Commentary on Leviticus

To the venerable deacon Eutychianus, Hesychius, a sinner, servant of Christ, presbyter: greeting in Christ.

You have offered the Spirit a reed in place of a trumpet, and you have bidden a hoe, which can scarcely turn sand, to dig up rich and deep soil that needs many ploughs for its tilling. Why so? If any of those who are used to asking such things should ask you, perhaps you yourself will be silent, since the inquiry is very difficult and obscure. But you will produce your teacher Paul, who explains for you what you were asked: "That the excellence of the power may be of God and not from us." And what this means he himself explains again more plainly: "And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in the teaching … of men, but in the power of God." How, or where, this power is, and with whom it dwells, God's goodness itself shows when it said to Paul, who was asking that the thorn of his flesh be taken away and that the angel of Satan who buffeted him depart from him: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

Believing this, then, you have commanded me to do what others have not done: to interpret in order the intention of the book of Leviticus according to the Spirit, and to defend the letter, which lies open to many accusations from adversaries, by leading it up to a higher understanding. And I am to do this not as certain people once did, picking out a few chapters here and there, but discussing everything in order to the end. How difficult that is, learn from this one very small chapter, small in comparison with the whole content of the said book, which is full of such variety.

Of one who offers a sacrifice of peace offerings, or of salvation, he says: if he offers it for thanksgiving, "it shall be eaten on the day on which he offered it; none of it shall remain until morning. But if anyone offers a victim for a vow or freely, it shall likewise be eaten on the same day on which he offered it, and also on the following day." Since, then, the sacrifices are evidently of the same kind (for both are of peace offerings, or of salvation), he commanded that of the one, because it is of thanksgiving or praise, nothing be left until morning, but that the freewill one be eaten also on the morrow. Yet if it was bad to keep part of a sacrifice until the morrow, this ought not to have been allowed for either of them; and if it was good, it ought to have been ordained for both. And throughout, so to speak, the whole fabric of this law you will find that the lawgiver acted in this way through the Spirit: commanding what he had forbidden, and again forbidding what he had formerly commanded. This both reproves too strict an observance of the letter and shows that a consideration of the spiritual understanding is necessary. It also defends the gospel preaching, which forbids some of the things that seem to be read in the law to be understood or done according to the letter; and it shows that the lawgiver of the new and of the old testament is one and the same, since by his authority or power he now commands and now forbids what he wills. Yet he commands nothing contrary to himself, even if he admits what he formerly forbade and forbids what was once commanded. And there is also a most holy agreement in it, as he knows who is able to understand its intention and to perceive to what end its statutes look.

But since you have asked, with all patience and entreaty, that a word on these things be given me in the opening of my mouth, pray, as Paul did when praying for the church of the Ephesians, that the offering of my word may be acceptable, not only in Jerusalem but also in every land to which, by God's favour, it is carried, so that Christ may be glorified, who chose the foolish things of the world, and the weak, and the ignoble, and the things that are not: just as he has chosen me, who am destitute of all … and a stranger to wisdom, unfit, and not worthy to be called even a useless servant …, so that the things impossible with men may be seen to be possible with God, when unskilled men serve his wisdom.

What the subject of this book is, of which we are speaking here, one should ask of the writer himself. Wishing to instruct his readers briefly on the matters he meant to ordain, he named it, as we see, Leviticus, finding a name that would at one and the same time make plain the whole subject of the book. For the tribe of Levi was allotted the ministry of the holy tabernacle, in which sacrifices, the first fruits of the crops, and the offerings of the firstborn had to be offered and celebrated according to the law, and in which also whatever purifications the law prescribes for those made unclean from any cause had to be performed. These things the present book contains, and others of this kind joined to instruction. Whether you speak of the feasts, or of the distinctions among foods (which of them are clean and which must be called unclean), or of the prohibition of unlawful marriages, or of sacrifices that have a blemish, or of the sanctification of the altar: these too pertain to the Levites, as does whatever else is written in the present law. But so that we do not needlessly count up each item, let us make a beginning.

Above all, the word solemnly charges those who are going to read these things that the interpretation must be drawn up to anagogy, the hearing carried from lowly things to loftier ones, and the spiritual understanding searched out in the letter. Nor does this contradict the law; rather it all the more defends and confirms the law, since we have undertaken not to fight against it but rather to fight for it against those who resist it. This is plain from the fact that the law's enemies above all accuse it of being in many things of no help and useless; but we show its very great usefulness through the anagogy of things perceived by the mind. Let no one, then, whether one of ours or an outsider, presume to find fault with anagogical interpretations, with the consideration of meanings, or with the explanation of the letter. For our side has clear and varied testimonies to such exposition: for example, the parables of Christ, in which, explaining the field as the world, the farmer as himself, the good seed as the righteous, the weeds as the wicked, the reapers as angels, and the enemy who sowed weeds over the wheat as the devil, he gave each of these things its name. What incongruity is there, then, if someone now, expounding the business of the law, says that the ox is the man who works righteousness, the sheep the simple and innocent, the dove or the turtledove those who live more loftily and give themselves to contemplation?

Nor can the Jew contradict such an interpretation of the law. Did not the prophet Ezekiel call Jerusalem a lioness, and her cub Jehoahaz, who was led into Egypt, and another cub Jehoiachin, whom Nebuchadnezzar brought to Babylon in chains, or, as the Seventy rendered it, in a cage? And what is meant by the eagle with great wings? What by the ornaments, the hyacinth and the fine linen with which God, as this same prophet says, clothed Jerusalem? What by the brick on which he drew the city? What by the iron pan? What by the bread of wheat and barley and beans, lentils, millet and vetch which he ate at God's command? And that not only what is said in parables but also what happened according to history must be led by allegory to a loftier understanding, Paul says openly and without delay, writing to the Galatians: "Tell me, you who wish to be under the law, have you not read the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one from the slave woman, the other from the free woman. But the one from the slave woman was born according to the flesh, and the one from the free woman through the promise; which things are spoken by allegory." And saying this, he at once sets out the allegory, for he says: "These are two testaments, one from Mount Sinai, bearing children into slavery, which is Hagar," and the rest that follows.

But now these things too must be drawn to allegory in the same way as the rest of the Scriptures; and yet not in the way that those Scriptures, though they have great force in themselves, nonetheless receive greater usefulness through contemplative interpretation, is it so with the present ordinance. Rather (small and very slight as I am, and, as must be believed and not kept silent) this letter is useless, or perhaps even harmful, if it is stripped of the spiritual understanding, since many and various objections arise against the letter itself, as we shall find in what follows, unless someone takes refuge in a loftier interpretation and seeks from it how he can give an answer on behalf of the letter. For this reason God, through the prophet Ezekiel, called the law, or the commandments, both good and not good, saying: "I brought them out of the land of Egypt and led them into the desert, and I gave them my precepts and showed them my judgments, which a man shall do and live in them." See: they are good, and very good, inasmuch as he recalls that they give life. See what he then added about these commandments: "And I gave them commandments that are not good, and judgments in which they shall not live." How can these be good and not good? Or how do they now give life and now not give it? Or rather, who keeps them according to him according to whom they were written by the lawgiver, that is, the Spirit? For "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth": such a one lives in them. But one who takes them carnally rightly finds the divine judgments not good, since he neither understands them nor uses them well. Hence the things that are good rightly become not good for him, and he does not live in them. For, first, they do not know the life that is hidden in them; and then the lawgiver willed that they be kept on the surface, not always but for a certain time, in order to bind the hard neck of the Jews, which needed a heavier yoke. That is why the prophets call that people stiff-necked; and Isaiah called the people of the Jews not only stiff-necked but a frantic heifer. A heifer that is frantic, if it takes the yoke in that state, is in no way tamed. And again: "Ephraim is a heifer taught to love threshing; I will pass over the beauty of her neck," meaning by the neck the obedience on which he laid the yoke of the law, so that the people, humbled, might willingly take up the yoke of the gospel, as being light and sweet. But now it is time for us to set out the letter of the law itself.

Verses 1–2. "And he called Moses, and the Lord spoke to him from the tabernacle of witness, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: A man of you who offers a victim to the Lord from the cattle, that is, offering victims from the oxen and the sheep."

That God did not love sacrifices, what he commanded the Jews about sacrifices shows. Isaiah says: "What to me is the multitude of your victims? says the Lord. I am full of the burnt offering of rams and the fat of fatlings; the blood of calves and of lambs and of goats I did not want. When you come before my face, who has required these things from your hands?" In a way, then, he set aside what he had commanded about sacrifices. Amos too says things like these: "Did you offer me victims and sacrifices in the desert forty years, O house of Israel?" Yet they had offered them often; but because they greatly displeased him, he counted them as not offered. The prophet Jeremiah says the same: "Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your victims and eat flesh; for I did not speak to your fathers, and I did not command them on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and victims."

But you will say: He who commanded these things of which we speak is the same who also denies them; why then does he deny what he had commanded? Why? Because those who received them transgressed the intention of the giver. For since the law was subtle and very lofty, and was therefore hidden in the surface of the letter, so that those who searched it might learn once they had first amended their own minds, they, being grosser and of hard heart and not yet able to understand the law of God, remained in ignorance.

Since the lawgiver uses the greatest exactness of words, he has here too begun from it. In the edition of the Seventy the opening begins with that part of speech which is a conjunction, which we are used to placing in the middle of a sequence of words to join what follows to what precedes. For he joined the very beginning of this book to the end of the preceding one, which is called Exodus, in which Moses set up the tabernacle; and to it the present words are rightly joined, since the work of one and the same God is contained in both. And the book of Numbers also, because nothing comes between it and Leviticus, has a similar opening; for it says: "And the Lord spoke to Moses in the desert of Sinai, in the tabernacle of witness, on the first day of the second month, in the second year." The people of the Jews, then, did nothing after the narrative of the book of Leviticus and before the narrative of Numbers: they had not changed place, since they had not yet dedicated the tabernacle, nor had much time passed. For they began to act in the first month of the second year, at the beginning of that month. But in Exodus and Genesis, because much time had run between them, between the death of Joseph and the going out of the sons of Israel, he did not begin those books in the same way. For there he puts not the opening of a conjunction but one suited to the arrangement of what is written there. He speaks thus: "These are the names of the sons of Israel who went into Egypt with Jacob, each with his household."

