Commentary on Leviticus 6.19

Verses 1–4. "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the whole assembly of the sons of Israel and say to them: Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. Let each one fear his father and his mother. Keep my sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. Do not turn to idols, nor make molten gods for yourselves. I am the Lord."

Rightly he put sanctification first, because it is the foundation of every virtue. Showing that it must be pursued in every way, the lawgiver fittingly says: "Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." That is, if it pleases you to please God, or you wish him to be with you, or rather to be with him (for the presence of God and union with him removes all snares from you and …), you attain sanctification; but the Holy One does not endure to be joined with the profane.

[The conclusion of Book 5, chapter 18, printed here by the scan text:] "… If anyone, then, violates the temple of God, God will destroy him; for the temple of God is holy, which you are." Keeping sanctification perfect, then, we have dwelling in us the whole fullness of the Trinity, if indeed we are the temple of God, that is, of the Father, and the body and members of Christ, and the Holy Spirit dwells in us, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory, honour and kingdom for ages of ages. Amen. [Book] Six.

[Book 6, chapter 19 continues:] That is why Paul said: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you? Whoever violates the temple of the Lord, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which you are." And building commandments on this foundation, beside which no one can lay another, he says: "Let each one fear his father and his mother." By sanctification he commands a pure mind toward the Creator; and by the honour to be paid to father and mother, kindness of nature, … that honour, and also fear, is owed by children to parents, as the Lord gave. Then, wishing to recapitulate the commandments of the law, that is, "You shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not swear falsely, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, you shall not covet your neighbour's wife," so that [the hearer] might, by brief continence, hold back from evil, he reasonably added, "Keep my sabbaths," because the true Sabbath is to do no work of corruption; for Moses also commanded that no servile work be done on the Sabbath, plainly commanding him who wishes to celebrate the Sabbath according to the law of the spirit to beware of the works of the flesh, which are fornication, uncleanness and the like.

But we must not be ignorant of the reason for the Sabbath either; for so we shall know the force of the law concerning it. When, then, did God give the commandment of the Sabbath? Do you think it was under Noah, when he commanded that blood should not be eaten? By no means. Nor under Abraham, whom he held as a faithful friend, whom he tested, and from whom he never hid a good commandment. But [it was] then, when he brought the Jewish people out of the land of Egypt, and, hungry, they murmured, saying: "Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate bread to the full!" God sent them manna; and teaching us that we ought not to seek more than daily food, he did not command more than an omer to be gathered for each head; this measure among the Jews was what could feed each man. Then, wishing to teach them about the spiritual rest and the end of the world, because at that time it is impossible to seek food or to work, or to be occupied with anything bodily, he commanded Moses to say such things to them: "Today is a Sabbath to the Lord; you will not find it in the field. Six days it is gathered, but on the seventh day is the Sabbath; there will be none on it." Not "the Sabbath" but "Sabbaths," because spiritual rest has freedom and estrangement not from one thing only but from all carnal things. Hence you will nowhere find the name of the Sabbaths in divine Scripture before this, so that it may be clear that he commanded the Sabbath as freedom from all carnal and worldly things. Hence the law, forbidding every work which [men] do against every soul, added: "Keep my sabbaths," plainly showing by this that he wishes us to be free from bodily things and to work at the things that are for the help and progress of the soul. For the true Sabbath is to do nothing material, nothing that presses man down to earth and drags him to carnal corruption. And with this what else has God now commanded?

Verse 4. "Do not turn to idols, nor make molten gods for yourselves. I am the Lord." Not to turn to idols is not to condescend to the many and profane things which the law of idols requires. Nor let us make molten gods for ourselves, not only in the forms of animals, but not in treasures of money either, nor in masses of gold or silver; for those who gather these make them their gods, set so far under their dominion that they fear to touch even the least of them. But what need have we of these, who in place of all riches possess him who says, "I am the Lord," that is, I who feed the birds, who clothe the lilies of the field, who made from nothing, nourished what was made, and am able again to reduce all these things to need?

Verses 5–8. "If you sacrifice a victim of peace offerings to the Lord, that it may be acceptable, you shall eat it on the day on which it was sacrificed and on the next day; and whatever is left over to the third day you shall burn with fire. If anyone eats of it after two days, he shall be profane and guilty of impiety, and he shall bear his iniquity, because he has polluted the holy thing of the Lord, and that soul shall perish from its people."

Moses commanded all the heads of the law, so to speak, to the people twice and three times, publishing the memory of them to his hearers by frequent tradition; yet much more the more necessary commandments, as the present commandment; that is why, having set it out before, when he gave commands about the sacrifices, and we too discussed this fully in the first book of this interpretation of Leviticus, see, now he will recapitulate it again, so that we too may briefly recapitulate what we have now said at length. For in commanding the saving sacrifice to be sacrificed, he rightly hints at this, that we should work in it the things that pertain to salvation. And it must be sacrificed so as to be acceptable, obtaining in every way the things that are acceptable to God; of which Paul, writing to Timothy, showed how one ought to attain a retired and quiet life in all piety and chastity: "This is good and acceptable before God our Saviour, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." And if you say, "For what reason did the lawgiver say, according to the Seventy, 'acceptable to you'?", know that he designates the conscience, through which each one can know what is acceptable to God; that is why John said: "Brothers, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God." And to eat of the sacrifice on the day on which it was sacrificed, and on the next, is to work in the present life whatever pertains to salvation. For divine Scripture is wont to take "today" and "tomorrow" for the present age; let us bring James as witness, who writes: "Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city." And the third day, because on it our Lord rose from the dead, bears the figure of the age to come and of the resurrection of the dead, in which it is no longer permitted to work, but those who have worked now come there to their recompense. He, then, who lives here as though he were going to work there at some of the things of the present, and for that reason is said to eat the peace offering, or saving sacrifice, on the third day, handles a work forbidden by the lawgiver, leaving his virtue imperfect as though he were going to work there; and his sacrifice is most rightly not acceptable, nor is his life corrected. But he who works such a virtue for himself will bear his iniquity: first working imperfectly, then also bringing calumny on the divine law and sowing an impious and foreign doctrine; this man's soul perishes from its people. He will not be ranked among the people that is saved, because he left imperfect the life that could have saved him if he had completed it.

