Commentary on Leviticus 6.20

Verses 1–5. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Say this to the sons of Israel: A man of the sons of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell in Israel, if anyone gives of his seed to the idol Molech, let him die the death. The people of the land shall stone him; and I will set my face against him and cut him off from the midst of his people, because he gave of his seed to Molech, and defiled my sanctuary, and profaned my holy name. But if the people of the land, neglectful and as it were slighting my command, let go the man who gave of his seed to Molech and will not kill him, I will set my face against that man and his kindred, and cut off him and all who consented with him to commit fornication with Molech from the midst of their people."

For what reason the law sometimes commanded the same things twice and three times, we have often said in what went before: that it does this for the memory of the readers. Hence, even when recapitulating the commandments, it inserts certain new things among them, so that the repetition of the laws may not seem superfluous, and that by the search for new things we may attend more studiously to the earlier too. For this reason, when he forbade certain actions in earlier passages, he was silent about their penalties, so that, asking what and of what kind they are, we may search out the things he enacts below; for in these he inserted the penalties which he then passed over. Formerly, then, he forbade giving of one's seed to Molech, or, according to the Seventy, to a ruler. This was the name of some idol or demon, as Stephen brought in Amos saying: "And you took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the figures which you made to worship them." Now, then, testifying to the same thing again, you have heard with what words he began this law: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Say this to the sons of Israel," which the Seventy rendered, "And to the sons of Israel you shall speak." This was not said as though there were others to whom he had enacted what went before, but showing that he extended this commandment of person against all for this reason: because the sin against which he uttered the present threat is so much more execrable than others that, while other sins bring penalties only on the sinners, this one makes guilty even those who neglected the sinner, and makes not only the rulers of the people but the whole synagogue and people his judge and avenger. For he says, "The people of the land shall stone him." And not content with this, he added: "And I will set my face against him and cut him off from the midst of his people," by this rousing all and provoking them against him who committed such things, and also proclaiming terror if they neglect it and do not carry out with zeal, by their own hands, the penalty commanded against him, since God is so angry that he himself openly passed the aforesaid sentence against him.

And why? "Because he gave of his seed to Molech, so as to defile my sanctuary and profane my holy name." For whoever gives a son, or a kinsman, or a disciple, or a friend, or anyone of his seed or kinship or teaching, to the ruler of this world, who now works in the sons of disobedience, vowing and consecrating him to demons (one to the rites of demons, another to a life mixing male and female, for both were customs of the pagans and of those who slipped into their error, of whom God says through Hosea, "Because these were corrupted with harlots and sacrificed with the effeminate"), defiles the holy things of God. How? Because he profanes his holy name. For as man, receiving the image of God, the Holy One who rests in the holy, is rightly called holy and sanctified to him whose image he has, so he defiles and profanes the name of him who gave him the image, and through it him who sanctified him and breathed into him the spirit of life by his grace, because he is corrupted by an evil spirit adverse to God, and reduces the Lord's image to the service of demons, and allows the royal pearl to be defiled by swine. The same is true of anyone who offers one of his kin or of his teaching to avarice, and by works or words accustoms to avarice one who is in any way his disciple or kinsman, making him a slave of demons, devoted or consecrated to idols, and a soldier of the evil ruler of this world: "For the root of all evils is avarice, which is the service of idols." And we say the same also against those who teach adultery, suggesting wicked actions, persuading to shamefulness, defiling the holy things of God, that is, the bodies of those sealed to God, whose flesh is the temple of God and the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. Hence they are also rightly said to profane the holy name, or, according to the Seventy, the name of the sanctified; because, from one or two or perhaps several abominable men, the name of all the saints of God, of those who have believed in him and of the faithful, is most manifestly made abominable and defiled among men, those outside conjecturing such things also of the rest as they have seen some wallowing in. Therefore he commanded that those who teach evil and abominable things by works or words in this way be punished not by the hands of one but of all, as being the enemy and adversary of all and, as was said before, harming the glory of all.