But no doubt someone will object: why were the books of the law divided, when, as was said, they were not divided by time? Rather for this reason: so that their length might not make the book tiresome to readers. For traders gladly divide seas and roads, thinking that in this way they are, so to speak, dividing the labour itself.

Moreover, according to the Seventy, it is written not that Moses was called but that he was "called up," just as when, according to the Seventy, the same Moses commanded Bezalel to make the tabernacle according to the pattern shown on the mount. For it says: "And Moses said to the sons of Israel: See, God has called up Bezalel the son of Hur by name, of the tribe of Judah, and has filled him with the spirit of wisdom." So now too Moses commanded … images of certain other spiritual things perceived by the mind and of rational sacrifices to be described, and this so-called "calling up" most fittingly joined to it a certain arrangement of words, or of things, that look to what is higher.

But from where does the Lord speak? From the tabernacle of witness. First, indeed, from heaven, because God is affirmed to dwell in it. Next, we understand the tabernacle of witness to be the present Scripture: for it was as it were a kind of tabernacle, since the things that were said were images or figures of mysteries to come; that is why it was called the tabernacle of witness. And the tabernacle of these words is a witness to things to come, giving them an undoubted faith.

And what does he say, or to whom did he give the command? To the sons of Israel, namely, of whom he commanded that whoever wished should offer from the oxen or from the sheep. First, …: from either animal or beast he makes the giver like it, one who has no sharpness either for virtue or for wickedness but is drawn along by another. Such are oxen and sheep: for they are animals accustomed to the hand, and they readily follow those who lead them in this way. And therefore these gifts cannot be the gifts of all, but only of the Jews: for they, even if they do no work of virtue, are content to do no wrong at all. Of them David said: "Men and beasts you will save, O Lord," keeping the first rank for men, and then granting salvation also to the rest. And do not wonder that the lawgiver called this man, of whom we are now speaking, a man, for he says: "A man of you." For it is possible for the same person both to be called a man and to do what belongs to beasts. The prophet David shows this same thing when he says: "And man, when he was in honour, was compared to the senseless beasts and became like them."

But since we have learned of a certain Israel perceived by the mind, one who reveres a circumcision perceived by the mind, as Paul says: "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God," let us also [understand] spiritually the ordinance of the law already stated.

Verse 3. "If his burnt offering, his offering, is from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish at the door of the tabernacle of witness, to make the Lord favourable to himself."

That God wants sacrifices from us for our salvation, not because he himself needs them, Paul reminds us well enough; for he says: "I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, your rational service." The sacrifice pleasing to God, then, is the mortifying of our bodies: for in it we gain at the same time both that we abstain from sin and that we acquire virtues. But since some mortify their bodies only in part and others most fully, according to the condition of the way of life and the bond of the life in which they live (some being minded as perfect, others as small), that which is a complete renunciation of the world and a fullest denial of pleasures is called a burnt offering. For such a one offers himself whole to God through the fire of the Spirit perceived by the mind, being no longer earthly but spiritual and in a way heavenly.

If, then, this man is a worker of the righteousness of the law that is according to the letter, he is likewise called an ox, because this animal [bears] the yoke of earthly works; and the law too is a yoke. For so Peter, preaching in Jerusalem, called it, saying: "Why do you tempt the Lord, to put a yoke on the necks of the disciples which neither we nor our fathers [were able to bear]?" And Paul, speaking of this animal: for, recalling a commandment of the law, he says: "You shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treads out the grain." See how he interprets it: "Is it for oxen that God cares? Or does he say this for our sake? Because he who ploughs ought to plough in hope, and he who sows in hope of gathering the fruit."

He wants the gift, or offering, to be a male and without blemish: a male, so that the doer of the commandments may in no way become effeminate or soft; without blemish, or pure, so that he may never mix righteousness with injustice nor stain virtue with pretence. And he commanded the gift to be offered at the door of the tabernacle of witness, or, according to the Seventy, at the tabernacle of witness. Here the tabernacle of witness is understood not only as heaven (for our citizenship must be there) but also as our conscience: for in it dwell the thoughts which are to give witness for us or against us.

"To make the Lord favourable to himself." According to the Seventy, it says that this is also "acceptable." Why? Namely, for the one who offers and prays in the presence of the Lord. For if it is truly acceptable to us, and our heart, judging rightly and clinging to no passion, approves the gift as worthy to be received, then we can pray in the presence of the Lord, that is, obtain forgiveness in the presence of the Lord; for God inclines to the heart, as John the Theologian taught us when he wrote: "And before him we shall persuade our hearts; because if our heart reproves us, we know that God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not reprove us, we have confidence before God."

Verse 4. "And he shall lay his hand on the head of the victim, and it shall be acceptable, and avail for his atonement."

What we call a victim is in Greek called κάρπωμα, "fruit offering," which signifies in particular the burnt offering perceived by the mind, because every commandment that is made a burnt offering through a spiritual way of life bears fruit. For this reason he also commands the one who offers to lay his hand on the head of the victim, so that the head of the victim may here be understood as the beginning of the said way of life. And the one who offers it is shown to be himself the cause of such a promise, since he comes to it of his own accord: for he offers a gift, and every gift is voluntary; so that if he transgresses his promise, he may accuse himself when he pays the penalty. And it will be acceptable to him, and avail for atonement, when he has proclaimed and confessed, and has shown by the laying on of his hand, that he offered this sacrifice by a free movement and not compelled by necessity or by demand.

Verses 5–9. "And he shall slaughter the calf before the Lord; and the sons of Aaron the priests shall offer its blood, pouring it round about the altar, which is before the door of the tabernacle. And when the skin of the victim has been stripped off, they shall cut the limbs into pieces, and they shall put fire on the altar, with a pile of wood laid beforehand, and arrange on it the limbs that were cut, namely the head and all that clings to the liver, the entrails and the feet being washed with water; and the priest shall burn them on the altar as a burnt offering and a sweet odour to the Lord."

The law is very laborious and for this reason needs a spiritual consideration, so that the lawgiver may not seem to have used this exactness about the rational victim to no purpose. First of all, then, attend to this, that he commanded the calf to be slain before the Lord: so that we may offer God not only our own conscience and way of life, but also mortify the body as pleases him, looking not to a lower glory but to the things above; for that is what "before the Lord" means.

But who are they who offer this blood? The sons of Aaron the priest, namely; for they also slay it. Indeed, the one who offers the oblation is described without a name and without designation; but those who slay what is offered and offer the blood are called the sons of Aaron. For to bring an offering, that is, to promise, belongs to anyone at all; but to fulfil the promises, which the slaying of the ox itself and the pouring out of the blood teach, belongs not to anyone at all but to those who are truly sons of Aaron, as having in themselves the dignity of the priesthood. For Aaron is interpreted "mountain …". Whoever, then, has built himself up by virtues as a temple of God, and a lofty temple, is truly called a son of Aaron, and a priest as well. For if a priest is recognized by anointing, certainly we too are called anointed because of the mystical chrism that is in us. We too, then, are priests, if we keep the dignity of the anointing of which John also said: "And you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know."

And Peter too called us priests, for he says: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's possession."

Let him pour out the blood round about the altar, which is before the door of the tabernacle. There is no doubt that by the blood the soul is understood here, since the lawgiver himself says a little later: "You shall not eat blood in your dwellings, because the soul of the flesh is in the blood." We must, then, not spare the soul; hence the Lord says: "Whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it." This is to pour out the blood. And he pours it round about the altar, that is, on the body of the Only-begotten: for this is truly called the altar. Just as every sacrifice is laid on the altar by the ministering priests, so the priests perform every virtue of the soul in the body of the Lord, that is, in imitation of him. Moses signified this altar when he said: "You shall make me an altar of earth," for the Lord's body was made from our earth, that is, from our clay or lump. "You shall not build it of hewn stones; for if you lift your tool upon it, it will be defiled." For the flesh of Christ is neither cut nor hewn by the hand of man; of it Daniel said: "a stone cut from the mountain without hands," … and his conception came about without the coming together of man and woman.

And he added well: "and which is before the door of the tabernacle of witness, round about," so that we may imitate him in all things; and "before the door of the tabernacle," so that by the door we may understand the teaching of the apostles. For through it we are given entrance into the heavenly tabernacle, in which Scripture testifies that God dwells, as Isaiah shows when he says: "Look down from heaven and see from your holy house of glory." And that the door is the teaching of the apostles Paul shows very plainly, saying: "For a door has been opened, great and evident, and there are many adversaries," calling a door the teaching that leads to the knowledge of God, which those who teach otherwise oppose in every way. And there is nothing strange if, since the Lord has been called the door, the teaching of the apostles, which he himself imparts, is called so too.

So must the priests minister. "And when the skin of the victim has been stripped off, they shall cut the limbs into pieces." They strip off the skin so that we may be stripped of riches and of all the other worldly things with which we are covered about. That is why the devil said of Job: "Skin for skin, and all that a man has he will give for his soul." And they cut it up so that our way of life may be approved part by part, because Christ too, as Paul says, "according to the working in the measure of each member makes the growth of the body for its own building up in love."

