Commentary on Leviticus 6.22

Verses 1–3. "The Lord also spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and to his sons, that they beware of the things that are consecrated by the sons of Israel, and that they do not defile the name of the things sanctified to me, which they themselves offer. I am the Lord. Say to them and to their descendants: Every man of your stock who approaches the things that are consecrated, which the sons of Israel have offered to the Lord, while there is uncleanness in him, shall perish before the Lord. I am the Lord."

Whatever the dignity of the priesthood, this has been given to it as its lot: that it is a mediator between God and men. Through it our race is reconciled to the Creator; the binding and loosing of our sins lies in the tongue of the priests. Malachi shows how great the dignity of the priest is, and what ought to be expected of him: "For the lips of the priest," he says, "guard knowledge, and they seek the law from his mouth, because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts." For this reason, together with what he commanded about the priests earlier, he commanded this too: "Let them beware of the things that are consecrated by the sons of Israel, and not defile the name of the things sanctified to me, which they themselves offer." If they handle the people's offerings abominably, disorderly, and without any reverence, and the things that are offered as sanctified in whatever way, they defile "the name of the things sanctified," or, according to the Seventy, "the holy name" of God: first God himself, since they will make people blaspheme the one who chose such men; then they force the people to stumble over holy things and to think that the service of God, and justice, and judgment are superfluous. How angry God is if the priest, or his sons, that is, his disciples, sin in holy things, is shown by what happened to Eli and his sons. For this reason he added: "I am the Lord. Say to them." I am the Lord, that is, who will be angry and will punish.

What did he say? "Say to them and to their descendants: Every man of your stock who approaches the things that are consecrated, which the sons of Israel have offered to the Lord, while there is uncleanness in him, shall perish before the Lord. I am the Lord." First, by mentioning the priestly seed he showed plainly that he commands not only the priest but every minister of the holy things, even one who holds the last and lowest place among them, to keep the present ordinance. By saying "of your stock" he showed that this precept must always be kept: that one who has uncleanness of soul in himself (for so the Seventy give it) must not only abstain from the ministry and the mystical office, but must not even touch the things that have been offered, nor take any of them; for one who is clean must approach clean things. If anyone does not approach in this way, "he shall perish before the Lord," and God always turns away from him and drives him from all participation and communion of the Spirit. This turning away is properly what is meant here by what the Seventy call "perishing before the Lord," as David testifies when he says: "Do not turn your face away from me, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me." In these is the true perdition of the soul, or "I will destroy it," that is, the perdition of which the Lord spoke in the Gospels: "Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." So it was not without purpose that he added, "I am the Lord," but to show that he who says these things is the one who alone can destroy the soul.

Verses 4–8. "A man of the seed of Aaron who is a leper or suffers a flow of seed shall not eat of the things that are sanctified to me until he is healed. Whoever touches what is unclean over a dead body, and one from whom seed goes out as in intercourse, and one who touches a creeping thing or anything unclean whose touch is defiling, shall be unclean until evening, and shall not eat of the things that are sanctified; but when he has washed his flesh with water and the sun has set, then, being cleansed, he shall eat of the sanctified things, because it is his food. What has died of itself and what has been taken by a beast they shall not eat, nor be defiled by them. I am the Lord."

