (HIERON., epist. ad Fabiolam. ) A widow is she whose husband, etc., as far as whence: For I have espoused you to one husband, a chaste virgin, etc.

I would not have the disciple and spouse of a high priest keep anything of the old man. If we have risen with Christ, let us savour the things that are above, [Vulg. Col 3:1-2 si consurrexistis cum Christo, quae sursum sunt quaerite ... quae sursum sunt sapite, in the second person] forgetful of the past, 358Ceager for what is to come. The unhappy Simon, who after baptism thought of his old marriage, and had not come to virginal purity, was unworthy of Peter's fellowship.

VERS. 14.-- But a widow and one put away, etc. (ORIG., hom. 12 in Levit.) He who sins is cast off; even if the bishop keep silence, whether from ignorance or from negligence, such a man's favour profits nothing; a soul that is cast off Christ does not take to wife, nor a polluted one, which, namely, has willed and desired so great a sin, because the great high priest requires a wholly pure soul, which he may join to himself and make one spirit. He who sins unto death is cast off; he who sins venially is polluted.

A foul one, etc. Who goes after her lovers, namely the demons, who desire to commit adultery with the beautiful soul, that is, the soul made to the image of God.

358DVERS. 17.-- A man of the seed. (ISICH.) These things according to the letter only, etc., as far as he strives against it very reproachfully.

VERS. 18.-- If blind (ISICH.) Not knowing the light of contemplation, pressed down by the darkness of the present life, who, while he does not diligently look upon the light to come, knows not whither to direct the step of his work.

If lame. (ID.) Who, namely, sees whither he ought to go, but by the weakness of his mind cannot do what he desires.

If with a little, or a great, or a crooked nose. (ID.) He is of a little nose who is not fit to hold the measure of discretion: for by the nose we distinguish odours and stenches. A great and crooked nose is the immoderate subtlety of discretion, which, 359Agrowing more than is fitting or seemly, confounds the rightness of action.

VERS. 19.-- If with a broken foot. (ISICH.) Who cannot go the way of God, and has no share in good work, not like the lame man, who at least with his weakness was holding

VERS. 20.-- If crook-backed. (ID.) Pressed down by earthly care, not looking back to the things above, gazing only on the lower things.

If blear-eyed. The blear-eyed is he whose wit flashes out to the knowledge of the truth, but whose carnal working darkens it. For in the blear-eyed the pupils are sound, but with the humour flowing down the eyelids grow thick, and by its frequent flooding even the keenness of the pupil is impaired.

If he have a white speck. (ID.) He has a white speck who is not permitted to see the light of truth, because he is blinded by arrogance of wisdom 359Bor of justice. For the black pupil sees, the white does not see: because the sense of human thought, if it understands itself to be foolish or a sinner, lays hold of the knowledge of the inward brightness: if it attributes to itself the whiteness of justice or of wisdom, it shuts itself out from the knowledge that is above.

If a continual scab. (ID.) Over whom, namely, the wantonness of the flesh rules without ceasing in the mind. For in a scab the heat of the inward parts is drawn to the skin, in which lust is signified, because in like manner the temptation of the heart leaps forth into action.

If a ringworm in the body. (GREG. Past., part. I, cap. 11.) He has a ringworm in the body, etc., as far as because through all vices it supplants the mind. For the root of all evils is covetousness (I Tim. VI).

Or one that hath a rupture. Others, burdened, because, namely, he does not practise baseness 359Cin deed, but is still weighed down in mind by continual thought: who with all his thoughts flows down to wantonness, as though bearing in his heart the weight of baseness.

VERS. 21.-- Every one that hath a blemish Whosoever is subject to any of these vices is forbidden to offer bread to the Lord, lest he be unable to wash away others' offences, whom his own offences still lay waste. (AUG., quaest. 35 in Lev.) All doubt has been taken away, etc., as far as by whom it was necessary that the incense be laid on.

A priest ought to be unspotted in mind and in manner of life, whom, as Moses commanded him to be clean from twelve blemishes according to the LXX, so Paul admonished to keep twelve, saying: Not proud, not angry, not given to wine, etc. (I Tim. II.) 359DFor he is the steward of God, who ought to excel his subjects in virtues. This also is done in the Church: if any man has been spotted, and by repenting has ceased, he is not forbidden to communicate with the holy ones: but to minister, or to approach to the veil and to the altar, is not lawful. For the veil and the altar are the body of Christ, whence Paul: We have an altar whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle (Hebr. XIII). And elsewhere: Having confidence in the entering into the holies by the blood of Christ, a new and living way which he hath dedicated for us through the veil, that is, his flesh (Hebr. X).

And he must not defile, etc. By acting disorderly let them scandalize the people, thinking the ministry of God, and justice and judgment, to be superfluous.

360AVERS. 24.-- Moses spoke, etc. He commends the dignity of Moses: for to others God speaks few things, but to him all things, because he is just and is the image of Christ. He admonishes us also to give heed to the greater and more perfect, who continually enjoy the eternal vision.

VERS. 2.-- Which they themselves offer, etc. Which they offered, namely, to the priests, to be offered by them to the Lord. Note the kind of sanctification which comes about by the vow and devotion of the offerer; but whether men are said in the same way to sanctify themselves, when in some matter they vow themselves, is to be observed.

VERS. 3.-- Every man that approacheth, etc. As if to say, let him not only abstain from the ministry and the mystical office, 360Bbut let him not even touch the things which have been offered, for the clean must approach clean things.

VERS. 4.-- Who shall be a leper, etc. He does not abominate the leper who is perceived by the senses, who suffers unwillingly, but the spiritual leper: which he there sets forth: He that toucheth what is unclean by reason of the dead, or, according to the LXX: Every uncleanness of the soul, that is, sin.

From whom, etc. (HIERON., epist. ad Fabiolam. ) If any of the priests have an issue of seed, as far as let him be held by the manner of no other.

VERS. 9.-- Let them keep, etc. To those who keep the precepts of the Lord they are a cause of justification and of salvation; but to those who transgress, of sin and of death, and chiefly in the receiving of the holy things. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, etc. 360C(I Cor. XI.)

VERS. 10.-- The sojourner of the priest, etc. (ISICH.) He who is not purely nor diligently occupied in the Church, as one about to migrate, namely for the sake of glory or of gain, is spoken of as a hireling: who is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not (Joan. X).

VERS. 12.-- Married to any one of the people. (ID.) It is not enough to be nourished in the faith of Christ: we ought to abide and to grow in it; nor to be mingled with any of the aliens, that is, with a doctrine or a law or an action alien from God: nor, because we are of faithful fathers, are we therefore to presume upon the holy things, but let us persist where they too were faithful.

VERS. 14.-- He that eateth of the sanctified things, etc. (ISICH.) The holy of holies, etc., as far as Whence Solomon: 360DWhen thou sittest to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thee (Prov. XXIII).

He shall add the fifth part, etc. LXX: Upon it. The fifth part therefore is commanded to be added not from elsewhere, but from it and with it, or upon it: this is the word brought forth by Christ himself upon the Lord's mystery. He himself removes us from ignorance, and let no man think it carnal or earthly. Here it is rightly called a fifth part, because the spirit and the word which he delivers composes our five senses; nor does it bring forth the taste only to the mystery, but the hearing and the sight, and the touch and the smell, that we may suspect nothing earthly of the things which are above.

And he shall give it to the priest in the sanctuary. (ISICH.) The sanctification of the mystical sacrifice, and the passage from things sensible to things intelligible, 361Amust indeed be given to the priest: because by his power and word the things which are seen are sanctified, so that they surpass all the senses.