Then, therefore, the sons of Aaron the priest (who these are we said above) shall put fire on the altar, as men able to kindle most fully the ministry of the Spirit. And how shall we have a fire that is never quenched? By arranging a pile of wood, that is, meditations on and teachings of the holy Scriptures. For by them the Spirit of God is fed and continually kindled, so that it cannot be quenched by the whirlwinds of the adverse powers. That is why Paul too said: "Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophecies." Nor is it to be wondered at if we have taught that the wood is the teachings of the holy Scriptures, when we read in the Epistle to the Corinthians "wood, hay, stubble," signifying evil actions or teachings. But of trees, some are fruitful, as Jeremiah said of him who trusts in God: "And he will be like a tree that is transplanted by the waters, which sends out its roots towards moisture." And that by fruit-bearing trees the meditation on the sacred Scriptures is rightly understood, David plainly shows us; for of him who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night he says: "He will be like the tree that is planted by the streams of waters." … And "all the trees of the forest," he says, "will rejoice before the face of the Lord, because he comes." For those who meditate on the divine Scriptures rejoice when they have come to know that he has come who was prophesied in them and through them.

He commanded the cut pieces of the limbs to be laid on, the head and the things that cling to the liver, or, as the Seventy have it, the head and the fat. By the cut pieces we understand soul and body: for though they belong to one living being, they oppose each other in the workings of the passions. For the Apostle says: "The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these oppose each other." That is why Abraham, when he offered sacrifice to God, dividing the heifer and the she-goat and the ram, laid the pieces opposite each other on either side. And the mind is called the head of every rational living being; that is why Isaiah said: "Every head is sick, and every heart grieving; from the sole of the foot to the crown there is no soundness in it." For these are said to suffer very much together with one another, and our rational part, as dwelling in both, is cherished by the health of both. And it dwells in both, namely in the heart and in the brain. For the sober mind must not be divided; rather, since the peace of God guards it, as the Apostle says, "And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds," we must gather the movement of body and soul into one.

And the fat is separated from the pieces not without reason, though one might think that, since it is in them, it ought to be offered with them. But since the fat is said to be the richest and very grossest part of every animal, and from it the impulses of desire rise in us and appetites are stirred (which is plain from the fact that it lies upon the kidneys and the loins, which are thought to be the organs or instruments of seed and of intercourse), he commanded it to be taken from the pieces; for in no other way could it be offered by itself. And it is taken away so that we may learn to use our desires not bodily nor in a merely natural way, but spiritually, so that we may desire only spiritual things and stretch out every appetite in them and towards them; for "the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness to him." Paul, then, seems to call "natural" the man who does not think much about carnal things (and so he is not called carnal), but who occupies his mind with vain desires and questions: for example, those who philosophize about the measurements of heaven and the numbers of the stars and similar things, who outwardly seem to spend great zeal on the soul. That is why James called their wisdom "natural, devilish, earthly," and not coming down from above, from where the Spirit comes down; to them the things of the Spirit are foolishness, for they cannot understand them, because they do not examine them spiritually. So [he commands] the fat perceived by the mind, that is, all our desire or appetite … to be offered not with the pieces but by itself.

Yet he commands the pieces, the head and the fat to be laid on the wood under which fire is put, and which is on the altar, so that we may fit our whole man to the spiritual Scriptures that were spoken of the altar perceived by the mind, the body of the Lord, living or conducting ourselves in imitation of him.

"The entrails and the feet being washed with water," which the Seventy give as "And the things in the belly and the feet they shall wash with water." By the things in the belly he signifies the hidden and secret thoughts in the belly of the soul, for the belly of the soul is the heart. Hence Jeremiah too said: "My belly, my belly, I am in pain," and what belly he means he himself adds: "And the senses of my heart are troubled." And by the feet he means actions, because the prophets were accustomed to call the present age a way, so that David said: "Blessed are the blameless in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord," that is, who work in the law of the Lord. He wants us, then, to wash both our actions and our thoughts with water, whether of baptism or of tears, because we are held guilty in the judgment also for our thoughts. For if "whoever is angry with his brother without cause is liable to the gehenna" of fire, and anger is a movement of the soul, must not this be judged from the action?

But having said so much, he concluded his legislation in one short sentence; for he says: "And the priest shall burn them on the altar as a burnt offering and a sweet odour to the Lord." When our sacrifice becomes a burnt offering, then an odour of sweetness is kindled for the Lord, and when we have offered everything on the altar perceived by the mind, chosen as imitators of Christ as far as is possible, and fitting our life, or way of life, to the imitation of him. For we showed above that this is the altar.

Verses 10–13. "But if the offering is from the flock, from the sheep or from the goats, he shall offer as a burnt offering a lamb of one year and without blemish; and he shall slaughter it at the side of the altar that faces north before the Lord. And the sons of Aaron shall pour its blood on the altar round about, and they shall divide the limbs, the head and all that clings to the liver, and lay them on the wood under which fire is to be put; but the entrails and the feet shall be washed with water, and the priest shall burn all that is offered on the altar as a burnt offering and a most sweet odour to the Lord."

He now says the same things again with a few changes. But one who investigates the words of the law carefully must understand that he commanded the Israelite to offer burnt offerings not only from the oxen but also from the sheep. So not only the one who performs the commandments of the law (for we said that he is the ox, as a worker), but also whoever is simple and without malice, to whom the sheep is compared, as Jeremiah says, "I was like a gentle lamb that is carried to the slaughter, and I did not know," he too will be able to offer himself as a burnt offering to God.

For having said, "But if the offering is from the sheep," he added another animal, that is, the goats; for he speaks thus: "from the sheep and from the goats." How great a difference there is between goats and sheep the Lord Jesus taught us very plainly when he spoke of the consummation of the age: having set the sheep on the right, he gave them the blessing of the righteous, and the goats on the left, against whom he pronounced that terrible sentence on sinners. As, then, it is allowed to offer not only from the sheep but also from the goats, and the offering is said to be "from the flock," so it is possible also for one who comes from among the sinners to devote himself to simplicity, and, as though made a sheep, to offer his way of life to God as a burnt offering. For that nothing prevents one who was once a sinner from attaining justification (though the Jews did not think so), hear what he said through the prophecy of Ezekiel. Having inveighed at length against the unjust man and said, "Let him surely die; his blood shall be upon him," he here added: "But if he begets a son who, seeing all the sins of his father which he committed, does not do the like; does not eat upon the mountains, nor lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, and does not violate his neighbour's wife," and other things like these, to which he added this conclusion: "he shall not die in the iniquity of his father, but shall surely live. And you say: Why shall the son not bear the iniquity of the father?" The Jews [thought it] necessary for the son, as though by hereditary right, [to bear the punishment] of the father's

sin succeed to him.

But why did he command the sheep and the goats to be slain at the side of the altar that faces north, before the Lord, when he had not commanded this of the oxen but had ordained that they be sacrificed "before the Lord"? For the words themselves seem to hold a certain contradiction and difference: since both are sacrifices of burnt offering, different places are assigned to them. It must not be overlooked, then, that as far as the surface of the letter goes, the lawgiver signified the same place in both cases. For the altar of burnt offerings, set before the tabernacle, was at the side of the entrance, so that the entrance to the holy place might not be blocked for those ministering, as is said of it in Exodus: "And he put the veil at the entrance of the tabernacle of witness, and he set the altar of burnt offerings near the door of the tabernacle of witness." Whatever, then, was brought for sacrifice stood at the north side of the altar, and so the sacrifice was celebrated "before the Lord," that is, in sight of the holy place. For he calls the Holy of Holies the face of the Lord, because the glory of God dwelt in it; that is why he did not command the priest to enter it often, but only once a year.

This being so, there had to be a difference in the words, as was necessary for contemplation. For since we said that the altar is Christ, and the sacrifice of sheep is that of those who strive for simplicity but not, absolutely, of those who also work righteousness, it is understood to be offered not straight on but from the side. For straight on is [the one who works righteousness]; [this one only] abstains from …. Just as, for example, in a hall it is better to enter by the straight door, but if this is not easy, it is good to go in even by the one at the side, so it is better to be offered to God through the perfection of the commandments, yet it is good also if someone offers himself through abstaining from evils; for it is good to be offered to God in any way at all. And "at the side of the altar towards the north" …, that is, ignorance, those who give themselves wholly to innocence; and for this reason it is also called a burnt offering, even without the working of righteousness.

Verses 14–17. "But if the offering of a burnt offering to the Lord is from birds, from turtledoves and young pigeons, the priest shall offer it at the altar; and twisting its head back towards the neck and breaking the place of the wound, he shall make the blood run down on the edge of the altar. But the crop of the throat and the feathers he shall throw beside the altar towards the east, in the place where the ashes are usually poured out; and he shall break its wings, and shall not cut it nor divide it with iron; and he shall burn it on the altar with fire put under the wood: it is a burnt offering and an offering of most sweet odour to the Lord."

The exactness of the words of the law is admirable, not only because it describes the differences of ways of life, but also how it signifies some ways of life as according to the law and others as above the law. For those of oxen and sheep are according to the law, even though they are called freewill offerings. Why according to the law? Because, even if he left whether to offer or not in the power of the one offering (very rightly, for God made man of free will), yet what is offered is no longer a matter of will, lest evil things perhaps be offered: it is necessary, then, that either an ox be offered or a sheep, that is, either to work righteousness or to abstain from evils. For he said at the beginning of the book: "A man of you who offers a victim to the Lord from the cattle, that is, from the oxen and the sheep, shall offer victims." But in this offering it is not so: for the class of birds was not counted with the said offering, namely as being more perfect and greater and beyond the capacity of many. For the birds are men who give themselves to contemplation and do not mix at all in earthly business; and if necessity should perhaps demand it, they soon fly back to the heights, and they are helped by that gospel testimony which the Lord gave: "Consider the birds of heaven, for they neither sow nor reap, and your heavenly Father feeds them." … To the same the Lord said: "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown, is smaller than all the herbs; but when it has grown it will become a tree, so that the birds of heaven come and dwell in its branches."