What the leper signifies, what the one who suffers a flow of seed represents, and also who suffers a flow of seed in sleep and defiles the one on whom it flows, and who it is that is defiled by touching an unclean creeping thing: all this has been told us earlier, in order, in the passages concerning these things. But the intention of the present law is truly admirable and worthy of all care on the part of the faithful. For it forbids the defiled to eat the holy things until they are cleansed … Therefore, having listed here the one who is defiled by any one of these things, he said that he is unclean until evening, saying: "He shall not eat of the things that are sanctified; but when he has washed his flesh with water and the sun has set." By evening and sunset he means repentance, and by the water with which he washes it, tears, of which David said: "Every night I will wash my bed; with tears I will drench my couch." The same David signified to us that evening is repentance, and the joy that comes from it: "Weeping will linger until evening, and joy in the morning." When, therefore, someone has been washed by the tears of repentance, then he shall eat the holy things, because his bread is the one of which the Lord said in the Gospels: "And the bread that I will give is my flesh." Mentioning this bread now, and distinguishing those who ought to eat of it, he added: "What has died of itself and what has been taken by a beast they shall not eat, nor be defiled by them. I am the Lord," so that when you hear "I am the Lord," you may understand that it is he who says: "I am the bread that came down from heaven." By forbidding what has died of itself and what has been taken by beasts he commanded that one must not share in the table of the Lord and the table of demons; for in these are truly things dead of themselves and things taken by beasts. For since the bread just mentioned is at once holy and the nourisher of our intelligible substance, he commanded that the defiled should not receive it, and again he does not want the cleansed to be kept from it. Paul too plainly commanded both: "For whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." Here is the defiled and unclean man. For you understand that this one, who eats in an altogether unworthy manner, is forbidden participation in the holy things. What did he add to this? "But let a man examine himself, and so eat of that bread and drink of the cup." One who examines himself, if he is conscious of sin and feels that he has defilement of mind, repents without doubt; and after repentance he can eat of the bread and drink again of the holy and undefiled cup.

What we have often said about this ordinance must be said now too, for it profits the hearers: the lawgiver does not abhor those who are lepers and who suffer a flow of seed in the bodily sense (for they endure this affliction not willingly but against their will), but those who have a leprous soul, or one that suffers a flow of seed. For this reason, having said, "The leper and the one who suffers a flow of seed shall not eat until he is healed," he added, interpreting how this ought to be understood: "Whoever touches what is unclean over a dead body," or, according to the Seventy, "any uncleanness of soul." The uncleannesses of the soul are sins, some of which are of the leper, some of those who suffer a flow of seed, as we have shown in what concerns the lepers … And again he says: "And one from whom seed goes out as in intercourse, and one who touches a creeping thing or anything unclean whose touch is defiling." To make the meaning of this also clear to you, he added next, according to the Seventy: "Or over a man by whom he has defiled him, according to all his uncleanness." … But so that you may take in an intelligible sense what he set out according to the letter because of the hardness of the Jews, he adds here the things from which he gives you the meaning of the contemplative spirit. It is above all useful and helpful for you to understand this about this commandment of the law: he wants not only the priests but all who minister not to presume to receive the holy things without fear, and to look to the distinction handed down by the law, which commands the penitent to approach the holy things but forbids it before repentance. Those who are of the seed of Aaron the priest you will understand without any doubt (since you have learned that Christ is our priest and that Aaron bears his figure) to be those who have the adoption of baptism; and they are rightly called his seed and kin, and of his blood, so to speak, because of their union with him. Hence, because of their kinship with him, they are called "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation." To them, then, he says what follows as well:

Verse 9. "They shall keep my precepts, so that they do not incur sin and die in the sanctuary when they have defiled it. I am the Lord who sanctifies them." So the precepts of the Lord, that is, the law, which require strict keeping and unswerving obedience, become a cause of sanctification, justification, and salvation to those who fulfil them, and likewise of sin and death to those who transgress them. This holds in every law and in every commandment, but much more in the receiving of the holy things. Whoever approaches them otherwise than he ought takes judgment and death upon himself. For Paul too wrote to the Corinthians about such people: "For whoever eats and drinks eats and drinks judgment on himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. That is why many among you are sick and weak, and many sleep," that is, die. In accordance with this word, then, the lawgiver ordained: "They shall keep my precepts, so that they do not incur sin and die through them." And what is the cause that brings death? "When they have defiled it." For it is an insult and a defilement of the sanctuary for someone filthy to approach clean things. Hence, when he had called certain people from the roads and hedges to the wedding spoken of in the gospel parable, and found one reclining at the wedding supper clothed in a filthy garment, he threw him out and commanded that he be cast into the darkness. The others were also sinners who were invited, and for that reason they were said to be gathered from the roads and hedges; but they were first changed, and stripped themselves of sin by repentance, and then they ate of the supper. This man, still clothed in the filthy garment of sin, not stripped of it and not changed, presumed to enter the holy and clean place. Very fitting to the occasion, then, is what is added to the law here: "I am the Lord who sanctifies them," that is, who sanctifies only sinners who have been changed, in the communion of the holy things I receive; but I turn away from them when they remain defiled and wicked.