Verses 9–10. "When you reap the crops of your land, you shall not cut down to the very surface of the ground, nor gather the ears that remain; nor shall you gather the clusters in your vineyard or the grapes that fall, but you shall leave them for the poor and the strangers to pluck. I am the Lord your God."

The lawgiver wishes us to love one another, and desires us to be lovers of the poor and always to be eager for almsgiving: now giving to the needy, now not exacting what they owe us, but also allowing them to gather whatever remnants they find of all the goods given us by God, and to imitate him who gave, who not only is merciful but is and is called rich in mercy. And therefore, when we reap or gather the vintage at all, he did not command us to repeat the reaping or the vintage at the same time, nor did he enact that we reap or gather the vintage entirely, but that we leave remnants of the reaping and the vintage, and repay God, who makes the fruits spring up, with active thanksgiving, and in no way be ungrateful for his dispensation; for it pleased him to give riches to some, and that others should be fed without labour from the remnants of others' abundance, so that the stewardship of the rich and the patience of the poor might be proved. And because he neither hates the poor nor has thrust them from his providence, as some foolishly think, when he mentions the poor man and the stranger he at once adds: "I am the Lord your God": first making known him who makes rich, then him who became poor for us and became a stranger in his own land; for he sojourned among his own as among strangers, having no place of lodging on earth. For he would not have taken on the person of the poor man and the stranger if he turned away from them. Hence he said through David: "Because of the misery of the needy and the groaning of the poor, now I will arise, says the Lord."

But now that we have taken this profit from the letter, let us consider the inner understanding in it. For the field is the world, as Christ handed on to us when interpreting the parable of the tares; and the reaping is the gospel teaching, as again the Lord said to the disciples: "The harvest indeed is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Pray, then, the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into his harvest." Explaining this in deed, he called the twelve disciples from among them and at once entrusted the word of teaching to them. Plainly, through what has now been said, the lawgiver commanded the teachers of the Jews by no means to handle the interpretation of the whole law, but to yield some things to the poor man and the stranger, namely the teachers of the Gentiles; for these are poor, because they were commanded to be poor in spirit, and it was said to them, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"; and strangers, as now bringing themselves into the kinship of Abraham and approaching God only through faith. So let the teachers of the Jews too teach what is read, "You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery"; but whatever needs contemplation and interpretation, such as the things about cleansings, about sacrifices and the like, let them … to the teachers of the church. And what falls from their reaping, that is, whatever they see passing them by, namely the things of which they are ignorant: for how can they speak of the figurative mysteries of the law, when Christ, after he came, handed on its truth?

And the vineyard was said to be the Jewish people itself, as God shows through Isaiah, saying: "For the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth is the house of Israel." It did not bear … fruit, for which the Lord, rebuking it through the prophecy of Isaiah, said: "What more should I do for my vineyard that I have not done for it?" … Yet once it had very few clusters, the righteous of various times, for whose sake the householder took care of the whole vineyard up to a certain time. Isaiah shows this too, saying: "As when a grape is found in the cluster and it is said, Do not destroy it, for a blessing is in it, so I will do for my servants' sake, that I may not destroy the whole." These clusters, then, the Jews cannot gather for themselves and store in their riches, because they were not raised up by their life; but they leave them to the poor man and the stranger. For the prophets are with us, and as many righteous as there were among the Jewish people, so much so that their memorials are honoured by us every year; which is not done among them, so that the divine word may be known by experience to speak truly.

Verses 11–12. "You shall not steal; you shall not lie; nor shall each one deceive his neighbour. You shall not swear falsely by my name; you shall not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord."

The lawgiver shows us the bounds of good conduct, and at the same time hands on what kinship sins have with one another. For things which we think small are very great; since we are wont to offend in lying, so to speak, every day, either by place or by purpose, and likewise by breaking an oath. And these are so small that he joined them to theft; and rightly, because theft often produces lying. That is why the prophet Zechariah showed that the sickle which he saw, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide, was sharpened against thieves and against perjurers; for he says, "It shall enter into the house of the thief and of the perjurer." And lying works together with all sins; for Amnon would never have corrupted Tamar if he had not first deceived David by a lie about the corruption; nor would Jezebel have killed Naboth the Israelite unless she had framed a false accusation against him through the elders: "He blessed God and the king." Let us keep these things with all exactness, as enacted by God; and along with them let us keep ourselves from theft, not only that by which one can offend in money, but from all other theft, which is to act maliciously toward neighbours and to work evil for them, and to contrive against them death, or flight, or slavery, or other like deceitful and wicked things. Hence Joseph too called the injustice done to him by his brothers theft, saying to the chief butler: "Remember me when it is well with you, to suggest me to Pharaoh, that he may bring me out of this prison; for I was stolen away by theft from the land of the Hebrews." And let us avoid the lying in which some offend under the appearance of truth, slandering their neighbour with the mind rather than the tongue, as did those who said of the Lord, "He said, I can destroy this temple and build it in three days." The Lord had indeed said these things, when the Jews said to him, "What sign do you show us, since you do these things?" and he said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it." But he did not say this with the intention with which those who bore witness against him spoke; for he spoke of the temple of his body, while they asserted these words as spoken of the temple of the Jews; hence the Spirit called them false witnesses. In place of perjury the Seventy render: "You shall not take up my name for injustice." And an oath is "for injustice" not only when it is broken but also when it is kept unjustly, as was the one Herod swore to the daughter of Herodias, when he cut off the head of John the Baptist; for he ought not to have given this oath, and, once he had sworn, not to have kept it, because such oaths, neither the beginning