The man, then, who gives himself to contemplation and is perfect in the consideration of things above (for this is what the things said before have taught), if he offers his way of life, or his life, as an offering, will offer from the turtledoves … and in spiritual gentleness; for he needs these things, so that his consideration of the law, occupied with good things, may not go beyond due bounds. Not in vain did the lawgiver take the turtledove and the dove, but to signify the things said before. The turtledove, because it has knowledge, so that by its example the people of the Jews were reproached, as Jeremiah proves; for he says: "The turtledove and the swallow and the stork have kept the time of their coming; but my people has not known the judgment of the Lord." And the dove is clean and simple and the herald of the presence of the Holy Spirit; such must they be who are zealous in contemplating the Scriptures. For this reason the Lord also wants the apostles to be simple, like the dove; for he says: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." And they must also be free to meditate; hence Hezekiah says: "I will meditate like a dove."

This offering one priest will offer, not many; for the contemplative life is not for the many, that is, to offer themselves to God with the whole mind, to think nothing human any longer, but to contemplate heavenly things continually and to set their minds on the things above, where Christ is, as the Apostle says, "sitting at the right hand of God," namely of the Father. And that this is very rare, the Lord himself taught when speaking to the prophet Ezekiel about such men: "Search Jerusalem and see: if you find a man in it standing wholly before my face, I will surely be merciful to it." And yet there were the sons of Jonadab, who neither drank wine nor had houses nor planted fields. But he seeks, absolutely, something loftier. Hence the others offer their offering at the tabernacle of witness, but this one is offered at the altar, whose meaning you learned in what went before, namely that it signifies the Lord's body.

But let us see what follows. "And twisting its head back towards the neck and breaking the place of the wound": breaking it off, that is, from the skin that lies over the neck, without separating it much from the body, so that he neither tears it apart nor binds it fast to it again; this is what is signified by "breaking the place of the wound," or, as the Seventy have it, "by the breaking off of the head." For Samuel used the same word to Saul, when he gave him the shoulder and, according to the Seventy, said: "Eat, for it has been set before you as a witness by the people"; "break it off," that is, break it up and consume it piece by piece. And therefore here too the lawgiver commanded not that the bird be killed but that it be broken off or broken back, showing how gently and part by part one should divide the true head, that is, the mind, from the skin, that is, from the flesh. Hence he does not pour out the blood but "shall make it run down," or according to the Seventy, "shall drain it," so that part by part and completely he may despise the meditation, or the life, of present things, as one who has offered his whole soul to God. For this is what is signified by "and the blood drained at the base of the altar," which is Christ; and the base of Christ is the Gospel, in which we have learned that we must above all despise the present life, as those who offer our whole soul to God.

He commanded the crop of the throat and the feathers to be thrown away, that is, wanting him to be free and cleansed of both puffing up and the search after superfluous things; for those who excel in fuller knowledge succumb above all to these passions, as Paul testifies: "Knowledge puffs up." And again: "If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know as he ought to know." Again he himself says: "But the body is Christ's: let no one deceive you, wishing it in humility and the worship of angels, walking in what he has not seen, vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh." Theodotion likewise rendered "bladder," and Aquila σιτίον, that is, "food," because in birds the bladder is the vessel suited to puffing up and that receives what is superfluous. He does not permit, then, puffing up, and therefore he commanded the bladder to be removed; nor are we to seek greater or higher things. "Do not seek," he says, "things higher than you, and do not search out things loftier than you." Hence he also separated the feathers from the victim and threw them beside the altar towards the east, in the place where the ashes are usually poured out: towards the east, because it seems to be a search into lofty things; outside the altar, because it involves a search that is not necessary but superfluous and harmful. And he commands it to be put in the place of the ashes, on account of nature, of which Abraham says: "I am chaff and ash." By the place of the ashes, then, the lawgiver rebukes the said inclination as worthy of ashes; and what is worthy of ashes remains below on the earth and cannot ascend to heaven.

Then he says: "And he shall break its wings, and shall not cut it nor divide it with iron," commanding both things of necessity: breaking, because one who desires to become a sacrifice to God must crush and afflict his limbs; and he shall not cut it nor divide it with iron, nor treat the bird as the ox or the sheep, by dividing it in pieces. Abraham kept this too in his sacrifice when, at God's command, he offered a heifer of three years, likewise a she-goat and a ram of three years, and a turtledove and a pigeon; for it says: "He took all these for himself and divided them through the middle and laid them opposite each other; but the birds he did not divide." He kept this prudently, and according to the meaning of the precept it is now given in the law. For the man who clings to contemplation and has nothing earthly, but has long been wholly heavenly, has no body opposing his soul: his body and soul are whole, and his spirit too, as Paul said, is kept blameless for the coming of the Lord. And therefore a division of limbs in them is superfluous; for it is offered whole on the altar perceived by the mind and on the wood under which the fire is put. For a sacrifice is not made acceptable otherwise than by meditation on the spiritual law; and then it is found to be a burnt offering and an offering of most sweet odour to the Lord, who is always worshipped by our sacrifice, and to whom the life, or way of life, of each one of us is offered according to the law that was given by him.

Verses 1–3. "When a soul offers an offering of sacrifice to the Lord, its offering shall be fine flour, and he shall pour oil on it and put frankincense on it, and bring it to the sons of Aaron the priest. One of them shall take a handful full of the fine flour and of the oil, and all the frankincense, and shall put the memorial on the altar as a most sweet odour to the Lord. And what remains of the sacrifice shall be Aaron's and his sons', a holy of holies from the offerings of the Lord."

That he calls the whole man "soul" is plain from his saying, "its offering shall be fine flour": wishing to … the soul as a whole, he then commands the fine flour too to be offered. For how could the soul by itself bring an offering which it had need of in praying, and for this would certainly need the ministry of the body? But to ears accustomed to the divine Scriptures the word asserts nothing new here. For elsewhere too he called the whole man, in his ways, "soul" on its own; as when, setting out the number of those who went down into Egypt, he says: "All the souls that went in with Jacob into Egypt, and came out of his loins, besides the wives of his sons, were seventy." And Luke too, describing the voyage of Paul as he went to Rome, says: "And we were in all two hundred and seventy-six souls in the ship."

But we must consider whether here he did not perhaps call the gentile man a "soul." For above he spoke to the sons of Israel of the sacrifices that involve blood: "Speak," he says, "to the sons of Israel: A man of you who offers a victim to the Lord from the cattle, that is, from the oxen and the sheep, shall offer victims." Here, commanding the sacrifice that is without blood, the fine flour, he necessarily did not say "A man of you" but "When a soul offers an offering," naming the gentile a "soul," because they were formerly natural men who could not understand the things of the Spirit; yet they are called to the offering, since the just God has mercy on them and saves them by condescension. Of this Solomon too says in Proverbs: "The just man has mercy on the souls of his beasts." The offering of one, then, who lacks the riches of virtues will be fine flour. For a little later, when he arranges the sacrifices for sins, he commanded one who has neither a sheep nor a goat to offer turtledoves and young pigeons, and one who has not even this to offer fine flour. For he is saved no longer by works, being poor in virtues, but by the knowledge of God alone; which in the law is called fine flour and in the Gospel meal. For the Lord says: "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened," signifying the church, which in the word of the Trinity leavens the mystery of theology. In the law this is called fine flour; hence God also commanded Moses to offer three tenths of fine flour for the cleansing of leprosy, that is, for the forgiveness of sin. Since the divine knowledge in the law was still grosser and not yet full, it is fittingly called fine flour, but in the Gospels meal, as having subtler and loftier meanings than the law. Moses hinted at this (since both meal and fine flour could, for the said reasons, be called divine knowledge) when, as God appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre and he was signifying the mystery of the Trinity, he describes Sarah as being told: "Hurry and mix three measures of fine flour."

Though the knowledge of God is the beginning of salvation for the gentiles, we still need to pour oil on the fine flour and put frankincense on it, so that we may mix the grace of God with almsgiving and with prayer; for these can draw down to us the knowledge of God from heaven. Cornelius is a witness to this, to whom the angel coming down from heaven said: "Cornelius, your prayers and your alms have gone up to the Lord; and now send men to Joppa and fetch Simon, who is surnamed Peter." For he was going to hand on the true knowledge to Cornelius. And how prayer is understood in frankincense you know if you inquire into its power and search it out. For physicians are accustomed to use it against inward passions and to treat the sores of diseased eyes, and if someone kindles it and takes in its smoke, it checks the tears that come from sickness. In the same way prayer too does a great deal: for it above all heals the passions of the soul, and it also treats the sores of the eyes perceived by the mind, freeing them from ignorance, and saves from the tears that come from what is truly sickness, that is, from sin. "Is anyone among you sick?" says James. "Let him call the presbyters, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he is in sins, they will be forgiven him."

After this he commands the fine flour to be taken in a handful, that is, to grasp the knowledge of God by faith. For by the handful he here signifies faith, and he shows plainly that the knowledge, or acquaintance, with God that faith can grasp is acceptable to the Lord. And just as one who wants to grasp more in a handful gains nothing (for it all runs out and falls, and he labours uselessly), so the measure of the knowledge of God is faith. For, as Paul says, "whoever comes to God must believe that he is." And again: "Without faith it is impossible to please God." And to put it briefly, "whatever is not of faith is sin," as the same wrote to the Romans. There can be no glorifying, then, in unbelief. Then, because he commands the fine flour to be taken with oil, he wants us most plainly to give alms. For "Give alms," says the Lord, "and see, all things will be clean for you." And he commands all the frankincense to be taken in the handful. All of it, why? Because we must always pray and give thanks without ceasing, as Paul says.