VERS. 15.-- Of the children of Israel. He signifies the faithful people, who through this mystery see God: and whosoever consecrates to God for the Lord's sacrifice, they are the holy of holies, because of them the body of Christ is made. For he himself is the firstfruits of our lump: therefore he rightly subsists of our firstfruits.

VERS. 17.-- The Lord spoke, etc. (ISICH.) Not only the priests, etc., as far as for otherwise it will not be received.

VERS. 18.-- A man of the house of Israel, etc. To the letter also, if thou offer an ox or a sheep or a she-goat, or anything of this kind, by giving firstfruits to the priests, 361Bor by feeding the poor, or by setting up divine buildings, or by doing anything that pertains to God himself (for therefore is it called a holocaust), let this oblation be undefiled; yet he does not name the defilement, that we may understand the spiritual defilement which is from rapine, injustice, avarice, and the like.

VERS. 21.-- The man that offereth, etc. He has commanded that the oblation of the people be clean: he adds what kind the ministers ought to be, and to offer.

Of peace offerings, etc. Such as avail unto salvation and peace: even if a man cannot perfectly philosophize, like him who has left all things, who is zealous for virginity and the like. For star differeth from star in brightness (I Cor. XV).

VERS. 22.-- If it be blind, etc. He who does not know God and his ministry, nor can set it forth to others; 361Cwhence about himself and about others, and about the ministry, he acts negligently. Whence: See that they have all been without knowledge, all dumb dogs, not able to bark (Isa. LVI). [Vulg. Is 56:10 Speculatores ejus caeci omnes; nescierunt universi: canes muti non valentes latrare, "His watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant"]

If broken. In foot or in hand: whose action, namely, or will is weak or twisted, he is not worthy of salvation and of the holy altars.

If it have a scar. He marks the detractor: for this man is the worst in his manners, and a most bitter wound is not easily assuaged.

If it have pimples. LXX: a cut tongue: he, namely, who because of a sordid life has lost his confidence in teaching; whence David: God said to the sinner: Why dost thou declare my justices? etc. (Psal. XLIX.)

Scab or ringworm. The fornicator is signified, 361Dwho stains his own body. For he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body (I Cor. VI).

You shall not offer them to the Lord. LXX: They shall not offer these to the Lord: for such are not to be offered to the ministry of the altar. He does not add the sacrifice of peace offerings as above, that we may understand this to be said of the ministers of the altar, who ought to be a holocaust, and to lead a perfect and consummated life. The ear and the tail being cut off, etc. He is cut off in the ear who is disobedient, who delights in base words, turns away from good things.

Voluntarily, etc. For such a man either works the commandments, and is called an ox; or is simple, and is called a sheep. Therefore we do not altogether oppose them, or reckon them on the enemy's side, but we teach and exhort them.

362AOr bruised, etc. He who yields to the temptations brought upon him, and loses the strength of his soul. For it behoves us not to suffer these things, nor to yield to the enemy that afflicts us. Whence: Wherefore do I go sorrowful, whilst the enemy afflicteth me (Psal. XLI)? [Vulg. Ps 41:10 quare contristatus incedo, dum affligit me inimicus, "why do I go about mourning"]

And taken away. He who by one depraved action cuts himself off, as with a knife, from union with God, deprived of the offspring of virtue and of the signs of manhood: for it is another who is worn away little by little.

VERS. 27.-- The ox, the sheep and the goat. (ISICH.) Nature is the mother of all, etc., as far as whence Solomon: Praise not a man before his death (Eccli. XI).

VERS. 28.-- They shall not be sacrificed. (ISICH.) It signifies the legal pasch, because Moses delivered these things to be sacrificed by the Jews on the day of the pasch, saying: Thou shalt sacrifice the pasch to the Lord thy God; sheep, etc. (Deut. XVI): [Vulg. Dt 16:2 Immolabisque Phase Domino Deo tuo de ovibus, et de bobus, "And thou shalt sacrifice the Phase ... of sheep and of oxen"] this 362Bpasch they cannot celebrate who have received the true one.

In one day, etc. (ID.) Because the old pasch had its own time, etc., as far as: On the morrow they crucified Christ.

VERS. 1.-- These are the feasts of the Lord. (ISICH.) If thou attend subtly to things present, etc., as far as he rests in the intelligible sabbath.

VERS. 4.-- These therefore are. Not to the Lord, as all the others are, but the Lord's properly, in which, the enemy being overcome, he saved the human race, and brought it back from captivity (Exod. II).

VERS. 5.-- On the fourteenth day, etc. (ISICH.) Let us ask the Jews, etc., as far as on which Christ our passover was sacrificed, etc.

362CIt is the Phase of the Lord. Because the Lord suffered, he did not straightway end the times, but left the remnants of the last and evening hour, that their sound might go out into all the earth (Psal. XVIII), that is, the sound of the apostles, and their words unto the ends of the world. At evening also, or at mid-evening, forestalling his cross he kept his own passover, because upon the mystical passover he delivered the true one to the disciples. It was night therefore already when Judas, having received the morsel, went out to betray him: on the following day he fulfilled the passover. Whence on the fifteenth day the lawgiver appointed this festival, and proclaimed the solemnity of the unleavened bread.

VERS. 6.-- Seven days, etc. If we would truly keep the passover, for seven days, that is, always, we ought to be unleavened of all malice, and most of all of 362Dthe Jewish error. Whence the Apostle says: Not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (I Cor. V).

VERS. 7.-- All work, etc. Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin (Joan. VIII). We ought not to serve sin, when we keep the passover, in which Christ set us free from sin.

Servile, etc. He does not permit servile things to be done on the other days on which he forbade us, whence he adds: but you shall offer a sacrifice in fire to the Lord.

VERS. 8.-- A sacrifice, etc. LXX: holocaustomata, where it is hinted that he commands them to cease from all servile things; moreover he named not only the first, but the seventh also, that he might take in the whole of 363Ahuman life, because that is the beginning, this the end, in which all things can be comprehended.

VERS. 11.-- On the next day. He could have said, the second day of the unleavened bread: but lest he should draw our attention to the following day, that is, to the morrow of the first, he said, on the next day, signifying the resurrection which came after the passion, as day comes after day.

VERS. 12.-- And on the same day. Of the resurrection, that is, of the lifting up of the sheaf, that is, when we keep the resurrection, we ought not to forget the Lord's sacrifice, from which the sheaf was offered.

VERS. 13.-- Two tenth parts. For it behoves the perfect humanity and the perfect divinity to come together into one: in oil, that is, through the mercy which he had toward us; for so the sacrifice is found an odour of sweetness 363Bto the Lord, if we understand of him the things that are worthy.

The cakes also. Behold the intelligible oblation of Melchisedech, which is accomplished in bread and wine (Gen. XIV); thence a fourth part is offered here, that by the fourth part the evangelical doctrine may be signified; but by the drink offering the Lord's word, in which he says: This is my blood, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins (Matth. XXVI).

VERS. 14.-- Bread. The oblation of present gifts, which is the mystery of Christ, has reconciled us to God, and has prepared new food.

Parched corn. LXX: χίδρα νέα, that is, you shall not eat new grain roasted, or rubbed with the hands and cleansed: for so others interpret χίδρα, chidra, because 363Cthe precepts of Christ require action and correction (Matth. XI).

VERS. 16.-- Fifty days, and so, etc. This is the Lord's day, on which we keep the festival of Pentecost, which the Jews keep neither according to the letter nor according to the spirit, who do not even number the days according to the law.

You shall offer a new sacrifice, new, not old, not worldly. For the Spirit at his coming renewed the whole of human life, because he confirmed the institution of Christ, and perfected in them the confirmation of life: whence, He shall receive of mine, and shall show it to you (Joan. XVI). Therefore he came not on another day, but on that on which the resurrection was, and the intelligible sheaf was offered, that he might show that the new manner of life was perfected by the resurrection of Christ and the coming 363Dof the Holy Spirit.