God wishes them to be taken, nor, when taken, to be carried to their end. Hence, saying, "You shall not take up my name for injustice," he added, "and you shall not profane the name of the Lord your God," which Jerome's translation rendered, "You shall not pollute the name of your God." And how one profanes it, I say: namely by doing evil, because one cannot transgress the oath. Yet God, by whom one swore, so wills good things that, even if he has threatened something terrible against some, and they repent, he does not delay to change his sentence and not to hold to his word, so as to bestow some kindness on us; that is why he added, "I am the Lord." Of what kind? He of whom the prophecy of Jonah speaks, when the Ninevites fasted and prayed, and God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them, and did not do it. And the prophets said many other such things.

Verses 13–14. "You shall not slander your neighbour, nor oppress him by force. The wages of a hired man shall not remain with you until morning. You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block before the blind, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord."

You see how the law little by little cultivates the mind of him who has received the law, and joins things that seem small to great ones, so that by the fear of the penalty fixed for the greater sins we may abstain from the lesser too. For as they are associated with them in the commandment, so they are associated in the penalty; because "whoever keeps the whole law but offends in one point has become guilty of all." And not in vain did he join force to slander: for what difference is there to one who is deprived of his goods, whether he loses them by force, perhaps by arms, or by any power, or by circumvention of the courts, or by fraud, or by any other such means? And he who has worked all day to receive wages, on which to live with his children and wife and parents, who are waiting for the same wages, and has not received them but been put off, does he not suffer slander and force, not only in food but through this also in life? For he lives his life on daily food. So even if he receives it tomorrow, because on the past day, on which he bore the labour, he remained fasting, he has borne force and suffered slander. And what substance is to others, wages are to labourers; so the deprivation of these too is rightly called force. And he who curses the deaf does great harm, and he who puts a stumbling-block before the blind on which they may strike their feet. The deaf man is harmed when he is cursed, not only because he is slandered, but because he cannot amend or guard against the things for which he is slandered. Nor can the blind man guard himself against the stumbling-block put before him. And death comes to the one and to the other from both: to the blind man when he is crushed through the stumbling-block; to the deaf man the curse, as if he had slandered the prince or done something else that brought him danger, since he does not correct himself. And this which seems small, in which many often offend in jest, passes into death; hence David very fittingly called blessed him who has not sat in the seat of pestilence, that is, of mockers.

But let us go on to follow the same things again. For the law forbade not only slander and force about money, but every other kind, and much more that which is in spiritual things: that we should not snatch another's glory, nor draw to ourselves what has been set right by another's labour; that is why Paul too said: "Not to boast in another's rule, in things made ready." And again he says it was granted him to preach the gospel not where Christ had been named, lest he build on another's foundation. The one is the interpretation of the other. For he did not wish to anticipate where another had preached, so as not to snatch another's wages. For of these wages the lawgiver says: "The wages of a hired man shall not remain with you until morning," commanding not those who are now preaching but those who are still learning not to neglect the word of teaching, nor to let it lie idle with them; for he who preaches God's word is God's hired man. And his wage is the recompense of preaching, Paul being a truthful witness of this, who says: "What, then, is my wage? That, preaching the Gospel, I may make the Gospel of Christ free of charge." The Seventy render: "The wage of your hired man shall not sleep with you until morning." For the Lord shows that the negligent are said to sleep, giving the disciples the command, "Watch, for you do not know at what hour your Lord will come"; and also when he said that while men slept, namely the negligent, the enemy sowed tares. For the morning is the age to come, because it follows the night of the present life, and unquenchable light dwells in it. So the word of the teachers must not be idle with us through all this time, which the morning of the time to come follows; because in this too avarice and injustice are practised among teachers, … owed.

And by the deaf and the blind the law hints at those who are held by the disease of disobedience and ignorance, to whom Isaiah said: "You deaf, hear, and you blind, look and see." These must not be cursed but admonished, if indeed we wish them to be converted. Hence Paul too commanded the teachers of the church that he who teaches should instruct in gentleness those who oppose. Nor ought we to become a stumbling-block to them by saying or doing false things; for Paul, forbidding and correcting this, wrote: "If anyone sees him who has knowledge reclining in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, since it is weak, be built up to eat what is sacrificed to idols?" So we can be helped both by the letter of the law and by its spirit.

Verse 15. "You shall not do what is unjust, nor judge unjustly. You shall not regard the person of the poor, nor honour the face of the mighty. Judge your neighbour justly." Verse 16. "You shall not be a slanderer and a whisperer among the peoples. You shall not stand against the blood of your neighbour. I am the Lord."