Verse 10. "No foreigner shall eat of the sanctified things. The sojourner of the priest and the hired servant shall not eat of them."

This commandment is necessary, lest we perhaps think that the spiritual table should be set before all the unbelieving and ungodly, or suppose that, because the Lord's mystery is called the bread of life, those who are still strangers to the faith must also receive it. Foreigners, then, are all who do not accept the law of God and do not become partakers of the grace of the gospel. These can understand nothing about it that is near to kinship with God or akin to the knowledge of him; hence they are rightly called foreigners, as those who are led astray by demons and embrace kinship with them, for these are strangers to us and to God. Of them David sang: "Rescue me and deliver me from the hand of foreign sons, whose mouth has spoken vanity." Those who speak vanity are above all the sons of the pagans, who have earthly, unspiritual, and devilish wisdom, as James says. With these we also call a foreigner the one who understands about it things foreign to the dignity of the mystery: who approaches the divine food as he would common food, and looks on divine and heavenly things in a fleshly way. Rightly, then, such a one also is kept from them. The sojourner of the priest is one who does not enter his court purely and does not show him fitting reverence or care. For as a sojourner looks only to his own advantage and expects each day to move out, and it is no concern of his if some plunder or take away the property of the house, so are those who minister in the divine court for their own advantage, perhaps for the sake of glory, or the gain of money, or something else of the kind, and who take no care that no one corrupts its order, that no one uses the divine courts badly and wickedly. We say the same of the hired servant, of whom the Lord says: "The hired man, who is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep, and the wolf scatters them, because he is a hired man and cares nothing for the sheep." These he rightly forbids to receive the holy things, for those who act either carelessly or for some advantage are not worthy to partake of them.

[Verse 11.] … "and whoever is born in his house, these shall eat of them."

Since he forbade foreigners, that is, the ungodly and unbelieving, to partake of divine things, he shows that if these too are changed from error and come to Christ, he permits them the holy things. For no one is a foreigner by nature; some have taken estrangement from God upon themselves by their will. As many of these, then, as the intelligible priest possesses as bought, that is, as many as he bought through the teaching and grace of the gospel (for this is the Lord's purchase price, and it is silver: "silver tried by fire, purified of earth"), these he redeemed, those who wish to serve him. "You were bought with no other price," as Peter said; "do not become slaves of men." And also those born in his house, that is, those who have been nourished in his faith and brought up in the intelligible house, namely the church of Christ, through the faith of their parents: these shall eat of his mystical and life-giving loaves.

Verses 12–13. "If the daughter of a priest is married to anyone of the people, she shall not eat of the things that are sanctified from the firstfruits. But if as a widow or one divorced, without children, she has returned to her father's house, she shall be fed with her father's food as she was accustomed as a girl. No foreigner has the right to eat of them."

Where our translation has, "If the daughter of a priest is married to anyone of the people," the Seventy give: "And if the daughter of a priest is married to a foreign man." It is not enough for us to be nourished in the faith of Christ; we must also remain and grow in it, and not mingle with any of the foreigners, that is, with a doctrine foreign to God, or another law or way of acting. Nor, because we are of faithful fathers, should we for that reason presume on the holy things, unless we persevere as faithful. Therefore the daughter of the intelligible priest, that is, every soul reborn by him through baptism, if she is joined to a foreign man, one who belongs to the foreigners, for example Jews, pagans, or heretics, acting like them and embracing their company, shall not eat of the firstfruits of the sanctified things, that is, of the mystical body. But if one who became the priest's daughter through the regeneration just mentioned has been joined to a foreigner, acting as a heretic, or as a Jew or a pagan, and has become a widow or been divorced, leaving the error completely and in a manner burying it, and freeing herself from the wicked union, and has returned to her father's house, that is, the church, as in her youth, in which she was fervent when she was nourished with the sacred doctrines of the faith, growing young again in virtues and called a maiden by those of whom the Spirit of God spoke to Christ in the Song: "Your name is ointment poured out; therefore the maidens have loved you," then she may eat of the loaves of her father, that is, of Christ. For if each of us has the church for mother and Christ for father, everyone is a foreigner who acts in a way foreign to Christ and his laws and glory. For his law is: "You shall not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine."

