Commentary on Leviticus 5.18

Verses 1–5. "And the Lord said to Moses: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: I am the Lord your God. You shall not do according to the custom of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelt. You shall not act according to the manner of the country of Canaan, into which I am about to bring you, nor shall you walk in their ordinances. You shall do my judgments and keep my precepts, and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. Keep my laws and judgments, which if a man does, he shall live in them."

Since he enacted many and differing things for them, so that he who received the law might not faint amid the multitude of the things enacted, he shows the intention simply, not dividing it into many parts: so that, knowing what he must correct and to what end the understanding of the law tends, he may not faint because of the multiplicity. As those who sail the sea, when they stretch their eyes to the end of the voyage, the goal of the course and the harbour, easily and without fainting run through the length of the open sea. Commanding the things now said, then, he says, "I am the Lord your God," so that, learning that he who cleansed us is Creator and Lord, we may keep with the greatest zeal the things commanded by him. So he made plain the intention of the whole enactment. And what is it? That we abstain from all iniquity and do the things of virtue. By commanding them to do nothing according to the custom of the land of Egypt and the manner of the land of Canaan, he commanded abstinence from all iniquity. The Seventy rendered "custom" as "pursuits," because divine Scripture is wont to call evil inventions and fables the pursuits of the wicked; as Ezekiel says, after the iniquities which God showed the elders of Israel doing in the temple: "And the Lord said to me: Do you see, son of man?" and again, "Turning, you shall see greater pursuits than these." So he commanded abstinence not only from sexual immorality and avarice and pride, but also from the abject practices of divinations and auguries, and from sorceries, and from magicians, and other like things; so that Moses said in Deuteronomy: "When you have entered the land which the Lord your God will give you, beware lest you wish to imitate the abominations of those nations, and let there not be found in you one who inquires and observes dreams and auguries, nor a sorcerer, nor an enchanter, nor one who consults pythons or diviners, nor seeks the truth from the dead. For the Lord abhors all these things. All who do these things the Lord will destroy from before you for these abominations." From these, then, we must first abstain, and then God says to us: "You shall do my judgments and keep my precepts, and walk in them," that is, move and live in them, and at no time be free of their correction.

Then again he added: "I am the Lord your God. Keep my laws and judgments, which if a man does, he shall live in them." When we have first abstained from the abominations mentioned (because there is no partnership of righteousness with iniquity, nor fellowship of light with darkness, nor does it please him that one who pursues any Gentile evil and observance should boast of the knowledge of the law of God), then at last let us use the judgments and precepts of God. And of what kind are the judgments, and of what kind the precepts, "which if a man does, he shall live in them"? So that you may know that in obeying his law and fulfilling his judgments and precepts you do not give to God but to yourself; for you will live in them, devoting yourself to the virtues through which eternal life is given to men. But it is worth asking and treating why in one place of the law he said twice that his judgments are to be done and his precepts kept? Or why he says twice, "I am the Lord God"? Do you think he repeats the same things? By no means; for all divine Scripture is brief, and this lawgiver above all, as one who was to say many things, was careful of brevity. Because there are two testaments, the Old and the New (hence he himself said through Jeremiah, "I will give you a new testament, not according to the testament which I gave your fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt"), he rightly makes mention a second time of the precept of the judgments, so as to show the things which he was going to enact afterwards. Of these he now added: "which if a man does, he shall live in them." For in them true life is perfected for those who believe in Christ, of whom the Lord said in the Gospel: "This is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life." Very reasonably, then, he says a second time, "I am the Lord your God," testifying that he himself, the Lord, enacted both the former judgments or precepts and the later, which whoever does shall live in them. For to the former judgments and precepts, see what he added: "I am the Lord."