The law in the present passage establishes that we should pursue not just any justice but the highest and perfect, proceeding in right path and order, so that it seems first to lay down a law for the poor, then for those who ask, and then for those who hold rule and powers, to show by this that persons ought not to be respected. For not to steal, not to slander, not to swear for injustice, even if it sometimes happens to the rich or mighty, are yet in a way the sins proper to the poor; for through poverty they seem compelled to steal and slander and break oaths, so that that wise man said in Proverbs: "Give me neither riches nor poverty, lest perhaps, being sated, I be drawn to deny, or, compelled by want, I steal and swear falsely by the name of my God." But to oppress by force, and to withhold wages, and to mock the deaf or the blind, because some are sins of power and others in a way of a prodigal life and of delights, which beget insolence, the law is said to enact these above all for the persons of the rich and mighty. And it is those who preside over the tribunals of magistrates or judges who respect persons in judgment; when they judge they must not respect even the persons of the poor. For no one is more merciful than God, who is called merciful and compassionate above all; yet at the time of judgment he no longer wishes to be called so, but just, as David testifies, who says: "God is a judge, just, strong and long-suffering." Nor must one admire the person of the mighty in judgment, because no one is mightier than God; and the judgment is his, for when we judge he takes the person of the one who pleads. Of this the same Moses is witness in Deuteronomy, saying thus: "You shall not respect persons in judgment; you shall judge the small and the great alike. You shall not distinguish the person of a man, because the judgment is God's." … to give to the person of the mighty …, to give to the person of God …: you give it if you have betaken yourself to the side of justice, for there he has [it], because "the Lord is just and has loved justice; his face sees equity." Therefore he now also commanded that we judge our neighbour justly. For we must know that with the judgment with which we judge we shall be judged. To these he added: "You shall not be a slanderer and a whisperer among the peoples," or, as the Seventy render, "You shall not walk with guile among your people. You shall not stand against the blood of your neighbour." He joined blood, that is, murder, to guile, as David too is wont to do: "The Lord will abhor the man of blood and the deceitful"; and again, "Men of blood and deceit shall not live out half their days." For guile is a hidden sword, a sharpened blade, and concealed, so that David again said, "Like a sharp razor you have practised guile." But let us depart from it quickly, dreading it for its nearness to the sin to which it has deserved to be joined. Nor let us stand against the blood of our neighbour, but let us flee every snare and the association formed for any iniquity whatever. Because some who are individually weak and cannot do harm by themselves are wont to mingle with a multitude, it necessarily happens that, when several come together at once, wickedness is found stronger. For one lends a hand, another the tongue, another …, another nods, and … consent …, the madness is completed by the union.

But with these let us also look to this: that not only when we judge about money or other such things should we keep equity for the poor and the mighty, but everywhere in every judgment; which is understood not only at the tribunal but in every conversation and friendly council, and above all in spiritual teaching. Let us remember James, who says: "If there comes into your assembly a man having a gold ring, in splendid clothing, and there comes in also a poor man in shabby clothing, and you attend to him who is clothed in splendour and say, You sit here in a good place, but to the poor man you say, You stand there, or sit under my footstool, have you not judged among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" And when he had said other things about this, and wished at a fitting time to recall the commandment of the law to our memory, he added: "But if you respect persons, you commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors." So we ought to judge our neighbour justly, and not call one and the same action good in the rich man and evil in the poor, and reprove the one and let the other sin. Nor ought we to walk with guile in our own nation, that is, among the people, nor to harass our fellow-countrymen under the appearance of piety, nor to stand against our neighbour's blood, that is, not to associate with those who sin against the souls of their brothers, and with the opinion of the wicked.

And while all the justice of the commandments must be considered, yet attend above all to this precision; for he says:

Verse 17. "You shall not hate your brother," he added, "in your heart." Because often, in the case of the persons of sinners, we are compelled to put on the person of those who hate them. Hence Paul commanded the Thessalonians: "If anyone does not obey our word through the letter, note that man, and do not mix with him, that he may be ashamed." And when this is done, it gives a presumption of hatred. For whose part is it, if not of those who hate and oppose, "do not mix with him"? But he did not command this aversion to be done in the heart; for he says, "Do not mix with him, that he may be ashamed," and, blushing, be amended in every way. And he who was amending one with whom he did not mix could by no means hate him in his heart; confirming this, he also added: "And do not count him as an enemy, but rebuke him as a brother." And fulfilling all justice, and in a way laying down a law for each kind of life, he adds a confirmation, which if we keep, no one can harm our riches, no one can steal our treasure. And the confirmation is this: "And you shall love your friend," or, as the Seventy have it, "your neighbour, as yourself." You have the whole law in little, and through this one commandment it is easy for you to keep all. "For love," says Paul, "does no evil to the neighbour. Love, then, is the fullness of the law." And it makes our whole life to be, as it ought, in the good things given to the commandments. For if I love my neighbour as myself, and perhaps I do not have children, or riches, or beauty, or the glory of the world, or power, but I see my neighbour having them, I rejoice, and nonetheless I am glad as though I had these things; for in him I too have them. And the same in spiritual things, in which above all we ought to keep the love that pertains to our neighbours, and not envy those who work righteousness, nor be stung when others are glorified according to Christ, when they are enriched in the word of teaching, when they abound in divine gifts. But we must imitate Christ, who so loved us that he granted the apostles to do greater signs than he himself did. Hence now too, saying, "You shall love your friend," or "your neighbour, as yourself," he added: "I am the Lord: keep my laws." And when God loved us, learn from himself saying it; for he says: "Greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends." Hence he also said that the commandment of love is his own chief law, adding here this which you will not find added in the other commandments.

Verse 19. "You shall not let your cattle mate with animals of another kind. You shall not sow your field," or, as the Seventy have it, "your vineyard," "with diverse seed. You shall not put on a garment woven of two kinds."