But who is it that takes it in a handful? According to the Seventy it is not said, so that he might signify the one who offers, absolutely. For if he had spoken of the priest, he would surely have added this, as was ordained in the sacrifice for sin, which also was made of fine flour. For there he wants what is offered to God in the priest's handful to be a memorial, ordaining something other than what is said now, as we shall show a little later. But here it is not so; rather, when it has been taken, as was said, the priest who offers it (and you have learned that he is Jesus) will offer the memorial of the sacrifice on the heavenly altar. And the memorial of the knowledge of God is perfect knowledge, which we shall always remember once we have become capable of it; it is never destroyed, and it does not destroy the present knowledge as contrary to it, but shows by its own fullness that it is a very small part, as it is said: "We know in part and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away." And how it will be done away he shows clearly by adding: "Now we see through a mirror in a riddle, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known."

This sacrifice the lawgiver fittingly called a most sweet odour to the Lord. The odour in the Lord is the knowledge, or acquaintance, with him; and so that you may not doubt this, you have Paul as a most truthful witness to this also: "Thanks be to God," he says, "who always triumphs through us in Christ Jesus, and manifests the odour of his knowledge through us in every place." See, you have meanwhile come to know the odour of knowledge. Hear also of the good odour in what follows: "For we are the good odour of Christ among those who are saved and among those who are perishing."

Then the lawgiver says: "And what remains of the sacrifice shall be Aaron's and his sons', a holy of holies from the offerings of the Lord." He speaks of the remainder of that perfect knowledge, or acquaintance, which is hidden and laid up in heaven in Christ, "in whom are hidden the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." It is a holy of holies from the offerings of the Lord: for the knowledge that remains is partial, yet it surpasses all others and leads to perfection. It shall be, then, Aaron's and his sons'. And Aaron is interpreted "ark" or "mountain-dweller," that is, one who understands lofty things about God; for the ark too, as having within it the law of God and his oracles, can offer the said sacrifice.

Verse 4. "And when you offer a sacrifice baked in an oven, of fine flour, namely loaves without leaven, sprinkled with oil, and unleavened wafers smeared with oil."

The intention of the lawgiver is admirable, proceeding with exactness through everything. For since he made mention above of the knowledge, or acquaintance, with God, lest you should perhaps think that the mystery of the Lord's dispensation lies outside it, see how he sets it out in riddles, wishing to introduce the incarnation of his birth, of his cross and of his resurrection; for he was made flesh in order to be sacrificed. That is why John the Baptist called him "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Rightly, then, the sacrifice is said here, to announce his birth, to be baked in an oven, namely the womb of the Mother of God. For she is fittingly called an oven, because the oven receives both the loaves and the fire from above, just as the Mother of God received from above in her womb the bread of life, namely God the Word, and the fire of the presence of the Spirit. "For the Holy Spirit," it says, "will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." Moses commended this oven when God established with Abraham the covenant of the seed; for he says that, when the sun was coming to its setting (here he signifies the end of the world), a flame was made, "and see, a burning oven appeared." And what is this? He added, "and smoking, and it passed through the middle of the divided pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham." For when the heavenly fire, namely the Spirit, came into the oven of the womb of the Mother of God, to kindle all the parts of the world, then God established the covenant with Abraham, that is, with the gentiles; for Abraham is called the father of the gentiles.

If, then, you offer the gift of the incarnation of the Only-begotten, which took place in the womb of the Virgin, it is not acceptable to God otherwise than if it is baked of fine flour, that is, if it is done from the knowledge, or acquaintance, with God. For from where else have we taken our speech on this matter than from the apostles and the prophets? Take, then, the words of the apostles as the loaves and those of the prophets as the wafers. For as much as loaves are better suited than wafers for nourishment, so much are the words of the apostles better suited than the words of the prophets. Both, however, are unleavened, because they have no leaven from another teaching, for example worldly wisdom, which it suits heretics to come to. For they, since they strive to join outward things to inward ones, and rather to subject these to them and to leaven things that can in no way be leavened, have fallen away from the unleavened words. But see, the loaves of the apostles and the wafers of the prophets are made in oil: for it is written with one accord both by those and by these that Christ came to have mercy on us. But the apostles say it more plainly; for Paul says: "For as you formerly did not believe God, but now have obtained mercy through their disobedience, so these too have not believed in the mercy shown to you, that they too may obtain mercy. For God has shut up all things under sin, that he may have mercy on all." Everywhere he calls the mystery of the coming of Christ "mercy"; that is why the loaves are said to be sprinkled with oil. But the prophets do not say it so, but as in a riddle; for David says: "Mercy and truth have met each other." And again: "Show us your mercy, O Lord, and grant us your salvation." That is why the wafers are called not sprinkled but smeared with oil.

But keep also that exactness of the words, how, when he wants us to receive mercy, he signifies the kindness of the Incarnate One: he does not say "he shall pour oil," but sets out "loaves sprinkled with oil." By these words he signified the Lord's birth, and by those that follow he signifies also the passion.

Verses 5–6. "If your offering is from the pan, of fine flour sprinkled with oil and without leaven, you shall divide it in small pieces and pour oil on it."

He calls the sacrifice from the pan the dispensation of the passion of the Only-begotten, judging the cross like a pan for this reason: the pan is so strong that when it is set on the fire it is itself not consumed and suffers no corruption or diminishing, while the foods set on it, as soon as they touch the fire, or, if they are harder, after no long interval, it makes fit for eating. So also the cross of Christ was so strong that it subjected all creation to the Crucified; and his flesh, which was unfit for eating before the passion (for who desired to eat the flesh of God?), it made fit for food after the passion. For if he had not been crucified, we would not eat the sacrifice of his body. But now we eat the food, taking the memorial of his passion. The Lord, signifying this pan in Ezekiel,

says: "And you, take for yourself an iron pan, and set it as an iron wall between you and the city." He called it iron because of the said strength; and "between you and the city," he says, that is, Jerusalem, because they above all, stumbling at the cross of the Lord and by the sufferings they inflicted, were separated from the knowledge of him. The mystery of the passion, then, is sprinkled with oil, because he endured death for us out of mercy for us. And he wants it to be without leaven, that is, pure of outside teaching.

He says: "You shall divide them into small pieces," so that we may divide our discourse into his sufferings, which came about one by one: for example, the slaps, the blows, the spitting, and the piercing of his side. "You shall pour oil on it." But just as he, having mercy on us, handed himself over to suffering for us, so we too must have mercy on our neighbours, taking the Lord's passion as the example of this kindness; hence he says: "You shall pour oil on it," so that we too may imitate the heart of mercy of the Lord; for he says: "Be merciful, as your Father also is merciful." And that he set out this chapter about the Lord's passion, the very marking of the words shows. For what he added according to the Seventy, "It is a sacrifice to the Lord," he adds here as something special, which he wrote nowhere in the burnt offerings or in the others that he commanded above; but here he added it, because the passion of the Only-begotten was a sacrifice offered to God the Father, Christ offering himself, as Paul says; for he says: "For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on the defiled, sanctifies for cleansing, … through the Holy Spirit offered himself without blemish to God?"

Verses 7–10. "But if the sacrifice is from the gridiron, the fine flour shall likewise be sprinkled with oil; and the one who offers it to the Lord shall hand it into the hands of the priest; and when he has offered it, he shall take the memorial from the sacrifice and burn it on the altar as an odour of sweetness to the Lord. And whatever remains shall be Aaron's and his sons', a holy of holies from the offerings of the Lord."

He wants us to discuss similar things also when we debate the resurrection, whose mystery he not in vain called a gridiron; rather, by the gridiron he signified death. Just as above we took the pan as the Lord's cross, so let us take the gridiron as his death, and also his burial. For no one at all is ignorant of the difference between the gridiron and the pan: the pan is set over a fire that is just now blazing up and being kindled, but the gridiron on coals that are burning and were kindled long before. So too the Lord's death was not the beginning of some suffering, but the outcome of the sufferings which had already been worked out in him. And so the gift of this too is made from fine flour, that is, from the knowledge, or acquaintance, with God that concerns the Lord's death; for one must call Christ God even in death, and none the less proclaim as immortal him who died on account of mortal flesh. Yet the gift will be made in oil: for one who discusses the Lord's death and resurrection must also add the account of the mercy of God, which is the oil. For out of mercy for the human race he both endured death and arranged the resurrection from the dead.

But if we said that the fire which is above the oven is the Holy Spirit, and that therefore the oven signified the womb of the Mother of God, and again interpreted the fire under the pan and the gridiron as the passion and death, do not on any account disbelieve this, for the very things said about both can satisfy you. For in the oven the fire is put in from above, since the ministry of the Spirit is from heaven; of which the Lord said: "I came to send fire on the earth." And John said of the Lord: "He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire." But in the pan and the gridiron the fire is taken from below, because the preparing of the passion came from men who lie in the lowest things in their minds. And that fire is taken for suffering, hear Jeremiah saying: "And it became like a burning fire, raging in my bones." And again David: "The Lord in his anger will trouble them, and fire will devour them," speaking of the death which he was going to bring upon sinners. Nor is it strange [that we take] coals …, for by spiritual tradition we take them as …, which are the cause of light and of destruction. For Isaiah said that one of the cherubim was sent, took a coal from the altar, and cleansed his mouth. Ezekiel too said that the cherub took from the same coals which were in the midst of the cherubim, and scattered the burning.

The lawgiver, wishing to teach us in some measure the said mysteries, sums up the account of these same sacrifices in these words: "which you offer to the Lord," that is, from the oven and from the pan and from the gridiron, that is, of the birth of the Lord, of his passion and of his death; for in these the account of his whole dispensation is completed, and in these is contained also the account of his resurrection, because "he who descended is the same who also ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things."