Verses 6–17. "No man shall approach his near kin by blood to uncover her shame. I am the Lord. You shall not uncover the shame of your father and the shame of your mother: she is your mother; you shall not uncover her shame. You shall not uncover the shame of your father's wife, for it is your father's shame. You shall not uncover the shame of your sister by father or by mother, whether born at home or abroad. You shall not uncover the shame of your son's daughter or of your daughter's daughter, for it is your own shame. You shall not uncover the shame of the daughter of your father's wife, whom she bore to your father, and who is your sister. You shall not uncover the shame of your father's sister, for she is your father's flesh. You shall not uncover the shame of your father's brother, nor approach his wife, who is joined to you by affinity. You shall not uncover the shame of your daughter-in-law, for she is your son's wife, nor shall you uncover her disgrace. You shall not uncover the shame of your brother's wife, for it is your brother's shame. You shall not uncover the shame of your wife and her daughter. You shall not take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter to uncover her disgrace, for they are her flesh."

That the things enacted are not to be neglected is clear from the fact that he said again, "I am the Lord." Moses, or rather the Spirit who spoke in him, does this so that the things said should not be despised by some who say that they are Moses'. But these things commanded are not his but God's, since the greatest possible care has been applied that both their letter and the spiritual understanding be preserved. Hence our translation says: "No man shall approach his near kin by blood to uncover her shame." The Seventy render: "A man, a man shall not approach any of the household of his flesh to uncover shame." Therefore they say a second time "man, man," so that, as man is double, so the things enacted may be understood to be double, and one must keep both their outward face and their inward contemplation, so that the great and right law may order both the outer and the inner man.

The outward face of the law, then, forbids close kin by blood to be joined in marital intercourse, because this too prevailed among the nations, whose …, Jesus received as his inheritance. And Israel was a slave of carnal pleasures, so that, desiring the Moabite women, they sacrificed to the idol Baal-peor, which those women worshipped; and [the prophet] accused them and said of them, "They are all adulterers, like a burning oven." And again God spoke thus to them: "I will not punish your daughters when they commit fornication, nor your brides when they commit adultery, because they themselves consorted with harlots and sacrificed with the effeminate." And Jeremiah says to all Jerusalem: "You have become a harlot's face." Hence it was also commanded them to take many wives, so that by this at least they might abstain from fornications and adulteries with other men's wives. Therefore he now extends a long discourse and goes through in order the generations from whose intercourse they ought to keep themselves, commanding it. To show that the commandment is necessary, he enumerates the kinships themselves, making plain in the enumeration the reason for the enactment, which aims that generations should not be confused, nor inheritances perish, nor the same person become brother and father, nor the same woman be wife and mother. For both of these would happen if father and son had the same wife and begot sons of her. For he who is begotten of the son has his own begetter both as father and as brother, since he was born of her who also bore the son, and she was at once his wife and his mother. These and other like things come from the wicked intercourse of kin. That is why, wishing to turn them away from such union and intercourse, he says: "You shall not uncover the shame of your father and of your mother"; and the same in what follows of the stepmother and sister and daughter-in-law and all the others, calling their union an uncovering of shame. From this word everyone who does such actions ought to be ashamed and turned away, or be hated. Likewise this too must fittingly be observed: that saying, "No man shall approach his near kin by blood to uncover her shame," he added, "I am the Lord." And what need was there to add this, since he had said once, at the beginning of the present enactment, "I am the Lord your God"? But he plainly shows that he who enacted these things is he who has been joined to us in the flesh and became a partaker of our kinship. Hence it is unjust for us to wrong the greatness of his kinship.