These things in a way seem ridiculous according to the letter; hence we do not find them kept so by the prophets and spiritual men as by the sons of the Jews, living weakly and imperfectly, who love milk and do not take solid food. For note what [David] said to Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet and Benaiah: "Set my son Solomon on my mule." For in saying "my," he shows that he himself too sat on a mule. And if the law forbade cattle to be mated with animals of another kind, that is, the ass with the horse, and this was abominable, they ought without doubt to have abominated both what was done and what was born of it. And if he does not wish a garment to be made of two, how does that wise man say this of the valiant woman in Proverbs: "She found wool and flax, and worked a useful thing with her hands," and again: "Of fine linen and purple she made garments for herself"? For the garments are not useful …; and her clothing is good, or he said that the garment was useful, one made of wool and flax, and again another of fine linen and purple, let us understand to be joined. But what this means, Paul writes plainly to the Corinthians: "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of God and the table of demons"; and again: "You who are justified by the law have fallen from grace." For the faithful must not be mingled with Jewish seductions, nor with the error of the Gentiles. So let us not allow the cattle, that is, the common people, to be mated with animals of another kind, that is, to follow circumcision and baptism together. For circumcision belongs to another yoke, heavy and unbearable, of which Peter said: "Why do you tempt God, to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?" And the baptism of Christ belongs to another, a light yoke, which Christ laid upon us, saying, "Take my yoke," and again, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Nor ought we to sow the vineyard, or field, entrusted to us with mixed seed, so as not to teach the church things contrary to the divine doctrines, as do the heretics who think perversely, [who forbid] marriage to Christ['s people] through their own preaching

… blessing it and saying, "Not the things that enter defile a man," … "forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods which God created," prepare death for themselves by their impieties. In these, according to the Seventy, he necessarily added, "I am the Lord your God," wishing you to keep yourselves from all such wickedness; and I who through the Gospel said to those who receive the law wrongly and according to their own will: "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge just judgment."

"You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but reprove him openly, lest you have sin on his account. You shall love your friend as yourself. I am the Lord. Keep my laws." Rightly Christ said to the Jews: "Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfil." For if you search out these words, you will find how much the gospel doctrines harmonize with these commandments of the law, since the same God speaks both. For he who now commanded that a brother, if he sins, be reproved, commanded through the Gospels: "But if your brother sins against you, go and reprove him between yourself and him alone"; and if he is not corrected, reprove him before one and before another, and then again in the church, when he has not been corrected when rebuked before them. And here, having said, "You shall not hate your brother," he added, "lest you have sin on his account"; and there he shows what the sin is, for he says: "If you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your sins." Here, "You shall not seek revenge"; and through Paul, "Not avenging yourselves, beloved, but give place to wrath." Now he said through the book of the law, "Nor shall you be an avenger of the injury of your fellow citizens"; and through the Gospel, "Everyone who is angry with his brother without cause is liable to judgment." … Paul named them as having their conscience seared.

And he puts on the abominable garment, woven of two, who says that he worships Christ and worships demons; who, claiming to be a soldier of the Sun of righteousness, also propitiates this visible sun, which was given for the service of the creation, or the other stars, or anything of the kind, as the Manichees and many other heretics do. Hence in place of "reprobate and abominable" Theodotion rendered "of Satan," finding it so, surely, in the Hebrew, and keeping it as he found it, so that by the name of Satan the lawgiver's intention is made plainer. For he does not wish us, since we are God's, to be mixed up in diabolical business, nor to be busy at once with prayers and incantations, nor to put on at once the phylacteries of the church of God and of holy men and, on the other side, those of wicked sorcerers, and to bring the things of demons around the Holy Spirit, in whom, Paul says, we have been sealed. For he withdraws, as having suffered insult, and the unclean spirit will prevail, and such a one will suffer what Saul bore: "But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit of God troubled him"; not that God sent the evil, but that he allowed him whom Saul chose to prevail over him.

Verses 20–22. "If a man lies with a woman with emission of seed, who is a slave woman and marriageable, and yet not redeemed with a price nor given freedom, they shall both be beaten, but they shall not die, because she was not free. And for his offence he shall offer to the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of witness a ram; and the priest shall pray for him and for his offence before the Lord, and he shall be propitious to him, and the sin shall be forgiven."

… the lawgiver intends to show through what has now been said. For in the case of a betrothed woman who is free, he asserts that the offence of him who fornicated with her is adultery, and enacted that he be subject to the penalty of death. But in the case of the marriageable slave woman, whom the Seventy rendered "kept for a man," that is, betrothed, he releases him who sinned against her from the penalty and commands him to offer a sacrifice, wishing to show from this sensible slavery a spiritual one. For he did not command that the offence of fornication be permitted against any slave women, much less betrothed ones; but by the betrothed slave woman, or the one "kept for a man," he means the synagogue of the Jews, which was kept for the law and could not be betrothed to Christ before the letter of the law died. Hence Paul too said: "So, brothers, you too have died to the law through the body of Christ, that you may belong to another, who rose from the dead." And he himself taught that the synagogue of the Jews is a slave woman, saying this: "That Abraham had two sons, one from the slave woman and one from the free woman." Then, explaining which slave woman he wished to be understood, he added: "These things are said by allegory; for these are the two covenants, one from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery, which is Hagar. And Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, joined to the present Jerusalem, which is in slavery." If anyone, then, lay with her with emission of seed, that is, he who became a partaker of her teaching so far as to be joined to her and to come together with her through the way of life of the law, in which those who are associated in conjugal partnership are found to be one (and we have shown many times before in this book of Leviticus that seed must be taken for the word of teaching); whoever, then, did this before she was freed by the coming of Christ, rightly did not die. For even if he received the law according to the letter and not according to the spirit, as the synagogue of the Jews teaches, she is justly named a slave woman, because she was ignorant of the lawgiver's intention. And "the slave," as Christ said, "does not know the will of his master," and therefore he was said to offend and needed remission, because he pursued the master's precept not according to the master's will. Yet because she was not yet freed, the contemplation of the law was therefore hidden. Hence the way of life of the letter seemed also to have its time; they are not said to be subjected to death, and he promised them a visitation. For where our translation has "They shall both be beaten," the Seventy say, "There shall be a visitation for them, and they shall not die." And he promised them a visitation, that is, freedom from the slavery of the law. For it is the custom of divine Scripture to call freedom a visitation; for we find God naming the deliverance from the Egyptian slavery a visitation, when he said to Moses: "Call together the elders of the sons of Israel and say to them: The Lord God of your fathers has appeared to me, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, saying: I have surely visited you and seen whatever has happened to you in Egypt, and I have said: I will deliver you from the oppression of the Egyptians." Plainly, then, by the present law he allowed that they be visited through the deliverance of Christ, of which Zechariah plainly spoke in his song: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and wrought redemption for his people." For he means the deliverance which Christ gave in the sacrifice and in the gospel way of life, to the Jew first and after this to the Greek, as the apostle said. For he says of the Gospel given by the Lord: "It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek"; not by any respect of persons, but because the Jews were the first to need this salvation and deliverance, as those who led others astray too. To him who sleeps with these, that is, who mixes with them so as to become a partaker of their seed and teaching, remission is granted through a sacrifice, but through that of Christ; for, signifying this sacrifice, he commanded a ram to be offered for sin, and the priest to pray through its offering. Who he is who prayed for the whole world, and what the ram offered for sin, and why it is led to the sacrifice before the door of the tabernacle of witness, and also what is properly to be understood by the sin of trespass, you will find by searching out the things that were long ago enacted and expounded about the sacrifices: Christ figured in them as in an image, who, sacrificed through the cross, forgave along with all other sins this one too, which the people of the Jews committed, and he of the Gentiles who was mixed with them, who is also said to sleep with them by receiving the law not according to the lawgiver's intention. And he signified these things not out of season in this place, but at a most fitting time, where it was said that cattle ought not to be joined with cattle of another kind, that is, that those who have come under the yoke of Christ may not take up the Jewish yoke. For confirming this, he added the present things, by which he showed that even before the coming of Christ whoever of the outsiders mixed with them needed the sacrifice of the spiritual ram for his propitiation, comparing it in mind and describing the truth within himself through the figures. For so, receiving the law spiritually and referring its sacrifices to Christ, he could not only not be condemned for the slavery of the Jewish letter that befell him, but even be freed from it and from the death of unbelief.