"But if the people of the land, neglectful and as it were slighting my command, let go the man who gave of his seed to Molech and will not kill him": that is, if those who have been nourished in knowledge neglect him who teaches such things; for this is the true and right land, of which David says, "Your good Spirit will lead me into the right land." For it is evil above all not to pursue such a sin. What follows? "And against his kindred": namely those who pursue like things, who are kin by the likeness of action and teaching. "And I will cut off him and all who consented with him to commit fornication with Molech from the midst of their people." He threatened to punish not only those who say or do this, and who are therefore rightly named kin, but also those who consent with him, that is, who agree or run along with him or share in their unfruitful works, as Paul said. For it is evil to allow, or to consent, even to those who are outside committing fornication from God and cleaving to the spiritual ruler; but much more from the midst of the people. For this is to entrust the whole flock to wolves and hand over all the sheep to wild beasts, if we allow enemies to snatch from the midst of the people, or if we stretch out a hand to the snatcher. For he who consents and is silent about accusing him whom he must reprove, or admonish, or rebuke, will not escape the divine judgment. And God sets his face upon him, that face of which David said: "But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to destroy their memory from the earth." So not only those who do such things, but also those who consent to those who do them, as Paul rebuked in writing to the Romans, come under the penalty which has now been stated by the lawgiver.

Verses 6–8. "The soul that turns aside to magicians and soothsayers, and commits fornication with them, I will set my face against it and kill it from the midst of the people. Sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. Keep my precepts and do them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you."

We said before that to turn aside to magicians, or, as the Seventy have it, ventriloquists or sorcerers, is no ordinary sin; for in both one departs from God, whether you speak of sensible pythons and sorcerers or spiritual ones, that is, those who prophesy falsely in God's name, deceivers and flatterers, who corrupt the hearing of many with bewitching words, so that they turn away their hearing from the truth and are turned to fables and error. And therefore the judge threatened to set his face and destroy them from his people. And he added: "Sanctify yourselves and be holy," showing that all who followed them are defiled and abominable and unclean, as having consented to abominable words and perverse doctrines. Moreover he added: "Keep my precepts and do them," making plain by this too that they teach transgression of the precepts of God, whether they teach the law or pretend to interpret the divine commandments; and therefore he turns away from them and their followers. And he added a short conclusion to the words, saying: "I am the Lord who sanctifies you"; that is, why are you corrupted with those who say other things against my law or my teaching? For I am the Lord who sanctifies you, and no man, not even if he says he is a prophet, nor if he promises any knowledge, unless perhaps he has spoken what is mine and received it from me, and my Spirit has worked in him.

Verse 9. "Whoever curses his father and mother, let him die the death. He has cursed father and mother; his blood be upon him." Or, as the Seventy have it, "he is guilty," so that this name may be referred to God himself. For Malachi said: "Has not one God made you? Is he not the father of you all?" And again: "O Lord, you are our father, and we are clay, and you our potter, and we are all the work of your hands." Rightly, then, whoever slanders his father, and his mother too, is threatened with death. For he is ungrateful to nature and blasphemes his benefactors, through whom we receive being from God and through whose mediation we were begotten; and he wrongs the instruments of the Creator, so as to … the labours they suffer in our begetting. For since he commanded the greatest penalty, that is, death, against such a one, showing that he wrote such a sentence of penalty very rightly and reasonably, he adds: "He has cursed father and mother; his blood shall be upon him"; or, as the Seventy have it, "he is guilty," to make satisfaction, making mention and recapitulation of the sin in accordance with the greatness of the penalty. If, then, these things are so in one who cursed his sensible parents, much more in one who blasphemes Christ; for he regenerated us spiritually. So he who wrongs his mystery and grace, the grace of baptism, not obeying the Lord's voice, "Unless one has been regenerated of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven," will die the worst death, estranged from the kingdom of heaven and suffering the loss of eternal life; and he is therefore guilty because, when the Lord preached, and preached nothing hard nor heavy, nor anything that needed time and matter, or art or discipline, but only a clean heart and faith, he willingly turned away from this gift.

Verse 10. "If anyone commits adultery with another man's wife, and perpetrates adultery with his neighbour's wife, let both the adulterer and the adulteress die the death."