VERS. 17.-- Your dwellings, etc. Because there is a chief dwelling, of which it is said: Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord (Psal. LXXXII). And elsewhere: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after, that I may dwell, etc. (Psal. XXVI).

The loaves of the firstfruits. For the Lord first perfected and taught the Gospel together with the law. You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not kill: But I say to you: Whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment (Matth. V): for hereby he joined the law to the Gospel. Hence Luke says: Which Jesus began to do and to teach, etc. (Act. I).

Of two tenth parts, etc. That is, of the doctrine which 364Ateaches the perfect divinity and the perfect humanity, and they cannot be baked otherwise than by such doctrine.

VERS. 18.-- Seven lambs. For the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which he calls lambs, because the Holy Spirit is one with Christ, of whom it is written: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sins of the world, therefore no man can say, the Lord Jesus, but in the Holy Spirit (Joan. I; I Cor. XII).

And two rams. By which the enemy is winnowed away. These are the higher commandments, and the virtues, which others follow as sheep, for example: Go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor (Matth. IX). [Vulg. Mt 19:21 Vade, vende quae habes, et da pauperibus; the omnia is Lc 18:22, and Matthew has the saying at ch. XIX, not IX]

With the drink offerings, etc. Which are knowledge and correction; whence: But thanks be to God, who manifesteth the odour of his knowledge 364Bby us, because we are the good odour of Christ, etc. (II Cor. II). [Vulg. 2 Cor 2:14 odorem notitiae suae; Migne's scientiae is the very word the gloss expounds]

VERS. 19.-- And two lambs, etc. The commandments of peace and of holiness, whence: Follow peace with all men, and holiness, etc. (Heb. XII). Because these were spoken in the apostolic word, he commands them to be offered with the loaves of the firstfruits, which signify the doctrine of Christ. Whence in what follows: And when the priest shall have lifted them up with the loaves of the firstfruits (Joan. X).

VERS. 20.-- They shall fall to the use, etc. To the use of that priest, that is, of Christ, who is our priest and our Lord: his are the loaves of the firstfruits and the lambs of the commandments, he spoke in Paul, he offered all the things that have been said; he first announced peace to the disciples, and kept holiness, as the Holy 364Cof holies.

VERS. 21.-- Most solemn. In which the calling of the nations was not only foretold, but fulfilled: when Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and the rest of the nations, heard the apostles speaking in divers tongues the wonderful works of God (Act. II).

VERS. 22.-- After that, etc. He seems to have said the same things above, but there: You shall not complete your reaping; and here he says: You shall not cut it down to the ground, and the very change of words hints at a difference.

The corn of the land, etc. Of the manner of life, whose reaping is after the resurrection of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit; yet the word of preaching does not deliver all the knowledge which we are to have in the time to come. For there are things 364Dwhich cannot now be revealed to us (Matth. VIII), whence among the aforesaid festivals he set this law between.

To the poor and the strangers. LXX: to the poor man and the proselyte, that is, to Christ, who had not where to lay his head, and came unto his own, and his own received him not. Here he understands only those who remain; whence: O the depth of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! how incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! (Rom. XI.) [Vulg. Rom 11:33 O altitudo divitiarum sapientiae et scientiae Dei, "the depth of the riches of the wisdom"]

VERS. 24.-- In the seventh month, on the first day of the month. The number seven signifies a consummation, either particular or general. Hence God rested on the seventh day (Gen. II); and by his rest he signified ours; whence: He that is entered into that rest, hath rested from his own works, 365Aas God did from his (Heb. IV). [Vulg. Heb 4:10 Qui enim ingressus est in requiem eius, etiam ipse requievit ab operibus suis, sicut a suis Deus, "into his rest"] But the beginning of the consummation of the times is the coming of the Lord, whence: Little children, it is the last hour (I Joan. II). This time he calls the first day of the seventh month, since the beginning of the consummation is a rest to us also, whom he has made to cease from evil works, and has freed from the heavy yoke; whence: Come to me, all you that labour and are burdened, etc., and learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls (Matth. XI).

With trumpets sounding. Because it proclaims the resurrection of the Saviour, which is a memorial of the general resurrection, which according to the Apostle shall be in the voice of an archangel and in the trumpet of God, etc.

VERS. 25.-- You shall do no servile work therein. As if [sicut] there were no need of doing servile things: before, you did them, but 365Bas you have yielded your members to iniquity unto iniquity, so now yield them to serve justice unto sanctification (Rom. VI): for this is the true holocaust.

VERS. 27.-- On the tenth day, etc. (ISICH.) From these things we understand that propitiation and deliverance from sins are gained in humility and affliction of soul. This we ought to keep from the evening, that is, to begin from penance, which Christ made the beginning of his preaching (Matth. IV): upon penance a good life, consummated in virtues, is to be built. Whence he added: And you shall offer a holocaust to the Lord.

VERS. 28.-- A day of propitiation. (ISICH.) It signifies two things, that in this time we shall receive propitiation, 365Cand therefore in it we ought to abstain from all evil.

VERS. 31.-- Nothing therefore. He signifies that there must always be a ceasing from evil and superfluous things. Whence the Lord neither allows a cause to be pleaded, nor allows us to think what shall be eaten, or what drunk, or what put on; for he proclaimed a true sabbath too, and a sabbath of sabbaths.

VERS. 32.-- You shall afflict. It is a recapitulation of humility, which is the foundation and base of the virtues. Whence the Lord says: Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven (Matth. XVIII).

VERS. 34.-- From the fifteenth day. (ISICH.) With this number the festival is begun, etc., as far as a building not made with hands is had in the heavens (II Cor. V).

VERS. 36.-- The day also. (ID.) Note that the same things are said of 365Dthe first and of the eighth, namely because the day of the resurrection is the second, and the beginning of the age to come. The first is, in Christ, the beginning of the manner of life and the opening of things to come; but the eighth succeeds the present age, which he signifies in the number seven. Moreover the saints have rest and the life to come in this life. Whence it was said to the apostles: The kingdom of God is within you, etc.

An assembly. LXX: a going out, because hence is the departure, there the dwelling, whence: I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ (Philipp. I).

VERS. 37.-- These are the feasts of the Lord, etc. (ID.) Paul accords with the lawgiver, etc., as far as whether in dangers, or of our own will, we promise.

VERS. 39.-- From the fifteenth, etc. The fifteenth, composed of seven and eight, signifies the evangelical preaching, 366Awhich consists of the present life and the life to come; the one it composes, the other it prepares.

On the first day and on the eighth day. (ID.) Which is the eighth, etc., as far as because for the faithful who keep the law a rest is reserved in the time to come.

VERS. 40.-- On the first day, the fruits. (ID.) The fruit is Christ, etc., as far as in his own time.

And the branches of palm trees, etc. The youthful shoots of justice, because the just shall flourish like the palm tree; and because nothing of the palm is rejected, nor anything of those who live justly, he adds, and the boughs of thick trees.

And the boughs of trees. Namely all the fruits of the virtues, but chiefly mercy, which ought to be continual and abiding. Whence: The oil shall not fail from thy head (Eccle. IX). [Vulg. Eccle 9:8 et oleum de capite tuo non deficiat, "let not the oil depart from thy head"; Migne's future indicative turns the precept into the promise the gloss reads]

366BOf the torrent, etc. Namely of the present life, which flows like a torrent, boiling up with temptations and tribulations, whence: He shall drink of the torrent in the way, therefore shall he lift up the head (Psal. CIX), hanging, that is, upon the cross.

VERS. 2.-- Command the children of Israel. (ISICH.) The candlestick is the evangelical life, etc., as far as where the merciful hide their treasures.