This being so, it must be understood that these things are enacted spiritually: for he does not wish us to reveal any sins entrusted to us by kin or friends, nor to betray their shameful actions, lest perhaps we suffer what Ham suffered, who, seeing his father's nakedness, did not cover it but went out and disclosed it to his brothers. So in father and mother and sister and whatever other kin he enumerated, we must take those spiritual ones too along with the carnal. Of them Paul says: "Do not rebuke an elder, but entreat him as a father, young men as brothers, old women as mothers, young women as sisters." Then, wishing to procure for us who are faithful a kinship with all who are of the same faith, he says again: "We, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another." Hence he called it impious to uncover the shame of any of those mentioned, because the transgression of spiritual kinship reaches to the Lord, since we have kinship with him by spiritual bonds. Yet he who meditates carefully on the words of the law must not pass over this either: that, according to the Seventy, the lawgiver set down in the present passage the number of ten degrees of kinship, the number of all the commandments of the law, showing that whoever uncovers the shame of kin, carnal or spiritual, is found a transgressor of the whole law. Why? Because what he does is foreign to charity, which is the fullness of the law. This is what Paul says: "You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet; and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. Love does no evil to the neighbour. Love, then, is the fullness of the law."

But the understanding will be plainer if we search out the letter itself. "No man shall approach his near kin by blood to uncover her shame": that we should not approach our kin, presuming on the law of kinship and by this testing them, and then, coming to know their shameful actions, betray them. Hence he very fittingly added, "I am the Lord": that is, he who makes manifest the sins of men, whatever they confess and set out in prayer, covering and scattering them, so that not even a trace of them is found. Since, then, we have learned the great gain of the things now enacted, let us pass on to what follows. "You shall not uncover the shame of your wife and her daughter, and you shall not take her son's daughter and her daughter's daughter to uncover her disgrace, for they are her flesh," and such intercourse is incest. The lawgiver laid down this commandment as necessary; for he who has intercourse with a mother and a daughter and begets sons of both confounds the generations. For the sons begotten of the mother become at the same time brothers of those begotten of the wife's daughter, and likewise fathers and grandfathers, when the father of the sons born of both, lying with the mother and her granddaughter, is chosen …. But let us understand by the shame of mother, daughter and granddaughter evil desire and the action begotten of desire, which goes on to another, more wicked and greater action. For James says: "Desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is completed, brings forth death"; which is the granddaughter of desire, as we shall show you … from the very history and divine Scripture. David desired Uriah's wife: see, the mother of sin, desire. Desiring, he committed adultery: the daughter followed the mother. Having committed adultery, he killed: the most evil and deadly granddaughter of the desire that went before. He wishes none of these, then, to be uncovered; for the sins of neighbours must not be betrayed, but rather they must be admonished and recalled to remembrance of them, since the apostle says: "Brothers, if anyone of you is overtaken in any offence, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you too be tempted." You see that not in vain did the lawgiver say, "They are your flesh," showing that sinning is in a way akin and familiar to us, and that is why we ought to sympathize with one another when we sin. For Paul, administering what has just been said, added: "Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfil the law of Christ." He himself, then, bore our sins. And he who bears his neighbour's burden and takes upon himself his brother's sins does not betray or uncover them, but rather restrains them and cures them with healing words, and exhausts them with kind exhortations as his own weakness. Hence the prophet Isaiah, speaking of the Saviour, "Truly he bore our sins," added, "and he prayed for the transgressors." So we ought to be afflicted and groan for those who have gone forward into evil work and thought, but not to make these things manifest.

Verse 18. "You shall not take your wife's sister as a rival to her, nor uncover her shame while she is still living."

These things are rightly commanded, because the Lord God has called us in peace. For he who wishes us to have peace with all, saying through Paul too, "If it is possible, as far as depends on you, have peace with all men," much more wishes us to be at peace with our nearest; this is overturned if someone is joined at once to a wife and her sister, so that sisters live together, and jealousy is stirred up between those living together, from which strife and quarrelling are begotten. After this the law commands that one must not take up the church's way of life within the Jewish way of life, nor celebrate together the Passover that is in figure with that which is spiritual, nor, while celebrating the feast of unleavened bread, take the supper of the bread of Christ, which is the true unleavened bread, nor preach circumcision and baptism together. Remember, then, him who said: "Behold, I Paul say to you, if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing." But if perhaps someone has used the Jewish way of life, let him put it to death by neglecting it, that is, make it cheaper and ineffective, and then let him be joined to that of the church, which is the sister of the synagogue, having the same law and reading the same prophets, but a rival: not that the church is jealous, but that she suffers the synagogue's jealousy, because its riches have passed down to us through her; so much so that Paul said of those of the circumcision to the Galatians, who were from the Gentiles: "They are zealous for you, not rightly, but they wish to shut you out." And that the church is not jealous of the synagogue, but herself suffers jealousy from the synagogue, is clear from the fact that it is not the second wife who is the rival of the first, but the first of the second, as is wont to happen from the husband's desire for the newcomer: so Leah was jealous of Rachel. But see what kind of things