Against this man too the law was not harsh, but rather very just. For though he was free to have his own wife, he corrupts another's; though he was free to marry in chastity and to be joined to his own wife in sanctification according to the law, he is joined in unchastity and corruption to another's wife, and scatters the succession of children, and makes the woman's offspring doubtful as to whom it belongs. And after he said, "commits adultery with another man's wife," he added, "and commits adultery with his neighbour's wife," as though the one were one man and the other another; which those who take the law according to the letter alone can by no means find, but those will find who run to the moral understanding and spiritual contemplation. As great an evil, then, as sensible adultery is, so much worse is the spiritual. For the one does insult to the flesh, the other to the spirit; and the one to a man, the other to God himself, of whom Hosea said, "All adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker in his heart," accusing spiritual adultery; for it was committed by the whole people of the Jews, corrupting the law and the doctrines of the law. Whoever, then, commits adultery with the wife of that husband of whom Paul says, "I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ," namely the church, of which the same apostle says, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church," and again, "For this reason a man shall leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh. This mystery is great; but I speak concerning Christ and the church"; and commits adultery with shameful words, sowing in her his own teaching and not Christ's, for shameful gain, as Paul says: "let both the adulterer and the adulteress die the death"; that is, he who oversows a foreign word, and the church that allows itself to be sown with such things. For let us understand her, as we said, as the wife: first of the true husband, namely Christ, and then also as the wife of the priest, or perhaps the teacher, to whom the church has been entrusted by Christ. For all who, out of rivalry with Christ and from their hatred, corrupt the word, being shipwrecked, like Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom Paul handed over to Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme, their adultery is reckoned against the person of Christ. But whoever do some such thing out of rivalry with men who have obtained the government of the churches, so as to undermine their teaching, as Paul said Alexander the coppersmith did (for he says, "Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil; the Lord will repay him according to his works; beware of him too, for he greatly opposed our words"), their adultery is reckoned against the neighbour, namely the priest or leader out of rivalry with whom he proceeds to such injustice. And his penalty too is death; because, even if not specially against Christ, yet contending against a man he corrupted the work of Christ and scattered the flock; that is why whoever allows himself to be corrupted by him becomes his partner in the penalty.

Verses 11–12. "Whoever lies with his stepmother and uncovers his father's disgrace, let both die the death; their blood be upon them. If anyone lies with his daughter-in-law, let both die, because they have committed a crime; their blood be upon them."

These things were said above in this book of Leviticus by the lawgiver; but there he said, "You shall not uncover the shame of your father and mother, nor of your sister and daughter-in-law," and of the rest in order; when we too, expounding them, set out that the law commands not only the avoidance of shameful and wicked intercourse with kin, but that they were also said about not uncovering or defaming the sins we have come to know, of carnal or spiritual kin. Here God added "if he lies," without doubt bringing into the open him who nonetheless does the same evil action which he knew his neighbour had done, and, not ashamed of sharing in the sin, even so becomes a betrayer; in whom the lawgiver rightly fixed the penalty of death too. And he did well to join the daughter-in-law to the stepmother, because the one offence is committed by the son against the father, the other by the father against the son. And it is a like impiety for a son to strip his father, or defame his sin, when they themselves have offended in like things. To them Paul said: "Therefore you are without excuse, O man, everyone who judges; for in judging another you condemn yourself, for you do the same things that you judge."

Verse 13. "Whoever lies with a male as with a woman, both have done an abomination; let them die the death; their blood be upon them." Because this sin is an injury to nature, its novelty was shown … rather than the deed. So not in vain does the law decree the penalty of death in it. We turn away from such things even in hearing. But let us beware also lest we make effeminate him who is strong in soul and is therefore called a male (for everywhere in divine Scripture he is named a man who is perfect in virtues; hence Paul too says, "until we all attain to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ"); let us beware, then, lest by unfitting words or actions we make him effeminate and loosen the virtue of his soul, while we ourselves too are loosened with him. For the penalty of both, as you see, is death.

Verse 14. "Whoever, in addition to his wife the daughter, marries her mother has committed a crime; he shall be burned alive with them, and so great an abomination shall not remain in your midst."

Very rightly did he threaten so cruel a penalty for this offence. For of those born of the mother and those born of the daughter, since the father is one, it is uncertain whether they ought to be called brothers or uncles. For since the father is one, it compels them to be reckoned brothers; and of the two who bear, since one is the mother and the other the daughter, necessity compels those born of the mother to be called uncles of those born of the daughter. And this is kept very strictly according to the letter, and such uncertain intercourse and confusion of kindred is guarded against. Since desire is the mother of every sin, this too must be guarded against: that if we have any desire for sin,

let us stop at it and not join action to it. And he who joins it is burned in fire; and not only he, but also the desire of sin, and moreover the action itself. With what fire? That of which Christ said, "I came to send fire on the earth, and I wish that it were kindled," that is, the ministry of the Spirit, which will take away sinners themselves from the midst, and their sins. "For if by the Spirit," says Paul, "you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live."