VERS. 3.-- Until morning, of the age to come: for then there shall be no time for praying, or for giving alms, whence: Say not to thy friend, Go and come again, and to-morrow I will give thee: for you know not what the day to come may bring forth (Prov. III, XXVII). [Vulg. Prv 3:28 Ne dicas amico tuo: Vade, et revertere: cras dabo tibi, and Prv 27:1 ignorans quid superventura pariat dies; Migne's nescitis puts the second clause in the plural]

VERS. 4.-- Upon the candlestick, etc. Christ, who 366Cis the true light and enlighteneth every man that cometh. And he did no sin, neither was guile found, etc. (Isa. LIII). [Vulg. Is 53:9 eo quod iniquitatem non fecerit, neque dolus fuerit in ore eius; the words printed here are those of 1 Pt 2:22 qui peccatum non fecit, nec inventus est dolus in ore eius] Upon him burns the lamp, that is, the Holy Spirit, who appeared in fiery tongues upon the disciples: to him we ought to offer the purest oil, that is, a clean life, knowing that not all men can kindle it (that is, the fire), but Christ alone and his sons, who, full of the Spirit, says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me (Isa. LXI). Who also says, I am come to cast fire upon the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled? (Luc. XII.) Breathing this upon them, as though kindling it, he says: Receive the Holy Spirit, etc. (Joan. XX). But this lamp is not kindled save by a clean life and manner of living, or, once kindled, is quickly quenched, whence: Extinguish not the Spirit, etc. (I Thes. V).

366DVERS. 5.-- Thou shalt take also. (BEDA, lib. I de Tabernac., cap. 7, tom. II.) Twelve loaves upon the table of the tabernacle, etc., as far as that through the labours and good works of the temporal life we may hasten to it.

Thou shalt bake twelve of it. (ORIG., hom. 13 in Exod.) The word of the Lord is bread, but manifold, etc., as far as the bread is set upon a clean table, that is, upon a holy and pure mind.

VERS. 10.-- And behold, etc. (ISICH.) An Israelite woman, etc., as far as who is blasphemed in Christ.

And behold. (ORIG., hom. 14 in Lev.) Two strive together: the one wholly an Israelite, etc., as far as for sometimes he who is put forth is within; and he who is without seems to be held within.

367AVERS. 12.-- And they put him, etc. Moses does not of his own authority pronounce sentence against the blasphemer, but, reserving him to God's command, casts him into prison: for the law hates him who blasphemes, against whom it frequently preaches the Trinity, but not openly as the Gospel does; therefore it reserved him to the judgment of the Gospel. He that hath not believed in the Son is already judged (Joan. XXXI), and the like. [Vulg. Jo 3:18 qui autem non credit, iam iudicatus est, "he that doth not believe"; in Filium belongs to Jo 3:36 qui autem incredulus est Filio, and John has twenty-one chapters, not thirty-one]

VERS. 15.-- The man who, etc. It is a manner of speech, as though it were said: this man or that man, that is, whatsoever man. Not, as some think, that man, man is so said in praise, as who should say "a man indeed"; but man, man, that is, of whatever sort, even like to a beast, yet one who is truly a man; and that this sense is not the true one, but that this belongs to the manner of speech of the Scriptures, is here plainly shown, 367Bsince it is said of him who is blamed, not of him who is praised.

Man, etc. (AUG., quaest. 87 in Lev.) If he shall have cursed his God, he shall bear his sin. But he that nameth the name of the Lord, let him die the death; as though it were one thing to curse one's God, etc., as far as the kind of speech is to be noted.

(ISICH.) LXX: Man, man, etc., as far as as the son of the Israelite woman named and blasphemed (Josue VII).

VERS. 17.-- He that striketh and killeth a man. LXX: He that striketh the soul of a man, etc., that is, he who has drawn him to iniquity. But by the soul he understands the animal man, who perceiveth not the things that are of the Spirit of God.

367C(AUG., quaest. 88 in Lev.) He that striketh the soul of a man, and he shall have died, etc. He does not say, etc., as far as for this is for the soul of a man to have been stricken.

VERS. 20.-- A fracture, etc. LXX: Bruise for bruise, that is, if by teaching, by persuading, by giving scandal, he shall have bruised some virtue of his neighbour.

Tooth for tooth. The virtue of speaking. For teeth are taken for words, whence: The sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, etc. (Psal. LIX). And his eyes are more beautiful than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk (Gen. XLIX). For the words of the Gospel are brighter and plainer than the milk of the law.

VERS. 21.-- He that striketh, etc. These things according to the letter were necessary for the Jews, who could not take in: If any man shall strike thee on thy right cheek, 367Dturn to him also the other (Matth. V). But since they were ill-willed, they wished to inflict evils, and not to suffer them. Therefore they had to be called back from wickedness by the fear of a like punishment.

VERS. 23.-- And they brought forth, etc. By the very trial he showed the law confirmed, that thou also mightest fear to blaspheme, and mightest flee sin, which not the prince only but the whole multitude avenges. For all in common ought to punish blasphemers, who have not feared to disparage the author of all, and to sever all men from him.

VERS. 1, 2.-- And the Lord spoke, etc. When you shall have entered, etc. (ISICH.) The land is a good manner of life, of 368Awhich it is said: Thy good spirit shall lead me into the land, etc. (Psal. CXLII).

VERS. 3.-- Six years, etc. While we are in this life, we are in the visible creation also, which the number six signifies. For in six days were made all the things that are seen: but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of the land of the Lord. For when after the present time that sabbath shall have come, of which Paul says: There remaineth a sabbath-rest for the people of God, which the seventh day signifies, on which God rested from all his works, that is, from the visible ones (Hebr. IV), there shall then be no time for working.

VERS. 3.-- Thou shalt sow thy field, etc. By the field and the vineyard, when he forbade the one to be sown and the other to be pruned, every kind of land is to be understood: for neither in an oliveyard nor in a field of any other kind is anything 368Bto be worked.

VERS. 5.-- The things that grow of themselves, etc. That is, of the things which we do here we shall eat the fruit in the time to come; whence: For thou shalt eat the labours of thy hands, blessed art thou, and it shall be well with thee (Psal. CXXVII).

VERS. 6.-- But they shall be, etc. He does not forbid the Lord [Dominum; read Dominus, "the Lord does not forbid"] to feed upon the things that grow of themselves, but to lay them up for his own use.

VERS. 8.-- Thou shalt also number. Let us ask the Jews, if the lawgiver (as they say) honoured the seventh day and commanded that men rest from works, why he commanded the fiftieth year to be kept: for seven weeks make forty-nine years. It would not therefore behove them to rest in the fiftieth, unless the law signified a mystery which the weakness of the Jews 368Ccould not take in. For a twofold consummation of all visible things is signified by God; one particular to each man, the other common to all, when there shall be no time for working; in the passages above he intimates the first, in these the second.

Seven. The age of man is divided into a week of days. When therefore this number shall have been multiplied by itself, and the whole age of the world completed, and the time rolled onward shall have come to its end, the fiftieth succeeds as it were to the forty-ninth year, in which shall be the resurrection, whence he adds: And thou shalt sound the trumpet in the seventh month, etc. Whence the Apostle: In the trumpet of God they shall come down from heaven, and the dead who are in Christ shall rise incorruptible (Thes. IV). [Vulg. 1 Th 4:15 in tuba Dei descendet de caelo: et mortui qui in Christo sunt, resurgent primi, singular "he shall descend" and "shall rise first"; incorrupti is drawn from 1 Cor 15:52] For the trumpet must go before him that raises: therefore in the forty-ninth year, 368Din which is the common consummation, he commanded the trumpet to sound.