Verses 23–25. "When you have entered the land and planted fruit trees in it, you shall take away their foreskins. The fruits that they bear shall be unclean to you, and you shall not eat of them. In the fourth year all their fruit shall be sanctified, praiseworthy to the Lord. But in the fifth year you shall eat the fruits, gathering the fruits they bear. I am the Lord your God."

The lawgiver remains now too in the intention he had before, enacting with other words things like those that went before, showing that the Jewish people could not have good fruit before the Lord's presence. For why did he say that the fruit of every tree was not edible to them for three years? Nor in any way clean, but needing cleansing in the fourth year too. And what was this cleansing? Not a sprinkling, not a sacrifice, nor anything else of the kind, such as the law commanded elsewhere according to the letter. So it necessarily calls to the contemplation of the spirit him who wishes not only to meditate on the law but also to receive some benefit from it. So God gives a land, such as befits him to give, that is, divine Scripture, which bears the fruits of virtues, which has that life and cultivates it, or works it, which David promises to cultivate and work; for where can a man please God more than in the commandments and good works? For he says: "I will please the Lord in the land of the living," of which he himself says: "But those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land." For those who wait for God, who promises the recompense of the commandments contained in it, shall possess the Scripture full of the Spirit of God and the goods that come from it. The sons of the Jews were commanded to enter this land, and they received it first. For they first received the holy letters; that is why they were also commanded to plant the tree that can be eaten, that is, the commandments of which we spoke, some by meditating on them, others by preaching them too. And that meditation on the law, and preaching, because of the progress that comes through the fathers, is likened to the planting of trees, hear David saying: "And on his law he will meditate day and night, and he will be like a tree planted by the streams of waters." And Paul wrote to the Corinthians of the preaching he preached: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase." The commandments were very good, which is why he called it an edible tree. But they did not work in the way they ought, using the law according to the letter. So their fruit, namely the working of the law, was unclean for three years. And he means by the three years the time from the law to the time of David, and from David to the Babylonian deportation, and from the Babylonian deportation to the coming of the Lord; for so Matthew too divided it.

Since, then, in this fourth year he commended all the fruit of the law itself as holy and praiseworthy to the Lord, and yet did not say that even then it was edible to the Jews, he proved without any doubt that the fruit of the whole law is in the coming of the Lord. For its time, according to the order of the times named above, will rightly be named the fourth year, holy and praiseworthy to God, because Christ made it fruitful, teaching us too to bear fruit as we ought. Rightly, then, it was holy, as perfected by the Holy of holies; and praiseworthy too, for all the things that Christ works are of good report and glorious, so that even the ungrateful, when they had seen the paralytic carrying his bed on his shoulders, glorified God, who had given such power to men. Hence the law called this fruit not simply praiseworthy but praiseworthy to the Lord. But it was not yet edible to the people, for it had not yet obtained the way of life of Christ according to the spirit; but in the fifth year, namely in the apostolic generation; for from then the Jewish people itself, that is, those of them who believed, and all the nations had the fruit of the law, namely its working, as edible. And according to the Seventy, there was an increase of the fruits of the law to the people, that is, gain and benefit. For those who work without gain before work uselessly. And the law does well to mention increase, so as to agree with the word which the Lord spoke in the Gospel, for it was he who said both: "To everyone who has shall be given and added." And whoever holds the Old Testament as he ought, to him the New too is added, and through this the fruit of the Old Testament also is found edible to him.

Verses 26–28. "You shall not eat flesh with the blood. You shall not practise augury, nor observe dreams, nor cut your hair round, nor shave your beard; and you shall not cut your flesh for the dead, nor make figures and marks on yourselves. I am the Lord."