Verses 15–16. "Whoever lies with a beast or cattle, let him die the death; the beast also shall be killed. And the woman who submits to a beast shall be killed together with it. Their blood be upon them."

The lawgiver uses very great strictness against the people of the Jews, because they were so wicked and given to lust that … even to foreign desire …; mentioning the union of man and woman, he showed that such a penalty is death. But you will perhaps judge that this law is superfluous for the faithful; "for they do not need," you say, "to be judged by such a law." Yet it is not superfluous; its spiritual contemplation can help us greatly, if we understand by the four-footed beasts evil pleasures, which look down to the earth, as lacking all human action, and which are therefore called four-footed, because four-footed creatures do not have hands, as men do, and therefore lack our closest kinship. Whatever man or woman, then, leans so far upon these foreign pleasures that he is captured by them not even through sloth, but rather clings to them greatly and comes together with them, so as to have a long and persistent union with them, such a one is guilty of death. For this is the end of wicked lusts, and when those who practise them are punished, they themselves are rightly said to die too. For they do not subsist by themselves, because there is no substance of sin in sinners; yet when these are destroyed, they too perish with them.

Verse 17. "Whoever takes his sister, his father's daughter or his mother's daughter, and sees her shame, and she beholds her brother's disgrace, they have done a wicked thing; they shall be killed in the sight of the people, because they have uncovered each other's shame; and they shall bear their iniquity."

Many thought it tolerable to be joined with sisters, daughters of the father or of the mother, because Abraham too said of Sarah, "She is my sister by my father, and not by my mother." This is not altogether so, as the story is thought to have it; for Moses, narrating those who were born of Terah, Abraham's father, nowhere mentioned Sarah; and if Abraham did marry his sister, it was before he knew God. So it is evil to be joined with sisters in the partnership of marriage; hence the law forbade it. This being so, let us by no means depart from the contemplation already given. Understand him as truly seeing and taking the shame of a sister by father or mother who not only sees a shameful action from father or mother, that is, one in which father or mother offended, but also takes it, through a like and equal action; and this man is wicked: not only searching out what he should not, but building on it and joining himself to the depravity committed by his parents. This is called his sister, as the depravity of a depraved man. And also as one who defamed and spread it abroad; for sons very often defame the hidden sins of their parents when they do like things. Hence he commanded such a one to be destroyed in the sight of the people, or, as the Seventy have it, "in the sight of the sons of their race," that is, while those who think like things look on; for these are rightly called sons of his race. And why in … they may learn. And when the sinner is slain, the sin perishes with him, as we once said in what went before.

Verse 18. "Whoever lies with a woman in her menstrual flow and uncovers her shame, and she uncovers the fountain of her blood, both shall be killed from the midst of their people."

Not in vain did the lawgiver command abstinence from a menstruous woman, but persuading man to modesty and to the diligence of chastity, from which sanctification comes; not wishing them to be joined with women continually after the manner of swine and to give themselves to common corruption, but to make use of a compelled abstinence for continence. But how did he command them to be destroyed from their people, when he had prescribed above a purification for him who slept with a menstruous woman? For he said: "If a man lies with her in the time of the menstrual blood, he shall be unclean seven days." Then after this, narrating the sacrifices of purification, he added: "This is the law of him who suffers a flow of seed, and who is polluted, and of her who suffers a flow of blood in her menstruation, and for the one who suffers a flow of seed in his flow, male and female." And he wishes the man too, if he has slept with a menstruous woman, to be purified in this way, and, like the others, not to be punished. So let us contemplate the menstruous woman as the wisdom of the Gentiles, for it is far from God, speaking and teaching about the flight of birds, the course of the stars, and the measurements of heaven. It is very evil, then, to sleep with her, that is, to delight in her and come together with her long, and also to uncover and bring openly forward her shame, handing on the rites which are among her and the errors she has, and setting out the fountain of all error; because when these are published, she too uncovers the flow of her blood, that is, bringing in the things that concern the sacrifices of idols. That is why he did not say simply, "they shall be killed," but added, "from the midst of their people," or, according to the Seventy, "from their race." Because he who hands on the wisdom of the Gentiles, which [subverts] our … and knowledge and piety, is no longer rightly named a man, but has deprived himself of the image of God by ignoring the Creator; and therefore he is killed from the midst of the people, or from his race, so that it may no longer be named wisdom but lose what it had by a false and feigned name, as Paul testifies, who says: "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God."