VERS. 9.-- In the seventh month. Because Christ came as it were in the seventh month of the world's age; the first month is that which was in paradise; the second, unto the flood; the third, unto Abraham; the fourth, until the going down into Egypt; the fifth, unto the transmigration; the sixth, unto the coming of Christ; the seventh is that coming itself.

VERS. 10.-- And thou shalt sanctify the year. As though it were to be awaited and thought upon in holiness, for we ought to follow peace and holiness (Hebr. XII), without which no man shall see God.

Every one. Of the patriarchs and the prophets there is 369Aa certain household of hospitality, over which Abraham presides. There is another of chastity, over which Joseph presides. And there is another of meekness, over which Moses presides (Gen. XVIII, XXXIX; Num. XII).

VERS. 14.-- When thou shalt sell, etc. Every man can sell or buy. Whence Paul: We are all yours, as you also are ours (I Cor. III). [Vulg. 1 Cor 3:22 omnia enim vestra sunt, "for all things are yours"; the phrasing printed here is that of 2 Cor 1:14 gloria vestra sumus, sicut et vos nostra] This, according to the letter, instructs morally, that in our contracts we have compassion on our neighbours, that no man be too troublesome in trafficking upon the necessities of the poor, that he study not to acquire the possessions of others, but to lend to the needy, and to receive back what is lent little by little out of the fruits of the fields.

According to the number (ISICH.). That is, according to each man's strength. For the years signify the age in which 369Bit is made plain what each man can do according to the body.

VERS. 16.-- The more (ID.). That is, if he can work much, much fruit shall be required; if he cannot do much, he shall repay little; for this one shall bear the thirtieth fruit, that one the sixtieth, and that other the hundredth (Matth. XIII).

VERS. 18.-- Do my precepts. Lest any man, having heard of this moderation in selling and buying, should grow the slower, and the very condescension should do harm, he cautiously adds: Do my precepts, etc. For he will have no man idle, but bear fruit according to his strength. And each man's conscience examines his strength.

And my judgments, etc. (ID.) Not corrupting their intention or their working; as, if a man gives an alms, let him not hurt one that he may profit another: for the precept 369Cwhich bade alms be given willed that it should be just.

But if you shall say, etc. (ID.) Because he had commanded the land to rest for two years, lest they should be troubled, as men anxious what they should eat or what they should drink, he says: I will give my blessing, etc. (Matth. VI). And it is to be noted that, whereas Christ says: Think not of the morrow, the law bids them not think of three years. [Vulg. Mt 6:34 Nolite ergo solliciti esse in crastinum, "be not solicitous for to-morrow"; the gloss turns on cogitare, thinking, which it carries over to the three years]

VERS. 21.-- I will give my blessing. (ID.) Christ. Whence we have blessed you in the name of the Lord, that is, in Christ, who is the name of the Father. He named the Father to us, and made him manifest; he came in the sixth year, that is, in perfection, which the number six signifies; and that he might reform the man whom he had formed on the sixth day. What is there the sixth day is here called the sixth year, because 369Dbetween our forming and our reforming many ages have flowed away.

VERS. 23.-- The land also. (AUG., Quaest. 90 in Lev.) Other copies have, etc., as far as whosoever has, ought to use.

VERS. 25.-- If being impoverished. (ISICH.) What our substance is, etc., as far as he teaches how he may restore it.

He may redeem. (ISICH.) According to that, etc., as far as that it may in a manner be common.

VERS. 28.-- Until the year The year, because it has in itself all the hours, and the days and the months, and all the circuits, signifies perfection. But a sin that is perfect and long continued is not amended save by a perfect penance, 370Ain which fasting, prayer, sackcloth, almsgiving and tears are gone through: for by these full remission is obtained.

VERS. 29.-- He that shall have sold a house. (ID.) The seller is not expressed, nor is he called a neighbour or a kinsman. For he is not one man, but the whole people: nor of the kindred of the Jews, but of Sodom and Gomorrha.

He that shall have sold a house, etc. In the chapter above he set forth the spiritual manner of life of each man; here he means to treat generally of the synagogue and of the Church, because the Church of the nations receives liberty, while the synagogue serves for ever, save only the Levites, that is, the apostles, and those who cleave to them.

(ORIG., hom. 15 in Lev.) He that shall have sold a house, etc. Of Jacob it is written, etc., as far as they always 370Breceive penance, and are always redeemed.

VERS. 31.-- By the law of the fields. (ISICH.) Because in the Gospel they are near, not in the law. Therefore they can always be redeemed, and from the time that Christ came unto the second coming they are redeemed by parts.

LXX: They shall be valued according to the field of the land, of which, that is, it is said: The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field, that is, the Gospel, in which the treasure is the mystery of Christ.

VERS. 32.-- The houses of the Levites. (ORIG., hom. 15 in Lev.) If the house shall have been priestly or Levitical, etc., as far as the satisfying, that is, of desire.

VERS. 34.-- The suburbs. (ISICH.) Other fields, that is, the manners of life of the virtues, and of doctrine. These are set apart from their cities, which subsist through them 370Cand are saved; and they are not sold, because they are received freely and freely given.

VERS. 35.-- If he shall have been impoverished. (ID.) Marvel at the wisdom and the piety of the lawgiver; for in lowly things he sets forth lofty ones, while according to the letter he gives a rule of piety.

Who brought you out. As though he said: As I freed you from the dominion of the Egyptians, and, the sinners being cast out, brought you into the land of the Chanaanites already promised, so I will not have you held under the dominion of sinners, nor embrace the fellowship of sinners; but when they shall be willing to repent, that you sustain them both by dwelling with them and by the bestowing of your substance.

VERS. 39.-- If through poverty. The letter is full of much piety, but the spiritual understanding is fuller.

370DVERS. 40.-- But as a hired servant. Each of them is subject, yet this one is free: so he who has been converted through you is indeed subject, but by the dignity of divine grace he is a brother.

VERS. 43.-- Afflict him not, etc., because in what thou judgest, thou shalt be judged: and with the same measure that you shall have measured, it shall be measured back to you (Matth. XVII). [Vulg. Mt 7:2 In quo enim iudicio iudicaveritis, iudicabimini: et in qua mensura mensi fueritis, remetietur vobis, "with what judgment you judge"; Matthew has the saying at ch. VII, not XVII]

VERS. 44.-- Bondman and bondwoman. (ISICH.) He shows what difference there is between those whom out of unbelievers we save unto God, and those already faithful and like to us in the dignity of calling and of manner of life, whom we correct when for a time they are impoverished in virtues: for these labour with us until the jubilee, but those are servants for ever.

371AVERS. 45.-- They that are of these. (ISICH.) The heretics are kinsmen of the Jews, who preach the same mysteries with us, as though they were in our land: but they do not believe rightly and perfectly.

These you shall have. (ID.) Those whom we convert from among the nations or from the Jews or from the heretics, we acquire for ever as bondmen and bondwomen: because for them we spend the money of doctrine, and we can deliver them to our sons, that is, to our disciples, to be taught, as Paul committed the Cretans to Titus and the Ephesians to Timothy to be taught.

VERS. 46.-- But your brethren. As though they shall not be of the same dignity with you, those whom you have converted from among the ungodly, and those whom, being fallen, you have restored.

VERS. 47.-- If he shall have grown strong. (ID.) That is, if one newly joined to your faith, a Gentile, or a Jew, or a heretic, 371Bshall have grown famous in virtues, so that he can reprove and exhort.

If he shall have grown strong, etc. According to the letter he shows how much he loves liberty. For therefore he does not permit an Israelite to serve strangers, but commands that he be redeemed.

Whosoever shall will. It is shameful that a man nourished in the faith from infancy should come under the mastership of such as have suddenly been made masters, whence Jerome: Yesterday in the market place, to-day at the altar; yesterday a companion of stage players, to-day a consecrator of virgins.