He wishes the faithful man to be clean of all the leaven of wickedness; and therefore now he forbids the slavery of the letter of the law and shows the Jewish teaching to be useless; and now again he turns the discourse to the error of the Gentiles; for not all the things now forbidden are to be pursued, since they are not only ridiculous but even harmful to those who pursue them, as Ecclesiastes above all shows; for he says: "He who observes the wind does not sow, and he who regards the cloud will never reap." Augury, then, is not only what he calls the voice or flight of any bird, which either forbids some action or advises that it be hastened more zealously, but also the use of signs from people speaking, passing by, meeting one, and certain stumbling-blocks that befall one on the road, and other such things. For the observation of birds is called augury, and also of other signs. And auspice is to watch birds passing, and because of them to go out on a road deserted by men, or to search out the flight of birds or what their cries are, so as to learn from them what is to come. This is to accuse God, as though he hid from man, whom he set as prince of all animals according to his own image, things which someone learns from them, which he cannot learn from spiritual men, nor even from God who reveals to them, as those think who have been led astray into the aforesaid error. Moreover, not to cut the hair round, that is, not to shave the head into a round appearance, as

Symmachus rendered it, as those who cultivate their hair pursue; that is why the Seventy perhaps called it sisoē, because of the great mass of hair gathered together. This should not be done; one should be content with natural adornments and seek nothing more, unless perhaps we accuse the Creator of having lacked something for perfecting the living creature. Nor should one grow locks in honour of demons, stronger than the other hairs, and vow this; for pagans are eager for this, to offer the heads of children to demons. Hence the lawgiver must be thought to command especially about this. Nor should one shave the beard, or, according to the Seventy, spoil the appearance of the beard; nor should those who weep over the dead make cuts in their bodies, for the pagans were accustomed to this. For one ought so to grieve over the dead as neither to harm the face nor spoil the body. Paul forbids us these things, saying: "I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, so that you may not grieve as the rest who have no hope." For to do any of the things mentioned is not to have hope of the resurrection of the dead, because they tear and spoil themselves as though the dead were corrupted. He forbids marks to be made on the body, the lawgiver caring for comeliness everywhere and not allowing the flesh to be misused in any of these things, which harm the person himself and make the whole living creature foul. And eating "upon the mountains," which the Seventy put at the beginning of the present law in place of what our edition has, "You shall not eat with the blood," he forbade because of those who were accustomed to the festivals of idols. For Hosea too said this, accusing the people of the Jews: "A spirit of fornication deceived them, and they committed fornication from their God. On the tops of the mountains they burned incense, and on the hills they sacrificed."

But besides these, let us see what it bids us beware of according to spiritual contemplation: not to eat on the mountains, that is, not to feed on proud thoughts, of which Isaiah says, "Every mountain and hill shall be brought low." Not to practise augury or auspices, so that we may not live according to their will, attending to demons, nor give our heart to the birds which snatch the seed of piety from us, as the Lord said in the gospel parables. Let us not cut the hair round, or, as the Seventy have it, not make a sisoē of the hair of the head. For our hairs are taken for thoughts; that is why the Lord said, "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered." For to him, as judge and searcher of hearts, all our thoughts are numbered. So no one ought to toss them about or shake them, nor offer them to the devil, as some do who even offer locks of their sensible hair, as we said above. Moreover, as we said before, one ought not to shave the beard, or, according to the Seventy, spoil the appearance of the beard, because the beard is the sign of our perfection; and the virtues designate our true perfection, which it is unfitting to spoil by practising them not in truth but under a false and feigned habit. Nor is it good to make cuts upon the soul in the body: these are the pleasures which cut the body so as to harm the soul, and spoil it. And by the marks let us understand the doctrines of evil teaching, which are fixed and imprinted on the soul through certain flatteries, or syllogisms, or any other manner of those who teach. So the law commanded us to abstain from these too, because, imprinted or sunk in, as marks are wont to be, they are hard to blot out.

Verse 29. "Do not prostitute your daughter, lest the land be defiled and filled with guilt." For if fathers, who ought to correct their children, urge them to fornication, provoking them or living shamefully, so that they themselves are enticed to evil by imitation of their parents, the land is filled with guilt, or, according to the Seventy, with fornication, and is thrown into every kind of impiety; because the children have as tutors to evil those who ought to have been their instructors. Nor let us prostitute our soul, which is our only-begotten daughter, so that David said, "Deliver my only one from the lions," and, "my only one from the hand of the dog," teaching it to depart from God, lest, the soul committing fornication, the body too commit fornication. For this is called earth, since it arose from the earth and will return to the earth. "And be filled with guilt," or, as the Seventy have it, with adultery. For when the rider is drunk the horse is carried headlong. When the soul departs from God, every iniquity rules in the body.

Verse 30. "Keep my sabbaths, and fear my sanctuary. I am the Lord." As, while there is one special Sabbath, namely the seventh day, every other lawful … is called a Sabbath, since there is a general abstinence from evil; for this is truly what the lawgiver pursues as the Sabbath, and in each thing he commanded us to withdraw from evil. Propping this up, he added: "Fear my sanctuary," or, as the Seventy have it, "You shall fear my holy things"; because, as they sanctify those who approach them in the way they ought, so they corrupt or destroy those who presume wickedly in them and do not first purge themselves of the filth of wickedness and so approach clean things, as Nadab and Abihu and the sons of Eli. Hence Paul too adds, of those who receive the mysteries without circumspection: "For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and many sleep." Hence now too the lawgiver added, "I am the Lord," that is, holy, and dwelling in the holy, and of necessity exacting vengeance for holy things.