the lawgiver added: when she had said, "Give me of your son's mandrakes," she answered: "Does it seem a small thing to you that you have snatched away my husband?" These are plainly the words of a jealous rival.

Verses 19–23. "You shall not approach a woman who suffers her menses, nor uncover her foulness. You shall not lie with your neighbour's wife, nor be defiled by the mingling of seed. You shall not give of your seed to be consecrated to the idol Molech," or, according to the Seventy, "to serve a ruler"; "nor shall you profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman, for it is an abomination. You shall not lie with any beast, nor be defiled with it. A woman shall not submit to a beast, nor be mingled with it, for it is a crime."

These things are well joined in the style of the interpretation. The lawgiver's intention, then, is to restrain him who receives the law from lusts and wicked unions, and from fornication both sensible and spiritual. Therefore he commanded him not to have unlawful intercourse with a woman in her menstruation, because of the pollution of the intercourse, nor with his neighbour's wife; for such a union is adultery, not marriage. Hence, having said, "You shall not lie with your neighbour's wife," he added, "nor be defiled by the mingling of seed," explaining this: that it is no longer marriage; for [marriage] would not have defiled him who had intercourse, because "marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled." But along with sensible fornication he strives with the greatest zeal to remove us from spiritual fornication too; that is why he added: "You shall not give of your seed to serve Molech," or, as the Seventy have it, "a ruler." And what ruler, our translation and the other interpreters have shown; for they rendered "Molech" in place of "ruler," consistently. That this was an idol, Stephen too showed in his address, and especially Amos, prophesying before him; for he says: "And you took up the tent of Moloch, and the image of your idols, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves." And let us understand by seed not only kin but all our action and teaching, so that we may not give our action to the service of idols, "because the root of all evils is covetousness, which is the service of idols." Nor let us teach such things as belong to the impiety of the error of idols. For so you understand that one must not go in to a woman who is in her menstruation, to uncover her shame, so that we may not mingle ourselves with the error of the pagans; for we showed above that she who is in her menstruation bears its figure, when the discussion was held, by the necessity of interpreting, about menstruous women and women who suffer a flow of blood. Nor let us uncover her foulness, so that we neither speak of nor bring into the open their evil actions, not as sparing them but for the sake of those who hear, because it harms the hearers. That is why Paul says: "For the things done by them in secret it is shameful even to speak of."

And let us flee our neighbour's wife too, so as not to be defiled in her, namely the wife of the Gentile and idolater, who is called our neighbour because of nature and kinship. That is why the Lord too, asked by the scribe, "And who is my neighbour?", called neighbour the man who had gone down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fallen among robbers, namely the demons, and was healed neither by the priest nor by the Levite but by the Samaritan. With his wife, then, you shall not lie, so as to be defiled by such a mingling of seed: that we may not share so much in the wisdom of the pagans, nor lean on it so much, as to acquire some pollution from it in doctrine; nor profane the name of our God, which we should understand as common to all the things said. For he will profane the name of God not only by using the shamefulness of fornication and certain actions of idols, but also if anyone brings in from the error of the pagans, and from what is called philosophy among them, into the divine doctrines of the church. Some who have suffered this have fallen into the lot of the heretics and have come to be outside the church, as profaning the name of God, that is, wronging and in a way defiling it; for one must not bring the things of the dead upon the living, but must keep the commandment of Paul, written by the Spirit: "What partnership has righteousness with iniquity? Or what fellowship has Christ with Belial?" For the lawgiver himself too, in a way signifying this in what was said, added: "I am the Lord," who have a glory incommunicable to all, how much more to demons, who are corrupters of souls, and to their idols? And by the words themselves he makes the enactment more terrible, by placing it, as you see, in the midst of the things of which he is now speaking.