VERS. 49.-- His uncle, etc. (ID.). Cousins are they who begot us in the faith; their brethren are preachers like to them; the sons of the brethren are the disciples of the like.

A kinsman. (ID.) One more remote than an uncle or a cousin, but nearer than a connexion by marriage. For he that hath not care of his own, and 371Cespecially of those of his house, hath denied the faith (I Tim. V). [Vulg. 1 Tim 5:8 Si quis autem suorum, et maxime domesticorum curam non habet, fidem negavit, "But if any man have not care"; Migne's Qui enim turns the condition into a general maxim, and abnegavit strengthens the denial]

A connexion by marriage. (ID.) In the kinship of the faith of the incarnation of Christ, we who are of his flesh and of his bones.

But if. (ID.) The Holy Spirit acts for our liberty and our glory, and commands that whatsoever servant of sin there be, he be redeemed by virtues.

And he himself. (ID.) He who has been made poor in sin, though before he was rich in virtue and doctrine, rightly frees himself while by exhorting and counselling he calls himself back to virtue.

VERS. 50.-- The reckoning being made. (ID.) That is, by considering with himself by what virtue, etc., as far as therefore the Lord says to him: This day is salvation come to this house.

VERS. 51.-- He shall render. (ID.) According to the things in which he has sinned, 371Dhe must render the price. What gluttony has sinned, let fasting correct; what talkativeness has committed, let silence blot out; and in like manner contraries are cured by contraries.

VERS. 1.-- You shall not make. He forbids the worship of idols, both visible and invisible.

A graven thing. (ISICH.) Desiring to carve some memorial of yourselves in the buildings of your houses and the holdings of your fields.

Nor a remarkable stone. (ID.) A heap of gold and silver or of precious stones, in which the covetous are led astray, even as the Gentiles are in idols.

VERS. 2.-- Keep. (ISICH.) By abstaining from all evil, 372Aand being at leisure for every good: for this is the true sabbath.

VERS. 3.-- If in my precepts He has foretold what ought to be done, and what avoided. At the end he enumerates what rewards are due to those who keep them, and what punishments to the transgressors.

If in my precepts. (ID.) These things cannot stand according to the letter, etc., as far as the things that are signified in this chapter.

(ORIG., hom. 16 in Lev.) If the law is carnal, etc., as far as, John came in the spirit and power of Elias.

My commandments. Such as this: He that keepeth not the sabbath, let him be stoned by the whole synagogue, and the like.

I will give you rain, etc. And I will give: the and is superfluous by the custom of our speech, but is added after the manner of the Scriptures.

372BIn their seasons. (ORIG.) At a fitting time, not when a man is drunken, not when he is busied about other things: let the teacher therefore judge prudently to whom he should minister the rain and the measure of wheat, and to whom he ought to give milk, let him not give meat.

VERS. 4.-- The ground shall bring forth. LXX: The trees of the field shall give their fruit. (ID.) The motions of the soul, which are higher than the motions of the earth, that is, of our flesh, whose fruits are charity, justice, meekness and the like.

The trees with fruit. (ORIG.) A tree cannot, etc., as far as of which it is said: She is a tree of life to them that have laid hold on her.

VERS. 5.-- The threshing of the harvest shall reach. (ORIG.) The soul that buds forth from the word of God, etc., as far as there remains what is to be dispensed to the fellow servants in due time.

372CShall reach. For bread strengtheneth man's heart, wine maketh it glad (Psal. CIII). The things that are said of continence, of observances and of the keeping of the commandments seem to be wheat, out of which is made the bread that strengthens hearts. But the things that pertain to knowledge, and gladden the mind by the searching out of hidden things, are likened to wine and to the vintage. For the heart is made glad when dark [occulta] things are explained.

The vintage. The fruit of the soul. For the vintage is a tree. But to have these together, that is, to bear fruit in body and in soul, is a matter of great blessing.

(ISICH.) For the soul, gathering her virtues, soon desires others. Whence: Forgetting the things that are behind, I stretch forth myself to those that are before (Philip. III).

The vintage. (ORIG.) As if we should say, etc., as far as 372Dthat of the spirit we may reap life everlasting.

Your bread. That is, which came down from heaven, and gives life to the world; not that which abounds more to the evil than to the good.

Without fear. If the body shall have been steadfast, and the soul shall have borne fruit, we shall be secure in our own land, because the flesh shall not lust against the spirit (Galat. IV). [Vulg. Gal 5:17 caro enim concupiscit adversus spiritum, "for the flesh lusteth against the spirit"; Migne prints a negative the Apostle does not, and cites Galatians IV for V]

VERS. 6.-- And the sword shall not. (ISICH.) Because there shall be peace in your borders; now from concupiscences come wars and strifes.

VERS. 7.-- Your enemies. (ID.) Slain by fasting, by prayer and the like; whence: This kind is not cast out but with prayer and fasting (Matth. XVII).

They shall fall. LXX: In your sight by your death, 373Athat is, your members being mortified which are upon the earth, that is, fornication, uncleanness and the like (Col. III).

VERS. 8.-- They shall pursue. (ORIG.) As the number five points to the wise and the foolish, etc., as far as lest they deceive believers.

(ISICH.) LXX, etc., as far as he can pursue and conquer.

And a hundred. They who have not only subtle knowledge but a perfect life also, who are spiritually cleared of blame, and are therefore called a hundred, namely those who bring forth a hundredfold fruit.

VERS. 9.-- I will look upon you. Whose look is salvation. The Lord looked upon Peter, and he wept bitterly. If the sun look not upon the corn, it remains without fruit. God looks upon the corn 373Bof our heart, and enlightens us with the rays of his word, increases and multiplies us that we may be made great; as Isaac was made great, and Moses great, and John great.

To increase. In good works, that small things may become great. Whence: What you have done to one of the least of mine, etc. (Matth. XXV.) [Vulg. Mt 25:40 Quamdiu fecistis uni ex his fratribus meis minimis, mihi fecistis, "as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me"]

You shall be multiplied. That few things may become great or many. Whence: If there be any other commandment, it is restored in this word: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Rom. XIII).

VERS. 10.-- You shall eat. (ORIG.) The old law and the prophets, etc., as far as and we have put on the new.

VERS. 11.-- I will set. If we have the things aforesaid, the old man being cast off our heart has been made new: God comes to us and dwells in us (Col. III). [Vulg. has no such verse; compare Jo 14:23 ad eum veniemus, et mansionem apud eum faciemus and 2 Cor 6:16 inhabitabo in illis; Colossians III has nothing of the kind]

373CHe shall not cast off, etc. (ORIG.) I dare to say that the soul of God is Christ, as also the word of God is the wisdom of God and the power of God (I Cor. I). It is therefore as though he said: my Son shall not cast you off.

Soul. (AUG., quaest. 93 in Lev.) God calls it his own soul, etc., as far as who say that Jesus had no soul.

VERS. 12.-- I will walk. (ISICH.) Being made man. Whence: This is our God, and no other shall be accounted of beside him; after this he was seen upon the earth, and conversed with men (Baruc. III). [Vulg. Bar 3:36 et non aestimabitur alius adversus eum, "shall not be esteemed against him", and 3:38 in terris visus est, "upon the earth" in the plural]

VERS. 14.-- But if. (ISICH.) In the preceding chapter he set forth the good things of the obedient: but what are the evils of transgressors he shows in the present chapter, of which the Jews suffered some according to the letter: but all 373Daccording to the spirit.

VERS. 16.-- In want. (ID.) Of the word of God. Whence: This saying is hard, who can hear it? (Joan. VI.) Because they were transgressing the understanding of the law, that they might make void the evangelical testament, he spoke to them darkly, lest they should understand.