"He shall hand it into the hands of the priest": that is, to Christ himself, who afterwards drew near to the altar that is in heaven; and he drew near in the flesh, through the ascension, for it is never separated from the divinity. "He shall take the memorial from the sacrifice": the abundance of knowledge, or acquaintance, as we taught above, which he will burn on the altar with himself, keeping it for the age to come. "And whatever remains," that is, as much as he has commanded us to know and to search out, "shall be Aaron's and his sons'," that is, he has handed it to those who can think and perceive lofty things about God, whom we said before to be the sons of Aaron. "A holy of holies from the offerings of the Lord": the lawgiver wrote this to confirm the same thing more strongly; for all good knowledge is holy, but a Holy of Holies is he who can discuss the knowledge of God as he ought.

Verses 11–12. "Every offering that is offered to the Lord shall be made without leaven, and no leaven or honey shall be burned in sacrifice to the Lord. You shall offer only their first fruits and gifts, but they shall not be put on the altar as an odour of sweetness."

He wants the teaching of God to have no communion with outside learning. For that he calls a foreign teaching "leaven" the Lord himself taught plainly, saying to his disciples: "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." And when they did not know what was being said, he added: "Do you not yet understand or know that I did not speak to you about loaves?" And then they understood that he had spoken of the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. And that the teaching of the pagans is understood by honey, because of the sweetness of its words and the pleasantness of its eloquence, Solomon teaches in Proverbs, saying: "Do not look at a harlot woman; for the lips of a harlot drip a honeycomb, and her throat is smoother than oil, but her end is bitter as wormwood." Her end, that is, when you have begun to distinguish between true wisdom and the feigned one that bears a false name. For though in the Song of Songs it is said to the church, "Honey and milk are under your tongue," this does not contradict what is said here but agrees with it entirely. For it did not say "on your tongue" but "under your tongue," to show that the wisdom of the pagans and the letter of the Jews are subject to the tongue of the church, that is, to her teaching.

Of these, then, … it shall not be burned in the sacrifice which is a burnt offering; "you shall offer only their first fruits." For he commanded first fruits to be offered in part from that wisdom, but not to use it fully; rather as Paul did when he preached among the Athenians, saying, "As one of your poets said: For we are also his offspring." Finding an outside saying suited to give occasion for the knowledge of God, he did not reject it, yet he added nothing to it; for he did not go on from there to multiply testimonies. Why? Because "it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching," as Paul himself says, "to save those who believe," "so that your faith may not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." That is why the lawgiver says: "But they shall not be put on the altar as an odour of sweetness." And though he could have said "they are not put," he said "they shall not be put," showing that even if we should try to attain the knowledge of the divinity from outside things, such a sacrifice does not go up to the altar of God, nor is it an odour of sweetness to the Lord; such a sacrifice is assigned to lower things, and, as having its existence from the earth, it is pressed down to the earth.

Verse 13. "Whatever sacrifice you offer, you shall season with salt, and you shall not take away the salt of the covenant of your God from your sacrifice. In every offering you shall offer salt."

You see that he does not want those who speak of God to use outside wisdom much, but the apostolic wisdom, of which Paul says: "We speak wisdom among the perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world nor of the rulers of this world, who are being destroyed; but we speak the wisdom of God, hidden in a mystery, which God predestined before the ages for our glory." And from where is it certain, you say, that he said salt for the apostolic wisdom? The Lord showed us this plainly when he said to the apostles: "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has lost its savour, it will be good for nothing any more but to be thrown out and trodden down by men." He called the apostolic wisdom salt for this reason, that just as every food fit for nourishment is in every case seasoned with salt, so also every word useful for help needs in every case the seasoning of apostolic wisdom. That is why he commanded that salt be not absent from the sacrifices, but be offered in every gift: so that whatever you teach, whatever you correct, in whatever virtue you conduct yourself, you may work in emulation and imitation of the apostles, and remember Paul, who says: "Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ." And again: "So then you are no longer strangers and guests, but you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone." And the lawgiver hints that he did not mean salt simply but that salt perceived by the mind: "You shall not take away," he says, "the salt of the covenant of your God." But if the covenant, or testament, is rational, then certainly the salt too …

Verse 14. "But if you offer a gift of the first fruits of your crops to the Lord, from ears still green, you shall parch them with fire and break them up like grain, and so you shall offer your first fruits to the Lord, pouring oil on them and putting frankincense on them, because it is the Lord's offering; and of it the priest shall burn, as a memorial of the gift, part of the broken grain and of the oil, and all the frankincense."

He commands that the acquaintance, or knowledge, of God be offered not only by those who have continued a long time in that knowledge but also by those who are beginning it, such as Paul was: for as soon as he was called, he preached. For this reason let us understand what is now said in this way. A first fruit to God is one who has newly begun to believe and has not yet offered him any fruit of divine knowledge. If, then, we offer him the sacrifice of the word of God while newly beginning the knowledge of him, we shall offer green things, as people newly learning and newly perceiving something. Since we have not yet begun to bring forth his mysteries with exactness, so as to offer meal or fine flour, it is necessary that we offer things green and parched and broken up, or, as the Seventy say, "fresh, roasted, ripe, broken." For just as with moist fruits, which cannot yet be ground to become meal or fine flour, when we want to make them fit for eating we break them up with fire and, in breaking them, separate their chaff, so all of us who do not yet have solid knowledge, nor subtle and exalted theology (for we are not yet fit to discern it, not having perfect knowledge of the spiritual Scriptures), need to shape it in the fire of the Spirit, that is, to make his working and help serve us, so that by it we may separate the chaff of the letter. For from him we shall possess a sufficient and most swift knowledge of God; that is why the priest perceived by the mind also receives it. And we must pour oil on it and put frankincense on it, for divine knowledge is perfected in us through almsgiving and prayer. Of these, and also of the memorial which is received by the priest and laid on the altar, we have explained with more exactness above; there is no need, then, to confuse the explanation now. For where, according to the Seventy, it is "roasted, ripe, broken," the other interpreters, explaining "the things roasted in fire" from the Hebrew, rendered instead "roasted, ripe," and "soft things roasted in fire."

Verses 1–5. "But if his offering is a victim of peace offerings, and he wishes to offer from the oxen, he shall offer a male or a female without blemish before the Lord; and he shall lay his hand on the head of his victim, which shall be slaughtered at the entrance of the tabernacle; and the sons of Aaron the priest shall pour the blood round about … offering to the Lord the fat that covers the vital parts, and whatever fat there is within, the two kidneys with the fat by which the flanks are covered, and the net of the liver with the kidneys; and they shall burn them on the altar as a burnt offering, with fire put under the wood, as an offering of most sweet odour to the Lord."

Rightly did the prophet David sing: "Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths." For God through the law ordained different ways of life for men and arranged the virtues like a ladder, so that it was granted to one to attain all of them and to another some of them, yet so that each might be lifted up from the earth; and the difference of the sacrifices signified this. For one of us offers a burnt offering, wishing to offer his whole self to God and to say with Paul, "I am crucified with Christ." Another offers a sacrifice of peace offerings, or of salvation, one who desires salvation even if he cannot live very loftily. For even if someone is not able to attain virginity but lives in chaste marriage, he receives pardon from the Lord, who said, "Not all receive this word," when he was explaining virginity to the apostles; and yet such people are necessarily counted among those who are saved. The same holds of contempt for possessions, of righteousness, and of food taken with thanksgiving: for great is he who attains great things, and small, though not the least, is he who can attain at least middling ones.

So, to prove that there are two kinds of ways of life for the justification of men, he set two definitions of freewill sacrifices; for he says in the book of Exodus: "You shall make me an altar of earth, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where my name is named, I will come to you and bless you." He commanded the burnt offering first, and then adds "and your peace offerings," as of the second rank and virtue. Whoever, then, thinks it enough for himself only to be saved, he offers from the oxen (and we said that the ox is those who give themselves to doing what belongs to the law), whether a male or a female; yet let him offer a gift without blemish. Indeed he did not command the one who offers a burnt offering to offer a female; not at all excluding a woman from such a way of life, but showing that to be minded for perfect things belongs properly to men. And if a woman is so minded, she will be called a man, as being strong; of her Solomon said, "Who will find a strong woman?" showing that strength, that is, perfection, is hard to find among women. But the sacrifice of peace offerings belongs alike to men and women, for women too must live in a way that is fit for salvation.

But why they are commanded to lay their hands on the head of the victim, and to slaughter it at the entrance of the tabernacle, and to pour out the blood round about the altar, …. But what those who wish to be saved must offer to God from their sacrifice, this must be asked and considered. For from the victim of peace offerings they offer as the Lord's offering "the fat that covers the vital parts, and whatever fat there is within," or, as the Seventy have it, "the fat that covers the belly, and all the fat that is in the belly," signifying the heart by the belly. And in the said edition he mentioned it a second time because, as physicians say, it has two operations: with one part it draws in nourishment (which they call the upper belly), and with another it separates out the purgations (which they call the lower belly). And the kidneys are the ministers of the seed of intercourse, and they have communion with the belly and the thighs. For this reason he commands to be offered first the fat that is over the belly, and the two kidneys, and again the fat that is over them, that is, over the thighs, as being near the kidneys, because the kidneys are placed between the thigh and the belly. And he said that pleasure, or desire, is set in the liver; hence according to the Seventy it is said that the lobe of the liver is to be offered with the kidneys, as the liver supplies the force of its operation to the kidneys.

But what does he signify by these things, or what did he ordain, he who has here too opened his mouth in parables for those who wish to be saved? That those who wish to be saved must offer to God as a victim, that is, as first fruits and burnt offerings, the fat perceived by the mind, namely desire, which in Greek they call ἐπιθυμία, which first covers the upper belly and then the lower: so that we may offer our desire to God both in thinking and in fulfilling; for a thing must first be proposed and afterwards completed. That is why Paul too said: "He who desires the office of bishop desires a good work." For the lawgiver is here speaking of that belly of which Jeremiah says, "My belly I am in pain, my belly I am in pain," he too naming it twice not in vain, but to signify the double force of its operation. And lest we should think that a bodily necessity is to be blamed, he added: "And the senses of my heart are troubled." The belly of the soul, then, is the heart, in which we first propose certain actions and afterwards try to fulfil them. To propose, then, is in a way to desire, and to hasten to complete might perhaps properly be called a kind of digestion. The desire of both of these, which he called fat, we must offer to God, so that we may neither propose nor fulfil anything wicked.