For, these things which have just been discussed going before, he sets forth again that one must not lie with a male in male intercourse, nor with a beast, necessarily commanding in both as against nature; but moreover because it belongs to beasts too that a man should be mingled with a man in foul intercourse, which is to be fled and opposed. Paul too showed this, teaching that these things are done to the punishment and the wrath of God and the perdition of those who commit them. And the other interpreters, in place of "abominable," Symmachus rendered "unspeakable" and Aquila "undone," saying that this is not fit to be done in action, and that not fit to be told in word or narration, and not lawful. But besides these things, let us understand the male who does manly deeds as the man of whom David said, "Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly," and again, "Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand." This man must not be made effeminate, nor be loosed from the perseverance he has in virtue; for this is fittingly understood as being mingled with a man in womanly intercourse. But as he ought not to make another effeminate, so neither ought he to rest in wicked pleasures, which are rightly called four-footed, as tending to the earth and not having the actions that befit a man; for four-footed creatures look to the earth and lack the use of hands, which are taken for actions worthy of men, because it is properly man's to labour with his hands. So one must not lie with these things by which anyone is defiled. For he who lingers in delights or pleasures, so as to lie in them, is said to pour out seed, because he is driven by them, or because he delights in them and by frequent use in a way sows them, or is sown by them with some seed which the enemy sows in the world while we sleep and are careless, defiling greatly; so that such a one ought to be expelled from the holy tabernacle as defiling it, and to be a stranger to the Lord's threshing floor, as one who through evil seed has become a tare. And not the man alone but the woman too necessarily keeps the law: she whom Solomon praises, "A good woman will be blessed; she praises the fear of God," and, "A valiant woman, who will find?" As the male, when he keeps what is his and has done what is worthy of him, signifies the soul established in virtues, so too the woman, when she has mingled herself in nothing womanish; since she too, before she transgressed against her Creator, received a great dignity, to be called the helper of the man. That is why it is criminal for such a woman to be laid under lust. For "lie with," Symmachus rendered "submit."

Verses 24–26. "Do not be defiled in any of these things by which the nations have been defiled, which I will cast out before your face, and by which the land has been polluted, whose crimes I will visit, so that it vomits out its inhabitants. Keep my ordinances and judgments."

That to be defiled in the aforesaid sins is no small thing, the indignation and the penalty fixed for them show. For one must be defiled in none of them; for he who has been defiled in one is defiled in all. Because the law wishes to show the things that are joined to one another, it gathered into one all the things that are so grave that they destroyed whole nations and defiled the land, and made it, defiled, reject and vomit out and refuse those who committed such things in it: not because it could drive them out from itself or vomit them, or, as Theodotion rendered, spit them out, but because it naturally groans under the same guilty men in their transgressions, as Paul says: "For the creation itself groans and travails until now." And God avenges both its groaning and his own law and creation, as his own, as he shows by what he has now said: "whose crimes I will visit." And this plainly shows that the land received from God the power to vomit out those who act unjustly in it. Hence it also brought forth hornets for the destruction of its inhabitants, which, he taught us through the book of Deuteronomy, he himself sent before the face of the sons of Israel against the Amorites and the other nations. And this the law teaches us through the letter. But joined to these, and not contrary, is the spiritual understanding, if we understand the nations defiled in all these things as the demons; for these are called nations because of their multitude. For since they are very wicked and rejoice in every wickedness, they rejoice above all in fornication and wicked fornication, and much more in idolatry; because in these both body and soul are stained, and the whole man, who is called earth, is defiled by this. But God visits the earth, namely the human race, and its crime, or, as the Seventy have it, its injustice "in it," that is, which is committed by it and in it: by it, through those of men who sin; and if by demons, they are drawn into this in it, because, taking occasion from our negligence, they heap insult on our nature. But when God visited through the coming of the Saviour (of whom Zechariah said, prophesying that the birth of the Lord was at the doors, "The East from on high has visited us"), our nature [vomited out] its inhabitants, that is, those who obtained it by lot, or in it those whose ruler, the evil one, David figured when he sang, "He sits in ambush with the rich, in secret places, to kill the innocent"; so that, driven out, they themselves said, "If you cast us out, send us into the herd of swine." Therefore we ought to keep the whole law made known through Moses and the precepts of the gospel way of life, as those who receive such a visitation from him.