Verses 14–16. "Whoever eats of the sanctified things through ignorance shall add a fifth part to what he ate and give it to the priest for the sanctuary; and they shall not defile the sanctified things of the sons of Israel which they offer to the Lord, lest they bear the iniquity of their trespass when they eat the sanctified things. I am the Lord who sanctifies them."

The holy of holies are properly the mysteries of Christ, because it is his body, of which Gabriel said to the virgin: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore what will be born of you will be called holy, the Son of God." Isaiah too: "Holy is the Lord, and he dwells on high," that is, in the bosom of the Father. From this sacrifice he forbade not only foreigners and sojourners and hired servants, but he also commanded that it not be received through ignorance. One receives it through ignorance who does not know its power and dignity, who does not know that this is in truth body and blood, but receives the mysteries without knowing the power of the mysteries. To him Solomon speaks, or rather the Spirit who is in him: "When you sit to eat with a ruler, consider carefully what is set before you." He too plainly urges and compels the one who does not know to add a fifth part; for this fifth, when added, makes us understand divine and mystical things in an intelligible way. What the fifth is, the very words of the lawgiver can teach you, for he says: "He shall add a fifth part to what he ate." But how can anyone add a fifth of what he has already eaten and consumed? For it is not something else, or from somewhere else; he orders the fifth to be added from it and with it, or, as the Seventy have, "upon it." So its fifth "upon it" is the word spoken by Christ himself over the Lord's mystery. For this word, when added, frees us from ignorance and keeps us from thinking anything fleshly or earthly about the mysteries, and makes them to be received divinely and spiritually. It is properly called a fifth, because the divine Spirit who is in us, and the word that he has handed down, order the senses that are in us, and lead not only our taste to the mystery but also hearing, sight, touch, and smell, so that we suspect nothing in them that is near to a lesser reason and a weak mind, since they are exceedingly heavenly. Whoever, then, eats the sanctified things through ignorance, not knowing their power, as we have said, "shall add its fifth upon it and give it to the priest for the sanctuary." For the sanctification of the mystical sacrifice, its passage from things perceived by the senses to things perceived by the mind, or its change, must be given to the one who is the true priest, namely Christ; that is, the wonder of it must be yielded and ascribed to him, because the things that are seen are sanctified in a way that goes beyond every sense of the flesh. Rightly, then, he added: "And they shall not defile the sanctified things of the sons of Israel which they offer to the Lord, lest they bear the iniquity of their trespass when they eat the sanctified things." Those who ascribe to Christ the sanctification of his mysteries, and add to themselves the fifth that has been spoken, namely his word, which leads our senses to higher things, do not defile the holy of holies, since they understand them as one ought; nor do they bring on themselves the iniquity of trespass in eating the holy of holies. For they approach not as to common food but as to food that is mystical, awesome, and heavenly; and those who approach it rashly do not simply sin, but are said to bear the iniquity of their trespass. The lawgiver properly calls "trespass" a sin committed against God, and we have shown earlier what pertains to this in the sacrifices offered for trespasses. Hence now too, having said, "lest they bear the iniquity of their trespass," he rightly added: "I am the Lord who sanctifies them," showing that the unfitting receiving of the holy things is called a trespass, that is, impiety against God. For it reaches to God, who sanctifies those who take them in the way they ought, and who set forth his mystery for sanctification, not for defilement. One must greatly admire the lawgiver, because he has everywhere used precision. Signifying the Lord's service, at least according to the translation of the Seventy, he called it "the holy things of the holy things," because it is the sacrifice of the Holy of holies. By adding "Israel" he signified the faithful people, that is, the one who sees God through this mystical sacrifice, and for that reason is properly called Israel. Whatever these consecrate to the Lord, that is, what they bring of their own to the Lord when they offer the sacrifice, becomes the holy of holies; for from them the body of Christ is made, who, since he is the firstfruits of our lump, rightly consists of our firstfruits.

Verses 17–21. "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and to his sons and to all the sons of Israel, and say to them: A man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who live among you, who offers his offering, either paying vows or offering freely, whatever he offers as a burnt offering of the Lord, to be offered through you, shall be a male without blemish from the cattle, from the sheep, and from the goats. If it has a blemish you shall not offer it, nor will it be acceptable. A man who offers a victim of peace offerings to the Lord, either paying vows or offering freely, whether from the cattle or from the sheep, shall offer one without blemish, so that it may be acceptable. There shall be no blemish in it."