Verse 31. "Do not turn aside to magicians, nor inquire anything of soothsayers, so as to be defiled by them." But the Seventy render: "Do not follow ventriloquists, and do not join yourselves to sorcerers, so as to be defiled in them. I am the Lord your God." The greatest kind of diabolical error and fraud is consulting ventriloquists. Hence Paul too, finding a girl having a spirit of Python, although the demon proclaimed great things of him and Silas and said, "These men are servants of the most high God, who proclaim to you the way of truth," yet rebuked the evil spirit and drove it out. It is very evil also to cleave to sorcerers, because they speak the names of demons, our enemies, and of pestilence. Even if for a short time, to lead into error, they seem to accomplish something cheap and small for bodily health, such as even unskilled physicians can accomplish, yet they do not do even this as good men, nor as wishing men well, but desiring to reduce them to slavery and separate them from God. Nor let us follow the ventriloquists, that is, the false prophets, who in God's name teach and prophesy things foreign to God; they are rightly called ventriloquists, as bringing forth from the spiritual belly of their heart certain fables, that is, false teachings and prophecies; of whom the Lord said through Ezekiel: "Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit." And they are rightly called sorcerers, as those who with a certain flattery and fraud enter houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, as Paul says. In these, then, he commanded us not to be defiled; for their words defile those who obey them. Hence he also added: "I am the Lord your God," saying through the gospel teaching: "Beware of those who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves."

Verse 32. "Rise up before the hoary head, and honour the person of the old man, and fear the Lord your God. I am the Lord." It is good indeed to honour one who has come to grey hairs, for time doubtless has something more toward prudence; and the honour we pay to our elders we shall also deserve from those younger than we, and from this a good order, keeping our life in honour, is won for us. But understand by the hoary one the truly old man, that is, him of whom Moses says, "Ask your father, and he will declare it to you; your elders, and they will tell you." And Paul too: "Let the presbyters be counted worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in word and teaching." And when Daniel, being a boy, convicted the judges and presbyters of the people who accused Susanna, the other presbyters said: "Come, sit in our midst and declare it to us, because God has given you the honour of old age"; so that it might be shown that the dignity of presbyter belongs to wisdom more than to age.

Verses 33–34. "If a stranger dwells in your land and lives among you, do not reproach him, but let him be among you as a native, and you shall love him as yourselves. I am the Lord your God." We said above that the land given us by God is the cultivation of the virtues and its good teaching. If, then, a stranger comes to it, that is, one who wishes to be converted to our faith and to be enrolled as a citizen of that land of which Paul says, "You have come to Mount Sion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the assembly of many thousands of angels, and to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven," let us not afflict him, that is, not make the yoke heavy against him, so as to lay heavier commandments on one newly born and newly believing, lest we sin like the Pharisees and scribes, whom the Lord accused, saying: "They bind heavy and unbearable burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with their finger." So let us not afflict him who comes to the faith by doing this and exacting certain legal observances of him. But let him be to us as a native who has been nourished in the faith and grown up in piety. Hence Peter too, enacting this plainly, said to those who wished to circumcise believers from the Gentiles: "Why do you tempt the Lord, to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples which neither your fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of Jesus Christ, just as they are." In this, then, let us love every stranger, or, as the Seventy say, proselyte, as ourselves: that we command them only those things through which we believe that we ourselves, if we do them, are saved. For even if we have held the pious faith longer than those who are now coming to the faith, yet we too are from unbelievers, either having ourselves been unbelievers before, or born of such fathers; and we were all strangers in the land of Egypt, that is, in the devil's error and the teaching of darkness; for Egypt is interpreted darkness or obscurity. So he very timely added: "I am the Lord your God," that is, I who received you too from error, of which Paul said: "God has shut up all under unbelief, that he may have mercy on all."

Verses 35–37. "Do no wrong in judgment, in rule, in weight, in measure. Let the balance be just and the weights equal; a just bushel and an equal sextarius. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Keep all my precepts and all my judgments, and do them. I am the Lord."

This enactment too is like those that went before, once we have searched out its spirit after the gain of its letter. In what went before he commanded that there be no injustice in judgment; and now he commanded not to act unjustly in measures, nor in weight, nor in balances, lest perhaps we use these very things, which are as it were the boundaries of justice, for injustice. For weights are given to sellers and buyers as the boundaries of justice, as laws are to those who judge. Hence to "do no wrong in judgment" he added also not changing balances and weights, and having a just sextarius or bushel, that is, every measure of wine or oil. He commanded abstinence from all injustice done to one's neighbour, in greater things as in lesser, because what is unjust is abominable everywhere, and what is just always pleases God. Moreover, what the possession of a field and a house is to the rich man, the measure of wine and wheat and the weight of bread, and the other things by which he lives his daily life, are to the poor. Nor let us do injustice in the judgment of the mind, nor corrupt the measures and balances of the justice that is naturally implanted in us, judging our own sins and our neighbour's differently; for the Lord says: "With the judgment you judge you will be judged, and with the measure you measure it will be measured to you." Interpreting this himself, how it ought to be understood, he added: "Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye, but do not see the beam that is in your own eye?" Nor let us do harm in the divine weights and balances and measures, but let us keep just balances and measures and weights, that is, the laws of divine Scripture, by no means laying a balance or weight of our own on them; and let us not suffer what the Pharisees did, of whom the Lord said in the Gospels: "Why do you transgress the commandments of God for the sake of your traditions?" For the law, recalling to our memory him who spoke these things, added: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Keep all my precepts and all my judgments, and do them." But the Seventy render: "All my law and all my precepts: I am the Lord." They double "I am the Lord," so that you might know that he who brought us out of the sensible land of Egypt, giving the law then, has now himself freed us from the spiritual Egypt by preaching the Gospel. Hence, after he said, according to the Seventy, "Keep all my law," which should have sufficed (for the law embraces all things), he added, "and all my precepts": not judgments, or justifications, or testimonies, as they were wont to be called by the law of Moses, but "my precepts," showing the gospel commandments, which the Lord commanded on his own authority.