Verses 26–29. "And neither the native nor the settler who sojourns among them shall do any of these abominations. For the inhabitants of the land who were before you did all these execrable things and defiled it. Beware, then, lest it vomit you out likewise, when you do the same, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. Every soul that does any of these abominations shall perish from the midst of its people."

He repeats and establishes the law and confirms the threat, adding these things again, wishing to frighten us with the penalty and rouse us to avoid what he has forbidden, so that we may not be subjected to the penalty he has threatened. For what is this perdition of the soul? That which the death of sin anticipates here, Gehenna completes in the future. For the Lord says: "Fear him who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna." Therefore both the native, that is, he who was nourished in the law by the fathers and taught the letters from infancy, and the proselyte, who has been joined to us, that is, he who from outside has been added to us who are within, must depart from the abominations and by no means do these things which the more ancient ones practised who defiled our land. These, then, are more ancient than we in creation, because they are invisible creatures. And they defiled the human race, suggesting disobedience to Adam, and after him other evils, such as lying, murder and whatever is like them, so that the Lord said of the devil: "He was a liar and a murderer from the beginning." And they made these suggestions to those who had a slippery mind inclined to evil; for they could not make suggestions to Abel, nor Seth, nor Enoch, nor Noah, nor the other righteous; or rather they did make suggestions but did not prevail, but were mocked by them and departed. For the righteous are not ignorant of the enemy's thoughts, as Paul says: "For we are not ignorant of his thoughts." And knowing them, they guard themselves against them. But our spiritual earth, visited by God through the coming of the Saviour, vomited them out. That is why one who sins in such things now is not worthy of such pardon; because, after those who lead us astray have been destroyed, and after the earth has vomited them out, we imitate the things that belong to them, and suffer what the Lord said: "The last state of that man becomes worse than the first." For those who after the gospel preaching have gone out into the impieties and crimes or abominations mentioned are rightly called evil because of God's great aversion from them; the earth abhors them and will vomit them out; for they will now be [counted] not in the portion of men but in the rank of demons; for their souls will perish. And this happens in Gehenna, where above all is the place and lot of the demons, as the Lord shows, saying: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels."

Verse 30. "Keep my commandments; do not do what those did who were before you, and do not be defiled in them. I am the Lord your God."

Truly "in two or three witnesses every word shall stand." Wishing to confirm this, then, the lawgiver commanded the same things a third time. "Keep," he says, "my commandments; do not do what those did who were before you," to show that the commandments are not of any man but of God himself. How they ought to be kept, not in word but in deed, he showed when incarnate by his own way of life. And he necessarily added, "that we should not do all the things which those did who were before us," so that we might know that he grants no pardon to sinners because some others before them committed sins like those of later men: first, because pardon was not given to them either, but they were condemned to penalties; next, because the penalty of those who went before was sufficient to correct those who followed; moreover, because, God having often testified about the same things through the law and the prophets and the Gospels, any heart, however hard, ought to have been bent to obedience. … "Do not be defiled in them, because I am the Lord your God," wishing to cleanse you all from pollution. Because we are clothed with his image: when it is defiled by any action of the evil and wicked things that have been forbidden, he is necessarily angry; but when it is kept clean, it pleases him so much that he even dwells in us. Paul shows both, speaking thus: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God