He commanded that not only the priests be clean from defilement, but also the offerings that are offered by the people, so that you who are faithful to God, and have become an offering to him by the burnt offering of intelligible sacrifice, may know that your way of life must be clean of all defilement, and may strive to be undefiled as the priests are; for Christ too, who commanded the apostles to act, commanded them to hand on all these things to the nations they taught. For he says: "Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep whatever I have commanded you." So whether someone has promised God a burnt offering by confession or by his whole condition, namely a perfect life, which is the true burnt offering, his offering must be clean of defilement; otherwise it is not accepted. One offers "by confession," as the Seventy say, who, being in some need and pressed by it, promises God some way of life by a vow. According to the edition of the translators just mentioned, we find "by choice" where we say "freely." For he sets forth this offering of both kinds, both the one made out of need and the one made freely, saying: "I will pay you my vows, which my lips distinguished and my mouth spoke in my trouble." And again: "Make the freewill offerings of my mouth well pleasing, O Lord." Of these the first, without any doubt, we understand as the vow, or confession, mentioned above; the choice, or the free offering, as what is said in the second place. Whether the one who offers the burnt offering is a doer of the commandment (for he is the one who offers from the herd), or simple (for he is the one from the sheep), or one of the sinners (for he is the one from the goats), what he offers must be male; that is, he must offer, or be offered, with a manly, strong, and steady mind, and with a strong and unshaken faith, so that the one who offers is such as the man of whom Solomon spoke in the Proverbs: "It is hard work to find a faithful man." The same holds if someone offers a sacrifice of peace offerings, that is, not the life that is perfect in philosophy, such as the life of possessing nothing or of virginity, of which the Lord said, "Not all receive it," but the middle life, which secures our salvation in every way even if it does not reach those things that stretch to the measure of the prophets and apostles. "For star differs from star in glory," as Paul said. But here too one must offer a male without blemish. Let the sons of Israel and the strangers, namely those who have now come to the faith and been added to us from the error outside, keep this in the same way. From the time someone has promised God a perfect and complete life, he can no longer plead that he spent a long time in error, because virtue does not need time to be learned; as soon as we have desired it, we learn how to use it.

Yet if you offer God a sheep in the bodily sense, or an ox, or a goat, or anything of the kind, for example so that firstfruits may be given to the priests, or the poor fed from it, or some service done for the saints, or the building of a divine temple, or any other work that pertains to God himself (and for that reason it is called a burnt offering), let this offering too be free of defilement. What this defilement is the law did not say, leaving us to understand it. It is, in truth, to offer from robbery and injustice or some other greed, and to beware of this; for it is abominable to God and not acceptable to him, so that through the prophet he sharply rebuked the Jews for this: "You who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity." In this way both the letter and the spirit of this ordinance are preserved. You have heard us explain once already that when the law says, "A man, a man," one must look at the letter of the commandment with consideration of the spirit.

Verses 22–25. "If it is blind, if broken, if it has a scar, if a wart or scab or tetter, you shall not offer them to the Lord, nor burn any of them on the altar of the Lord. An ox and a sheep with the ear and tail cut off may be offered freely; a vow cannot be paid with them. Every animal whose testicles are bruised, or crushed, or cut and removed, you shall not offer to the Lord, and in your land you shall not do this at all. From the hand of a foreigner you shall not offer loaves to the Lord your God, or anything else they wish to give, because all are corrupt and blemished; you shall not accept them."