VERS. 17.-- You shall flee, no man. (ID.) Because the gentiles will not pursue them to drive them out, but hastening after their salvation, according to that: But I follow after, if I may by any means lay hold (Philip. III).

But if. (ID.) He frequently uses distinctions of this kind, etc., as far as it signifies a full and entire vengeance.

VERS. 18.-- I will add correction. LXX: And I will proceed 374Ato chastise you seven times, etc. Here too it is superfluous. But seven times is to be taken for every number.

VERS. 19.-- And I will break the pride of your hardness. Because you say: We are the seed of Abraham, and we have never served any man (Joan. III): therefore you shall serve the nations.

VERS. 25.-- A sword, of the spirit, which is the word of God, which by preachers convicts the Jews, lest they gainsay the having of the Old Testament together with the Gospel.

I will send into your cities. The prophets, in whom the faithful find fortifications and salvation, while the enemies fleeing are taken, and there die, not being able to resist the prophets who speak openly of Christ.

374BVERS. 26.-- So that ten, etc. (ISICH.) They have not the bread of doctrine, etc., as far as therefore they are not filled who are fed with these loaves.

VERS. 27.-- But if, etc. (ID.) Moses is not only a lawgiver, etc., as far as and they blasphemed the author of the law.

VERS. 29.-- The flesh of your sons. That is, the disciples whom you take to yourselves for sons, that you may lead them into the same doctrine by words that are strong and that corrupt the soul.

VERS. 30.-- You shall fall among the ruins. For the people falls together with the Pharisees who fall spiritually, whom the people, intent upon their traditions, admired as idols.

VERS. 31.-- Your cities. According to the letter, or else the books of the prophets, in which they find no fruit of holiness.

374CVERS. 34.-- Then shall the sabbaths of the land please, that is, its rest, namely while you keep holiday and are removed from the law, since in the law and the prophets you find not your own will.

VERS. 36.-- It shall terrify them. As the leaf hides the fruit, so the letter hides the spirit: take away the leaf, receive the fruit.

The sound of a flying leaf. A hyperbole: because they shall dread even the very lightest things.

They shall fall when none pursueth. For we do not pursue them, but follow after them that we may call them back.

VERS. 37.-- They shall fall. When we dispute with them, they bring forward divers testimonies by turns: but they shall be confounded by one another's words, and the one confounds the other 374Dwhile he seems to be helping him.

VERS. 41.-- Their uncircumcised mind. Because they are uncircumcised in heart, defiled with the foreskin of vices, for neither is that circumcision which is in the flesh (Rom. II).

Then shall they pray for their impieties. LXX: They shall hold their sins acceptable, that is, the punishments which they shall suffer for their sins.

VERS. 42.-- Which I made with Jacob. (ISICH.) Note that he has changed the order of time and of birth, etc., as far as but they are joined together as kindred and fitting.

I will remember the land also. (ISICH.) That is, the Scripture, which I will entrust to the Jews when they are cast out, who have transgressed 375Ait, or were transgressing it, and interpreted it perversely.

VERS. 44.-- And yet even when they were in the enemies' land. Well does he speak kindly at the end of the chapter, and console with promises those whom he had frightened with threats.

Not utterly. Blindness in part befalleth in Israel, until the fulness of the nations should come in; and the rest (I Tim. II). [Vulg. Rom 11:25 caecitas ex parte contigit in Israel, donec plenitudo gentium intraret, past contigit and simple intraret; the passage is Romans XI, not I Timothy II]

Neither have I so despised them. I who will the salvation of all: therefore after so great iniquities I save even the remnant of the Jews.

VERS. 45.-- These are. (ISICH.) Until a certain time, etc., as far as not by destroying, but by fulfilling.

In mount Sinai. Not in Sion. Whence: The God of gods shall be seen in Sion (Psal. LXXXIII). And elsewhere: Out of 375BSion is the loveliness of his beauty. God shall come manifestly (Psal. XLIX). And in Malachias: Suddenly shall come to his temple the ruler whom you seek (Malac. III). [Vulg. Mal 3:1 et statim veniet ad templum suum Dominator quem vos quaeritis, "and presently he shall come"]

VERS. 2.-- The man who. (ISICH.) These words are full of prudence: above he commanded what things ought to be done and what not; now he sets forth the dignity of those who act, whether wholly or in part, what a perfect life has, what a middling one, what one that is beginning in the knowledge of God; and he describes also the differences of the ages.

A soul. (ISICH.) Aquila and Theodotion, a wonderful thing. Symmachus, if he shall have separated himself. LXX: the honour of his soul.

From the twentieth. (ID.) When he is grown, strong, etc., 375Cas far as of which it is said: Be you perfect as your Father also is perfect (Matth. V). [Vulg. Mt 5:48 Estote ergo vos perfecti, sicut et Pater vester caelestis perfectus est, "your heavenly Father"]

Sicles. (ISICH.) Or didrachmas, the sixtyfold fruit, etc., as far as whence: Let a widow be chosen of no less than sixty years (I Tim. V).

VERS. 5.-- From the fifth. (ID.) He who has understanding, and has begun to make progress, but cannot be adorned with the manner of life of fasting.

Unto. (ID.) He who has begun to make progress in the five senses: for this man is advanced toward virtue and perfection. For they that are of twenty years are strong and vigorous.

The male shall give twenty sicles. (ID.) Or didrachmas, that is, forty drachmas; that is, four hundred obols. But the number forty signifies the yield of fasting and of prayers. 375DFor so many days did Moses fast (Exod. XXXIV), and Elias (III Reg. XIX), and Christ himself, and afterward he was tempted by the devil (Matth. IV).

VERS. 7.-- The female ten. (ID.) Or didrachmas, that is, twenty drachmas or two hundred obols, namely the keeping of the ten commandments, which are doubled according to the letter and the spirit, in which fasting is not commanded, because it befits those who are advancing and not yet perfect.

From one. He is of one month who is now begotten in the faith, to whom it is said: As newborn babes, reasonable, without guile, desire milk, etc. (I Petr. II). [Vulg. 1 Pt 2:2 sicut modo geniti infantes, rationabile sine dolo lac concupiscite, where rationabile belongs to the milk and not to the infants]

Five. Or didrachmas, namely that the male 376Amay have his senses doubled, and may take in intelligibly the things he hears sensibly. For so is he led to perfection, on account of which his price is a hundred obols: and the number a hundred is perfect.

For a female. (ID.) For a female three didrachmas, etc., as far as as being already partakers of the evangelical manner of life.

A man of sixty. He who has promised an excellence of life, such as virginity, or the renouncing of the world, but has grown weak.

He shall give fifteen. Or didrachmas, which are thirty drachmas. For the good ground rendered three fruits (Matth. XIII): the hundredfold, that is, to be a virgin or to renounce the world; the sixtyfold, namely continence; the thirtyfold, that is, the manner of life of chaste 376Bwedlock.

VERS. 8.-- If he be poor. He who has sinned much; therefore Aquila rendered it, if he has gone beyond.

He shall stand. For if we have offered any one subject to us to the service of God, we ought not to take him back into our own ministry, promising in his stead either a better or a less good man.

As much as he shall have valued. That is, he shall lay upon him as much satisfaction as he shall have seen him able to bear: but if he is wealthy, that he distribute his money; if he is sound, that he fast, pray, labour.

VERS. 9.-- A beast. Because he has set forth the differences and the degrees of the oblations which are of ourselves: now he sets forth, concerning those who are subject to us as cattle, when their oblation is holy.

376CIt shall be holy. According to the law unspotted and clean: as if we have offered to God a son, a disciple, a servant, or any one subject to us.

VERS. 10.-- Which. That the oblation may be twofold, and the enemy be put to shame, who was suggesting that the oblation be changed.