And well did he set the fat that covers the belly over the upper belly, which is the appetite, because the greatest part of desire concerns appetite and purpose; and to the lower belly he joined the two kidneys, for we said that the kidneys have communion with the heart. Hence David says: "Burn my kidneys and my heart." Hear also of the Lord "who searches hearts and tries kidneys." In no way would prophecy have joined these members unless they had something in common in every way: for physicians say that the movement of anger is in the heart, and the memory of it lies in the kidneys. Hence David, bearing witness to his own innocence, says: "Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in my innocence," and asked that his kidneys and heart be burned, as both could bear witness for him. In these kidneys is also the cause of the seed, and hence they have communion with the thighs, because these are thought to give force to the acts of intercourse. Hence the patriarch Jacob said: "A sceptre shall not be lacking from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs," signifying by the thighs the derivation, or descent, of the seed. He wants, then, the desire for marriage also to be offered to God, so that it may come about for the sake of offspring and not of sexual immorality, and that marriage may be honourable and the bed undefiled.

But also what is irascible in us must be offered to God; for so we shall be able to be angry not for the working of sin but for the destruction of sin, and the Scripture of David will be fulfilled in us: "Be angry, and do not sin." For that there is an anger pleasing to God, when it serves not to harm but to correct, is plainly proved by what is written first of Moses in Exodus; for it says: "And when he came near the camp he saw the calf and the dancing, and, being very angry, he threw the tablets from his hand and broke them at the foot of the mountain; and taking the calf which they had made, he burned it and ground it to powder, which he scattered on the water, and he gave the sons of Israel to drink of it." Yet in this he was not reproved, but rather proved very admirable: for the lawgiver used so great an anger out of zeal; for God too is said in many places of holy Scripture to be angry, and this would by no means be said of him if it had been evil.

So much for these things. And because desires are thought to rest in the liver, he therefore commanded the lobe, that is, its tip, to be taken away with the kidneys and offered on the altar, so that we may be cleansed from all evil pleasure, knowing that we must offer to God the first fruits of our thoughts, sanctifying the lump through the firstfruit portion. "For if the firstfruit portion is holy," he says, "so is the lump"; for in this way evil pleasure will not arise in us. But if someone delights in riches, let him seek the riches of righteousness; or in health, that which lies in the subjection and bridling of the body; or in marriage, that which lies in the begetting of children and in chastity.

We must remember, however, that the lawgiver has here described not the one who has crucified himself and mortified himself to the world, but the one who lives in a middling way. Hence he commands his kidneys too to be offered, showing that he speaks of one who lives in marriage; and we said that the seeds of the act of intercourse are in the kidneys. Nevertheless one must so order himself that every desire, and the purpose and the completion of any action, … For this reason he offers the movement of anger and the first fruits of pleasures, and the whole of marriage itself, through the lobe of the liver and the kidneys; and he can rightly offer his way of life on the altar above, upon the burnt offerings and upon the wood that is on the fire. For he lives according to the commandments of the Spirit and becomes a victim of most sweet odour to the Lord. For it pleases him to bring to completion not only the hundredfold fruit, but also the sixtyfold and the thirtyfold.

Verses 6–17. "But if his offering is from the sheep, and a victim of peace offerings, whether he offers a male or a female, they shall be without blemish. If he offers a lamb before the Lord, he shall lay his hand on the head of his victim, which shall be slaughtered in the vestibule of the tabernacle of witness; and the sons of Aaron shall pour its blood round about the altar, and they shall offer from the victim of peace offerings a sacrifice to the Lord: the fat and the whole tail with the kidneys, and the fat that covers the belly and all the vital parts, and both kidneys with the fat that is beside the flanks, and the net of the liver with the kidneys. And the priest shall burn them on the altar as food for the fire and the Lord's offering. If his offering is a goat, and he offers it to the Lord, he shall lay his hand on its head and slaughter it at the entrance of the tabernacle of witness; and the sons of Aaron shall pour its blood round about the altar, and they shall take from it, as food for the Lord's fire, the fat that covers the belly and that covers all the vital parts, the two kidneys with the net that is over them by the vital parts, and the lobe of the liver with the kidneys. And the priest shall burn them on the altar as nourishment for the fire and of most sweet odour. All the fat shall be the Lord's by perpetual right in your generations and in all your dwellings; you shall eat neither fat nor blood at all."

Whom the lawgiver commanded to offer an ox, and whom again a sheep or a goat, we explained earlier in what was said about the burnt offerings. For we said that the sacrifices are compared to the ways of life of those who offer them, and that the differences of ways of life are figured by the differences of the sacrifices. So we showed that the ox is the doer of the commandments of the law, and we said that the sheep are the simple, and the goats also simple but men who had been engaged in sins and were afterwards converted. But there he mixed the sacrifice of goats with that of sheep, for he says: "But if the offering is from the flock, from the sheep or from the goats, he offers a burnt offering of one year without blemish." The Seventy render thus: "If his gift is from the sheep, from the lambs and the kids, for a burnt offering, he shall offer it a male without blemish," because the Old Testament considered sheep to be in a way the kind that includes lambs and kids. You will find, however, that also in the prophet Amos goats are called sheep; for he says: "I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I am a goatherd, gathering sycamore figs; and the Lord took me from the flocks of sheep." Since those who pasture goats are properly called goatherds, it is plain that he put goats too among the sheep.

Since, then, the law calls some of them lambs and some goats, the lambs signify those who are simple only and have not sinned at all, and the goats those who are simple but have sinned and been converted. Their sacrifice was rightly handed down as in a way one in the burnt offerings: for one who wishes to be minded for perfect things, even if he was a sinner, must, from the time he has chosen the perfect life, live as one who did not sin before. But in the sacrifice of peace offerings, though he kept the same things in the sacrifice of sheep as of goats and oxen, he kept this one thing more in the sheep, that not only the fat and the net of the liver, or according to the Seventy the lobe of the liver, but the kidneys and the tail, or according to the Seventy "the loin without blemish with the kidneys," be offered. For because, being simple, he left undone many things that he ought to have done, he must offer his strength to God, so that, as a simple man, he may not use his strength for evil but rather for good, and may make it plain that he has left undone nothing of what he can know and carry out. And that the loin is taken in holy Scripture above all for strength, you know from the words which the young men standing about Rehoboam put to him against the people, so that he might show himself strong and terrible: "Thus shall you say to them: My little finger is thicker than my father's loins." And God, wishing to arm the Israelites with strength, commanded Moses thus: "So shall you eat it: you shall gird your loins, having shoes on your feet and holding staves in your hands, and you shall eat in haste." Paul too, declaring war against the principalities and powers, said: "Stand, girding your loins with truth, putting on the breastplate of righteousness." And the Lord said to the apostles: "Let your loins be girded."

But even if we say that the loin is a helper in the unions of intercourse (for the kidneys lie in it; hence Paul too, writing to the Hebrews of Levi, says, "For he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him"), the simple are rightly made cautious, since through simplicity they could easily be drawn to pleasure, so that they offer to God not only the kidneys and the fat that is over them, but also the loin, which is at the kidneys. And what he adds in the same translation, "without blemish, whole," understand thus, as Symmachus explains, who put "whole" for "without blemish," and Aquila "perfect": for this reason he added "with the kidneys," wanting it to be offered whole and perfect, as we said, so that the simple man may not offer one part of himself to God and another to the adversary. For it is enough for his pardon if he does not do the things that belong to virtue; but if he works evil, he will have no pardon. Hence the Lord commands us to be simple as doves, because doves have in a way an excessive simplicity, yet are pure of all malice.

But one who offers a sacrifice from the oxen, as a doer of the commandments of the law, has no need to offer the loin, because he has employed it in the correction of good actions. And one who sacrifices from the goats, even if he is of the simple kind, yet because he is understood to be of the converted sinners, cannot offer a loin without blemish, for he once stained it with sin. It is plain, then, that the one, as not having been in sins, can offer a loin without blemish; but the one who was, does not now offer the loin in the sacrifices, since what they are is ascribed to the goats, of which he did not ordain that the loin be offered; and this was why in the sacrifice of peace offerings he distinguished the goats from the lambs. The other things are common, and we need not speak of them, for they were treated sufficiently in the offering of oxen.

But this should be known: where he says, "And the priest shall burn them on the altar as nourishment for the fire and of most sweet odour," whereas the Seventy rendered "The priest shall offer it on the altar, apart from the odour of sweetness," the other interpreters in the sacrifice of burnt offerings rendered "burnt offerings" instead of "entrails," and others "offering." But in this sacrifice of peace offerings one rendered "bread" and others "grain," showing without doubt that, even if it is not the offering of perfect philosophy (for that is the sacrifice of burnt offerings), yet this too is sufficient to nourish among those who are on the way to salvation and to give strength to the one who offers. For the prophet David says that bread gives this nourishment, when he says: "For bread strengthens the heart of man."

"All the fat shall be the Lord's by perpetual right in your generations and in all your dwellings; you shall eat neither fat nor blood at all." We said that the fat bears the figure of the desire, or lust, that is in us, and the blood that of the soul. Since, then, he commanded the fat to be offered to the Lord for ever, it is plain that he wants our desire, or lust, to be consecrated to God; and for ever, so that we may not divide it between God and the world. That is why he also added: "in your generations," that is, through each age; for here generations are understood as the changes of the ages, as Jeremiah shows when, writing to the Jewish people in Babylon, he expresses the number of seventy years as seven generations. He would not say this if he did not by it signify the succession of the ages; for he says: "Going into Babylon, you will be there many years and a long time, up to seven generations." "In all your dwellings," that is, in every way of life, whether we lead it in community or follow the solitary life; hence David said: "He who makes those of one mind to dwell in a house."