The lawgiver seems to hint at something else here, worthy of much consideration. His discourse is not about the things offered to the altar; rather, they are those who are allotted the mystical office of the holy things. By the earlier ordinance, then, he commanded that the people's offering be clean from defilement, which is understood as very necessary in each one's way of life. Now he enumerates those who ought not to be offered to the altar, and first among them he names the blind. For one who is ignorant of God, how will he minister to God, when he neither knows himself the dignity of the one to whose ministry he is called nor is able to explain it to others? Hence he will also be careless about them, not knowing the power of the divine things he ministers. Such were some of the Jews, of whom God said in Isaiah: "See, they have all been ignorant, all dumb dogs, unable to bark." In the second place he put the broken or crushed; for one whose hands and feet, that is, his actions and his paths toward God, are broken or crushed is not worthy to minister at the altar either. To him applies what the Psalmist says: "Destruction and misery are in their ways." Nor is one who has his tongue cut, as the Seventy have it, that is, one who through a filthy life has lost the confidence to teach; to him David says: "But to the sinner God said: Why do you recount my righteous acts?" Likewise, according to the Seventy, "the one with ant-sores." By this he means one who is busy with earthly and worldly works, who devotes himself to this thought, that is, to eat and drink, who thinks of other such things and lays up treasure; for this is the life of the ants, always to gather for themselves what belongs to the belly. Solomon too says in the Proverbs: "Go to the ant, O sluggard, and consider her ways." Since he was urging the sluggard to work, he sent him to the ant as to a worker, not so that he might do such work as the ant does, but so that he might imitate the ant and transfer the work to greater things, that is, to the practice of the virtues. Hence the Seventy have: "and become wiser than she." So a man, when he applies himself to divine things, becomes wiser than one who works at earthly things. The one who has a wart or scab is understood as the slanderer, because his disease is the worst and his wound the harshest, for it cannot easily be soothed by any remedy. The one who has tetter is the sexually immoral man, for he stains his own body; this is why Paul said: "But he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body." The Spirit of the lawgiver, then, wants none of these to be appointed to the ministry of the altar. For this reason he says: "You shall not offer them to the Lord, nor burn any of them on the altar of the Lord," or, according to the Seventy: "They shall not offer these to the Lord, and none of them shall be given upon the altar to the Lord." He does not add the sacrifice of peace offerings as he did above, so that you may understand by all means that this is said of those who minister the mysteries; these too must be a burnt offering, leading a perfect and complete life.

What did he add to these? "An ox and a sheep with the ear and tail cut off may be offered freely; but a vow cannot be paid with them. Every animal whose testicles are bruised, or crushed, or cut and removed, you shall not offer to the Lord." The lawgiver used great discipline, as befitted him, in distinguishing this discourse, and it must also be kept in what preceded. The one who has his ear cut off is the one who is sick with the disease of disobedience, who rejoices in slanders, who delights in shameful things to hear, who turns away from good words. The one who has his tail cut off is the one who gives thought to the last things, for the tail is the extreme part of the body. Those, then, properly have the tail cut off who weigh the last things as worthless, base, and very small, who lay up no treasure for themselves in the ages to come, who do not provide for the future, who say: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." One with bruised testicles is the one who, as wickedness gradually grows, crushes his offspring in the virtues and the marks by which a man can be recognized. He is rightly reproached, because he has harmed himself in such things; of him David said: "While all my bones are broken, those who afflict me have reproached me." One with crushed testicles is the one who has given way to the temptations and tribulations brought on him and has lost the strength of his soul; for one ought not to suffer this, nor give way at all to the enemy who threatens and afflicts. Hence David says: "Why do I go about sad, while the enemy afflicts me?" I ought, he says, to rejoice and exult, as one who is called to a contest in which I shall be the victor; and he added the manner of the victory: "Hope in the Lord, for I will confess him, the salvation of my countenance and my God." One with testicles cut and removed is the one who by a single wicked act and by impiety of mind, cutting like a knife and taking away like a very fierce and plundering hand, cuts and takes himself away from the union with God that is in the virtues, and, as we have said, is deprived of offspring and of the marks of a man's recognition, a loss to which he subjected himself. For one is gradually crushed, and another suddenly deprives himself of the offspring of the virtues by a single evil act, as Simon, thinking to buy the gift of God with money, became a stranger to its lot.