Verse 19. "You shall not uncover the shame of your mother's sister and your father's sister; whoever does this has stripped the disgrace of his own flesh; both shall bear their iniquity." He commanded us not to be joined with the sisters of those who begot us, both for the sake of the generations, that they be not confused, and so that we may keep fitting reverence for our parents, abstaining for their sake from their sisters too. Understand this likewise according to the spirit: that not only should the sins of parents be veiled in silence and given to oblivion, but also of those associated with them, who are therefore said to be their brothers. And let us be silent about their sins, because when these are stripped bare the parents too cannot lie hidden; hence he says, "He has stripped the disgrace of his own flesh." And to what penalty are those who do this subjected? "Both shall bear their iniquity," he says. And the Seventy add, "they shall die childless." Because those who do not bear one another's burdens, but defame and spread abroad the sins of their kin, according to the flesh as well as according to the spirit, will die without virtues, which is the worst barrenness. For children do not help us at the time of judgment, but virtues help, for whose sake we are crowned; and for the soul to be sick with barrenness of these is most wretched; but to be adorned with the begetting of such children is blessedness. And this is to say with Isaiah: "From your face, O Lord, we have conceived, and as it were travailed and brought forth the spirit of salvation; we have not wrought righteousness on the earth." And you understand these things, and also what follows:

Verses 20–21. "Whoever lies with the wife of his father's brother or of his mother's brother, and uncovers the disgrace of his kinship, both shall bear their sin; they shall die without children. Whoever marries his brother's wife has done an unlawful thing; he has uncovered his brother's shame; they shall be without children."

The lawgiver shows, then, that nature is joined by the Creator in partnership above all for the sake of children, since he has now forbidden these things as abominable and unfitting. For it is truly unfitting and close to the life of beasts to be joined with the wives of brothers and kin, that is, of neighbours. And yet in another part of the law, that is, in the book of Deuteronomy, he not only commanded but even compelled it, saying: "When brothers dwell together, and one of them dies without children, the wife of the dead man shall not marry another, but his brother shall take her and raise up seed for his brother," and things like these. And when there is no brother, he commanded an uncle, or whoever was of the father's kin, to marry the woman of the man who died without children, as Boaz took Ruth according to the law of kinship. So he flees the intercourse of kin for the sake of lust and forbids that partnership; but when, again, it is necessary to relieve from tribulations or misfortunes, he commands and wills it; and he commanded marriage for men not in the pollution of corruption but for the succession of the race; that is why he also commanded that he who is joined in this way die without children; for he says, "they shall be without children," because, misusing it, he confounds the law of the begetting of children. What, then, is it to die without children? For it is most necessary to ask this in this law: whether he commanded that the children of those who married the wives of brothers and uncles be killed; and how then does he say, "Fathers shall not die for sons, nor sons for fathers"? But he by no means commanded them to be killed; he says that those men die childless, at least according to the edition of the Seventy interpreters, so that the succession of children may not be reckoned to them, nor may they leave their inheritance to their children. Symmachus too shows this, rendering more plainly, and Theodotion, who both rendered, in place of "they shall die childless," "they shall be childless." Hence it also has a spiritual interpretation and resolution like the earlier ones.

Verse 22. "Keep my laws and judgments, and do them, lest the land which you are about to enter and inhabit vomit you out too."

It is not enough for us to keep some part of the law, nor to carry out one or another commandment for the correction of life; we need to keep all the precepts and judgments which the lawgiver wrote at God's command. For he calls these precepts, or those about which he himself, in doubt, inquired of God and learned from his judgment, as in the case of the son of the Israelite woman who spoke blasphemy; for he names the laws given out in this way judgments. And by these he briefly signified this whole law, of which nothing ought to be transgressed, lest the transgressor be cast out, that is, thrown out. For this is to vomit out, which Symmachus, and likewise Theodotion, rendered "cast off." And vomited out from where? From the land, namely, into which God promised that we should be brought; and what this is, learn from what follows.

Verses 23–24. "Do not walk in the ordinances of the nations which I am about to drive out before you. For they did all these things, and I abhorred them. For I say to you: Possess their land, which I will give you for an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God, who separated you from the other peoples."