VERS. 11.-- An unclean beast. (ISICH.) Which not at the same time, etc., as far as that it may be able to be offered to the Lord.

It is to be known that it is one thing to be sanctified, another to be holy, another to be offered to God, another to be God's. For that which is sanctified and offered begins to be holy, which it was not, and is increased little by little. That which is holy and is God's needs no increase, because it is perfect. It is good therefore to be sanctified by the doctrine and 376Dhelp of others, but it is better to be such a man as can sanctify himself and others, which belongs to few. He therefore sanctifies a house to the Lord who wills his household and his kindred, both the sensible and the intelligible, to live purely and holily, that it may be the Church of God. But if of himself he is not fit to do this, the priest ought to consider whether it be good or evil. For it consists of divers persons, and he ought to enjoin upon them according to what they are able.

VERS. 13.-- The fifth part. The mind, namely, which rules the five senses, without which the foolish virgins are not received to the marriage (Matth. XXV).

VERS. 14.-- If a man shall vow. (ISICH.) In what follows he says: Everything that is consecrated to the Lord, whether 377Aman, or beast, or field, cannot be redeemed; but here he commands that a house and a field be redeemed. But perhaps he decides this according to the differing intentions of those who offer, as though there he has no will to have any further what he has utterly consecrated.

VERS. 15.-- But if he, etc. (ISICH.) To redeem is, by doctrine and by a rule of life, to set the household free, and to wash away whatever stands against holiness. But he shall add to the admonition and edification of the priest his own understanding, and frequent remembrance.

VERS. 16.-- But if a field. That is, the divine Scripture, whose vine is Christ, and the Father the husbandman (Joan. XIV). In this the treasure is hidden, that is, the saving preaching: in this each man's possession is different, that is, the measure of knowing which each has been able to obtain 377Bfor himself.

If thirty bushels, etc. (ID.) In the thirty bushels of barley, the Old Testament. In the fifty sicles or didrachmas, according to the LXX, understand the spiritual and perfect doctrine. But when this rule is to be given in full, or to be lessened, understand by what follows: If from the year of the beginning of the jubilee, etc.

VERS. 17.-- If from the very year. (ID.) That is, if the way of grace, etc., as far as offering to the priest, he shall be possessed by him.

VERS. 19.-- He shall add the fifth part. His own understanding, to the priest's doctrine: for we are first governed by the doctrine and instruction of the priest, but afterward we ought to make progress and to add our own understanding.

VERS. 20.-- But if, etc. (ID.) He consecrates 377Cthe field and redeems the field, etc., as far as for the gain is his who governs continually.

VERS. 22.-- And not of the possession. Because it had been neither of the keeping of his forefathers, nor of the buyer himself.

VERS. 23.-- The priest shall reckon. Rightly does the priest, together with him who admonished the brother to penance, reckon the true redemption, that is, in what manner he ought to repent. For the one who corrected him knows strictly his action and his manner of life: but the other, as a priest, knows the perfect redemption.

According to the number of years. That is, out of the things which the Scripture preaches concerning penance: for that valuation is of the jubilee, or of remission.

And he shall give it who had vowed him to the Lord. He does not say 377Dthey shall give, but he shall give. For although the determining of the valuation is given by the common counsel of the priest and of him who admonished to penance, yet he who stirred him up to repentance shall offer him: for to this man he will be obedient, who himself also is bound to the penitent, that he may finish what he has begun.

VERS. 24.-- But in the jubilee it shall return to its former Lord, etc. Because he is not utterly cleansed straightway, when the penance is given or determined, but when it has been gone through; therefore he rightly says: But in the jubilee, etc., for when the penance has been gone through and remission received, he shall receive the field of his own manner of life.

VERS. 25.-- Every valuation, weights by the sicle of the sanctuary. That every determination be made by holy weights, that is, by such as come from Holy Scripture; for outward 378Aweights, such as those of the philosophers or of the heretics, by which they weigh the truths and perfections of men, are neither holy nor just. [Vulg. Lv 27:25 Omnis aestimatio siclo sanctuarii ponderabitur, "shall be weighed by the sicle of the sanctuary"; Migne's pondera leaves the clause without its verb]

A sicle of twenty. That is, the ten commandments understood according to the letter and according to the spirit. But whosoever refuses either the law or the Gospel has not the didrachma, nor are his weights holy.

VERS. 26.-- The firstborn which. (ISICH.) The firstborn, as being our cattle, are they who obey us, sons, servants and disciples. But the firstborn of these are they who so obey as to furnish others with an example and a teaching, of whom it is said elsewhere: Every male opening the womb shall be called holy to the Lord (Lucae II). For he opens the womb of the sons to be begotten who begins to obey according to God. Whence 378BPaul says of Timothy: Who is my beloved son in the Lord, he shall put you in mind of my ways, etc. (I Cor. IV). [Vulg. 1 Cor 4:17 qui est filius meus carissimus et fidelis in Domino: qui vos commonefaciet vias meas, "my dearest and faithful son"]

No man shall be able to sanctify and to vow. Not because they are unworthy of sanctification, but because they are holy, and need not be sanctified: as a son who so honours father and mother that he becomes an example to others also, offering honour as it were to God, who commanded this (Exod. XX). So too a servant, who serves even carnal masters in simplicity of heart and not to the eye, pays his service to God himself (Eph. VI).

VERS. 27.-- But if it be unclean. (ISICH.) A sinner, who neither meditates on the law as he ought, nor endeavours to distinguish. Whosoever therefore is vehemently obedient to father, master or teacher, and yet does not meditate on the law 378Cor distinguish, is indeed a firstborn among the cattle, but he is unclean.

And he shall add the fifth part of the price. Offering him doctrine together with understanding, and ruling him wisely. For it belongs to a senseless father, master or teacher not to teach obedience to those who belong to him and are subject to him, and not to order their life that they may work according to the law. Let him therefore add understanding to subjection and to doctrine: for that alone is clean in the present time. Therefore he says: He shall add the fifth part of the price. For obedience has a price: therefore he did not say, the priest shall value him, as above.

VERS. 28.-- Everything that is consecrated to the Lord, whether man. (ISICH.) It is one thing to anathematize, etc., as far as that is, the manner of life of our lot.

378DWhatsoever hath once been consecrated. (ID.) What is acquired by the right of war, no man can despoil the enemy of it, etc., as far as they receive neither increase nor advancement.

VERS. 30.-- Of the Lord. (ID.) That is, of him who works the commandments of the law, etc., as far as because he knows not what reward he ought to look for.

VERS. 31.-- If any man. (ID.) According to the letter the lawgiver has set between many dark and insoluble things, etc., as far as and the fruits of the trees in their own season.

VERS. 32.-- Under the shepherd's rod. (ID.) The rod of the cross, etc., as far as and they are known by him alone who discerns the saints.

379AVERS. 33.-- It shall not be chosen, nor, etc. Because there is none that can be rejected, and what is the more to be chosen is not of your discerning.

If any man shall change it, etc. (ISICH.) Paul and Barnabas once disagreed, etc., as far as writing to Timothy he says: Taking Mark, bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry (II Tim. IV). [Vulg. 2 Tim 4:11 Marcum assume, et adduc tecum, "take Mark, and bring him with thee"]

It shall be sanctified to the Lord, etc. (ID.) Since the course of them all is divine, and lofty, and near to the heavenly manner of life, in vain for those who strive to withdraw this one, 380Ato bring in that one, and to consecrate him to God as though better.

VERS. 34.-- These are the precepts which he commanded, etc. (ID.) When our disciples are perfect, they have no need of our teaching: therefore he says that the firstborn of the unclean are to be redeemed, but those of the clean by no means; nor the things consecrated to the Lord, nor those that were last named: for they have been shown to be perfect, because they bear a divine and heavenly intention.