But someone who has one of these blemishes, either those just named or those we listed earlier, is either a doer of the commandments, and therefore a calf, or simple, and from this called a sheep; and according to what the Seventy give in place of what our translation has, "it may be offered freely," "you shall slaughter them for yourself": so that we do not turn away from them in every way, nor count them among the enemy, but teach and exhort them: "Does not one who falls rise again, or one who has turned away not return?" They are said to be slaughtered when they are put to death to sin by admonition, so that they may live to righteousness. We may mingle with these slaughtered ones, but let us not offer them to God for a vow, that is, let us not ordain them to his mystical ministry. So those who have any of the blemishes just mentioned, if they have repented of them and have been slaughtered by the putting to death of their sin, let us receive them and hold them as a member of the common body, because Christ came into this world to save sinners; but it is not permitted for them to be offered to the altar. Paul too, I think, used this distinction when he wrote to the Corinthians: "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with the sexually immoral, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy, or robbers, or idolaters, since then you would have had to go out of this world. But now I have written to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother if he is sexually immoral, or an idolater, or greedy, a slanderer, or a drunkard, or a robber; not even to eat with such a one." Calling them brothers there, he means those who minister at the altar, and above all those who have been allotted the dignity of teaching and who have been entrusted with presiding over the peoples. If these have anything of this kind, one must in every way turn away from their company, because those who preside must abound in virtues beyond the people and must themselves above all be without blemish. For how else can they cleanse others from defilements? Of these the lawgiver commanded here: "And in your land you shall not do this at all, and from the hand of a foreigner you shall not offer loaves to the Lord your God, or anything else they wish to give, because all are corrupt and blemished; you shall not accept them." Let us, then, give no encouragement in our land to any of such blemishes. Our land is the good way of life commanded through the divine Scriptures, which we have received from God to cultivate. Nor let us be go-betweens for a foreigner, that is, one who has been taught and added from outside, when he offers such gifts to God; for there is corruption in them, but we serve an incorruptible God; they have a blemish, but we minister in the church, to whom it was said by the bridegroom: "You are all fair, my neighbour, and there is no blemish in you," of whom Paul said: "That he might present to himself a glorious church, having no blemish or wrinkle or anything of the kind." For this reason nothing that has a blemish will be offered by us to God.

Verses 26–28. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: An ox, a sheep, and a goat, when they are born, shall be seven days under the udder of their mother; but on the eighth day and after, they may be offered to the Lord. Whether ox or sheep, they shall not be sacrificed on one day with their young."

The mother of every living creature is, of course, nature. Under her the whole race of men, sinners and righteous, is for seven days, but from the eighth no longer. For even if one is a doer of the commandments, or simple, or a sinner, or one coming from sinners, for seven days, that is, the whole present age, he must bear whatever nature requires; as Paul ventured to say of the Saviour too, showing that, having become of our nature according to the flesh, without sin, he suffered all the things that belonged to nature: "Since the children share in blood and flesh, he likewise partook of the same." But when we have departed from the present life and have been set in the good day of the resurrection of the dead, from then on, through the whole age to come, we shall no longer be under the mother just mentioned, for we shall not be subject to natural necessities there. "But on the eighth day they may be offered," which the Seventy give thus: "they shall be gifts, victims to the Lord," that is, perfect and whole, those who in this life have prepared their offering. One must know that, because our life is changeable and undergoes many changes and wills, the offering is accepted on the eighth day, that is, in the age to come; for this reason Solomon said: "Do not praise any man before his death." Since this is so, let us understand the mother again as the church and the grace that is in her, of which Solomon says in the Proverbs: "Hear, my son, the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the laws of your mother." When, therefore, someone has been begotten by the waters of the grace of the gospel, as Paul says: "For in Christ Jesus I begot you through the gospel," he will be under the intelligible mother, the church, or grace, for seven days, namely the whole present life, which revolves in seven days, obedient to her laws and ordinances. For thus on the eighth day, in the time of the resurrection, he will be a gift and a victim to the Lord, because he has received not only the souls but also the bodies of such people as a holy and pleasing sacrifice.