These things were said not only to the Jews, who believe that they are separated from all nations by circumcision and the law of Moses, but also to all who come to serve God; for it is above all not lawful for these to walk in the ordinances of the nations. And of the nations, or peoples, of which? "Which I am about to drive out," he says, "before you"; which the other interpreters rendered, "which I cast out from your face," and the Seventy, "from you," that is, the demons. For he drove these out from before the face of the faithful, who ruled over them formerly when they persisted in impiety, and not one ruling over one, but many over one. Mary Magdalene proves this, from whom he cast out seven demons, and he who was bound with chains; for he says to him, "My name is Legion, for we are many." These things, then, which the law forbade were committed by others, either acting by themselves or working in men; because of them God abhorred them and brought us into their inheritance, into a land flowing with milk and honey. He did not say "having," so that you should take what was said of this sensible land, but "flowing." And what is the land that flows with milk and honey? He means the delights of the age to come and the goods which God gives us after the resurrection of the dead; he called them milk and honey because nothing is sweeter or more pleasant than these among the foods we now use. And they are food without labour, needing no working or preparation; for there the goods of the age to come will be without any labour or pain, needing no effort, no preparation, no working. And who gives them to us here, the following words of the lawgiver plainly show: "I am the Lord your God, who separated you from the other peoples." Christ did this; for in the Gospels he distinguishes those who believe in him from all nations, not only spiritual but also sensible; for he says: "Do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or with what shall we be clothed? For the nations seek all these things." So he plainly wishes us to be separated from the nations, pursuing a loftier way of life.

Verses 25–26. "Separate, then, you too the clean beast from the unclean, the clean bird from the unclean. Do not defile your souls with cattle and birds and all that move on the earth, which I have shown you to be polluted. You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine."

That the law understands by the beasts, or cattle, the common people, and by the birds the contemplatives who devote themselves to the height of knowledge, was plainly shown by us, with the proofs from the Scriptures that were needed, when we spoke of the sacrifices and foods of four-footed animals and birds: that every common man is judged clean by most because of his simplicity, and likewise those who seem to give and devote themselves to divine knowledge. But this is not so: for the common man must be prudent in good, but in evil, as Paul says, simple. He who is such is clean; he who is not such is unclean. And he who devotes himself to contemplating divine things needs a clean heart and a clean conscience and unfeigned faith. Those who do not have these turn to vain talk, understanding neither what they say nor what they affirm, as is written to Timothy. Necessarily, then, he commanded the clean of both these and those to be separated from the unclean, so that we may abstain from the latter and mingle with the former. But the lawgiver shows his great wisdom now too, distinguishing thus among four-footed animals and birds, but not among the creeping things of the earth; for all that move on the earth are unclean: he who minds earthly things, whose god is his belly, who feeds on the poison of the pleasures set in the dust. Of these, as you see, he speaks without distinction, saying: "And all that move on the earth, which I have shown you to be polluted." … by actions, even if they feign the habit of the faithful, they have been separated as unclean and distinguished among unclean things, from whose evils he wishes us to abstain in every way; that is why he added: "You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy": I who became for you the form of a way of life, who so turned away from earthly things that I had nowhere to lay my head, who also commanded my disciples: "Do not possess gold or silver or brass in your belts, nor a bag for the road, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor a staff." So far does he take pains that they should mind or do nothing of the things that creep on the earth.

Verse 27. "A man or woman in whom there is a spirit of Python or of divination, let them die the death; they shall overwhelm them with stones. Their blood be upon them."

To be a pythonic or a diviner, or, as the Seventy have it, an enchanter, is very great wickedness; for such a one is both himself corrupted and without doubt corrupts others in his wickedness. Hence he commanded him to be overwhelmed with stones; because we do nothing sensible, but [utter] fables from the heart, like superfluous and vain words, or certain flatteries as it were enchanting, we devote ourselves to unfitting words of teaching so as to seduce the hearing of the common or simple, desiring to feed our bellies and to fulfil our other pleasures by such inquiries. For Paul, the vessel of election, writing to the Romans, plainly portrayed the spiritual pythonics and evil enchanters: "But we beseech you, brothers, to mark those who cause dissensions and stumbling-blocks contrary to the teaching which you have learned, and turn away from them." And who these are, he explained in what follows: "For such do not serve our Lord Christ but their own belly, and by sweet words and blessings deceive the hearts of the innocent." So the lawgiver said well of them, "Their blood be upon them," because they corrupt the people by force.