Learn too, for the sake of what follows: "Whether ox or sheep, they shall not be sacrificed on one day with their young." Here by the very names he again shows something else. Those who celebrate the gospel Pascha, which the church has handed down to us, must not perform the Pascha of the law, which the lawgiver signifies by saying "ox and sheep"; for Moses commanded that these be sacrificed on the day of the Pascha that was handed down to the Jews, for he says: "And you shall sacrifice the Pascha to the Lord your God, sheep and oxen," as the book of Deuteronomy can show. The young of these are of this Pascha, or of the Old Testament and of the tradition that is in figures; for he called it "its young." The Lord's Pascha, then, because of the newness of the time, and because the figure went before for the confirmation of the truth, signifying it for a long time like a woman in labour, is rightly said to give birth. These words, then, show that we, who hold in our hands and accomplish the true mystery, must not follow the figures; for it is not of the same time, but he who ordained both commanded that one belongs to the figure and the other to the truth. For this reason Christ too first celebrated the Pascha of the figures, but after the supper he handed down the intelligible one; and since the time pressed upon it, he changed the hour in place of the day, or rather the day too. For the supper of the Jewish paschal festival is celebrated at the evening of the fourteenth day; after this Christ handed down his own supper; so he handed it down after the evening of the fourteenth day. The time after evening is in every way the beginning of another day; for this had to happen to show the time, because when the Old ends, then the New begins. Or perhaps the law signifies that young of which Isaiah said: "A child is born to us, a son is given to us." For what follows there is said of Christ. This young, then, or according to the Seventy "son," was not killed on the same day on which the calf and the sheep of the Jewish festival were killed. For they celebrated the Pascha on the fourteenth day, and on the next day they crucified Jesus.

Verses 29–33. "If you sacrifice a victim for thanksgiving to the Lord so that it may be acceptable, you shall eat it on the same day; nothing shall remain until the morning of the next day. I am the Lord. Keep my commandments and do them. I am the Lord. Do not defile my holy name, that I may be sanctified in the midst of the sons of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you, and who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might be your God. I am the Lord."

… has no excuse if, when the New Testament has begun, someone serves the old things, and while the gospel preaching is running its course, [lives] according to the letter … For it is an insult to the one who ordained both if we do not obey him in the times he has distinguished. So too there is no pardon for anyone who supposes, or even thinks at all, that some of the things that are now commanded us to do are kept to be done in the time to come. "If, then, you sacrifice a victim for thanksgiving to the Lord," promising him the gospel way of life (for this is the victim of thanksgiving to the Lord, because it accomplishes whatever pertains to his praise and glory, as the Lord shows the apostles when he says: "Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven"), it is sacrificed to the Lord "so that it may be acceptable," which the Seventy give: "you shall sacrifice it as acceptable to you." That is, let us conduct the way of life just mentioned so as to be received worthily, completing it and not leaving it diminished; for this reason he added: "You shall eat it on the same day; nothing shall remain until the morning of the next day." For in this time in which we promise the sacrifice just spoken of we must eat it, that is, work it and complete it, and leave nothing of it until morning, so that no remnant of our way of life is left uncorrected, and we do not keep anything of the virtues unconsumed and unworked for the age to come, when it is no longer permitted to work. This is rightly called morning, because the present life is called night on account of the cloud that is now in it. "I am the Lord. Keep my commandments and do them. I am the Lord," who here establish the law but there judge; who gave my servants intelligible talents to work with in the present age, and in the age to come settle accounts with them and demand the working of the talents. "I am the Lord. Do not defile my holy name." For it would be a defilement and a blasphemy of the Creator if he were to raise us in the same order or condition in which we now are. For what change would there be from this world if we are to be in the same pains and labours? "That I may be sanctified in the midst of the sons of Israel." He did not say "I am sanctified," but "that I may be sanctified," showing the future time in which he is sanctified in the midst of the men who are sons of Israel. "For not all who are of Israel are Israel," but those who keep kinship with Israel by sharing in his virtues; who keep peace, as Paul says, and holiness, without which no one will see God. Those who keep them will see him; for this reason he says: "that I may be sanctified in their midst." "I am the Lord who sanctifies you, and brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might be your God." … Not without reason did he mention the exodus from Egypt, showing this too: that as those who had gone out of Egypt no longer did what the Egyptians did, so too when God brings us out of the present life we can no longer do the things that are in it. For the intelligible Egypt is the present world, because Egypt is interpreted "darkening." The present things are filled with darkness, and, as we have said, with cloud or gloom, so much so that John said of the Lord: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it." For this reason the Lord God brings us out of this intelligible Egypt, that he may be our God: not because he is not so now, but because not all of us confess or know him. But then we shall confess him, then we shall all be subjected, then God will be all in all, as Paul wrote.