He commanded that fat and blood not be eaten at all: the fat for this reason, that he does not want us to have a desire, or lust, of our own, that is, carnal. That is why James said: "But each one is tempted by his own lust, being drawn away and enticed." And the blood, so that he may not run either to his own death or to his neighbour's; for this is the mark of cruel beasts. Therefore he said, "You shall not eat blood," commanding us to spare not only our neighbours but also ourselves. For to Noah too he plainly commanded such things: "You shall not eat flesh with blood, for I will require the blood of your souls," signifying that by abstaining from blood he wants man to abstain from murders. But for God he did not forbid it to be sacrificed, nor to despise the soul; rather he commanded it outright, and hence he ordered the blood to be poured out at the base of the altar.

Verses 1–12. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel: When a soul sins through ignorance, and does any of all the commandments of the Lord which he commanded not to be done: if the priest who is anointed sins, making the people transgress, he shall offer for his sin a calf without blemish to the Lord, and he shall bring it to the door of the tabernacle of witness before the Lord, and he shall lay his hand on its head and slaughter it to the Lord. He shall also draw of the blood of the calf, bringing it into the tabernacle of witness; and when he has dipped his finger in the blood, he shall sprinkle of it seven times before the Lord against the veil of the sanctuary; and he shall put of the same blood on the horns of the altar of the most pleasing incense to the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of witness. And all the rest of the blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offerings at the entrance of the tabernacle. And the fat of the calf he shall offer for the sin, both that which covers the vital parts and all that is within, the two kidneys and the net that is over them beside the flanks, and the fat of the liver with the kidneys, as it is taken from the calf of the victim of peace offerings; and he shall burn them on the altar of burnt offering. But the skin and all the flesh with the head and the feet and the entrails and the dung and the rest of the body he shall carry out of the camp to a clean place where the ashes are usually poured out, and he shall burn them on a pile of wood; they shall be burned in the place of the poured-out ashes."

The lawgiver has left out nothing that was necessary, marking out the differences of ways of life and showing us, in the offering of the sacrifices, the ways in which we must live. After this he necessarily sets out the sacrifice of Christ, through which the forgiveness of sins and redemption were granted to us. You will know this if you examine the lawgiver's words and compare with the colouring of this image the very realities of the sacrifice of the Only-begotten.

Before other things, then, attend first to this, that he said sins belong to the soul. For some accuse the body as the cause of sin. But it is not so: for if the soul is sound, the wantonness of the flesh will not harm it at all; if the soul governs it in the way it ought, it withdraws and ceases. But if you say, "Yet he said that it sins unwillingly": yes, but not compelled by the flesh; rather by ignorance of the good, which it suffers through negligence and the imitation of worse people, and through which it thinks harmful things pleasant.

But see this also, how in many things he mixes in the priest; for he says: "When a soul sins, and does any of all the commandments of the Lord which he commanded not to be done, if the priest who is anointed sins." If indeed "the priest who is anointed sins," he speaks of a priest like the others who offers for sins, because Christ too showed himself like us; for of him Paul says: "Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in all things, that he might become a merciful and faithful priest in the things that pertain to God, to reconcile the sins of the people," setting out very many things of this law in the Lord. But now what follows must be inquired into.

For see, the lawgiver called the sin of the priest himself the sin of the people: because a negligent visible priest, either sinning himself or not punishing sinners, entices the unlearned to the like. But the priest perceived by the mind neither committed sin himself nor neglected us even a little; he gave us the written law besides the law of nature, and, as Paul says, did not leave himself without witness. Yet since this figure must be fitted to Christ as far as possible, so that the colouring of the image may be completed in every point, we must take what is said as is worthy of Christ, the priest perceived by the mind. For if he had used the long-suffering of God, who does not wish to destroy the sinner, he would have seemed to give licence to sinners; that is why Isaiah says: "Why have you made us stray, O Lord, from your ways? You have hardened our heart, so that we did not fear you." Habakkuk too complains in a way of similar things: "Why do you not look upon those who do wickedly, and keep silent when the ungodly devours one more righteous than himself? And you make men like the fish of the sea and like creeping things that have no ruler." And Paul writes this to the Romans; for he says that Christ was made for us a propitiation through faith in his blood, "for the showing of his righteousness"; and of what righteousness he added: "through the redemption of sins committed before, in the forbearance of God."

The lawgiver, then, plainly seems to signify that priest to whom it was said, "You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek," him who was anointed by the Father, to whom David said: "Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of your kingdom is a right sceptre. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you." And that the lawgiver has here signified this priest himself is plain from this: in the case of the whole multitude of the sons of Israel, and of the ruler, and of each one of the people who comes to know his sin, he commanded an offering; but here it is not so; rather he says: "If the priest who is anointed sins, making the people transgress." And first he lays upon him the sin of the people, because Christ bore the sins of the people. Then he does not say, as of the others, "and afterwards understands his sin." For since he was God and knew all things, how could he be ignorant of the sins which he took up from us? He, then, fittingly offered a sacrifice for our sins; of which Paul writes to the Hebrews: "So Christ also, offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time without sin to those who await him for salvation." Yet "he shall offer" himself "for his sin," and the Seventy add "which he has sinned." And his sin is called our sin, as of one who once took it upon himself; hence Paul too said: "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God; and him who knew no sin he made sin for us."

"A calf without blemish to the Lord": namely, he offers his flesh to the Father; without blemish, because "he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth." And he is a calf because on the cross he tossed our enemies perceived by the mind. And since the Seventy render "a calf from the oxen," we understand the same as said "from the oxen," because according to the flesh he came from the fathers who were glorious for the righteousness of the law.

And where does he offer the calf, that is, his flesh? "At the door of the tabernacle of witness, before the Lord." At the door, so that we may understand that the sacrifice of Christ came about according to the teachings and traditions of the apostles. For we showed above that these are the doors of the tabernacle of witness, as giving entrance into heaven, which is taught and proved to be the tabernacle of witness. For Isaiah has a most plain proof of this witness, saying: "Who stretches out the heavens as nothing, and spreads them out like a tabernacle to dwell in." "Before the Lord," because the mystery of the cross was being completed in the Father's sight, so much so that the Lord said to the Father, who was certainly looking on: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

And he commanded him to lay his hand on the head of the calf and to slaughter the calf. For no one offered him, nor could anyone have sacrificed him, unless he himself had handed himself over to suffer. That is why he not only said, "I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again," but also, anticipating, he sacrificed himself at the supper of the apostles; those who receive the power of the mysteries know this. This priest the Seventy called not only "anointed," or smeared, but also "consecrated in the hands." For he was consecrated in the hands first at the mystical supper, taking bread and breaking it, and then through the cross, when he was fastened to the wood. Then, receiving the dignity of the priesthood, or rather, since he always had it, then fulfilling it in deed as well, he completed the sacrifice which was for us.

He himself, drawing of the blood of the calf, brings it into the tabernacle of witness. That we must take the calf as the flesh of the Lord he himself taught when he set out the parable of the prodigal son: [he said] that the father killed for him the fatted calf and gave him the first robe and a ring, signifying by the calf the sacrifice of the Only-begotten, by the robe baptism, and by the ring the pledge of the Spirit. And that he brought of the blood into the tabernacle of witness, Paul too teaches to the Hebrews, saying: "Christ, being present as high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, nor through the blood of bulls and calves but through his own blood, entered once for all into the holy place, having found eternal redemption." And again: "For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with hands, a copy of the true, but into heaven itself, to appear before the face of God for us." Let us understand, then, that the tabernacle of witness here is heaven, because the prophets have testified that God dwells in it: "He who dwells in the heavens," he says, "will laugh at them." And "no one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven," the Only-begotten said of himself to men. There he brought in the blood, because he rose from the dead bearing the scars of his sufferings; hence he also offered his body to Thomas to be touched, and so ascended into heaven.

What follows proves it: "When he has dipped his finger in the blood, he shall sprinkle of it seven times before the Lord against the veil of the sanctuary." He calls the flesh of the Lord by many names, because it also accomplished many works. Hence the Lord himself named his various titles in fitting words of the dispensation: now himself a sacrifice, now a shepherd, then again a vine, the bread of life and a grain of wheat. And now, then, he has called his flesh the veil; we cannot doubt this, since Paul says in explaining this mystery: "Having, brothers, confidence for entrance into the holy place in the blood of Christ, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the veil, that is, his flesh, and [having] a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a pure heart, in full assurance of faith." That is why it was also called the veil of the sanctuary, for it bore the figure of the flesh of the Holy of Holies.

Since, then, the finger of God is said to be his power (hence the magicians of Pharaoh, yielding to Moses' miracles, said, "It is the finger of God"; and David sang to him, "For I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers"; and the Lord himself again said to the Jews, "But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you"), he fittingly dips his finger in the blood, to show that the sufferings of the Lord's flesh were brought about by the power of the divinity. For how otherwise could such things have happened then, that is, the withdrawal of the sun, the earthquake, the splitting of the rocks and the like? This, then, by the power of the divinity …. And he sprinkled seven times, because he did this for the forgiveness of sins and for supplying us with the Holy Spirit. For the said number is accustomed to signify both, so that Peter said to the Lord: "If my brother sins against me, how often shall I forgive him? Up to seven times?" and the Lord answered: "I do not say to you seven times, but up to seventy times seven," multiplying the number because of the operations of the Spirit. For the prophet Isaiah numbered seven, saying: "And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him"; then, dividing his gifts, he says: "the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and godliness, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill him."

And that we must take the blood as his passion, the words of Pilate and of the Jews prove: for when he was being handed over to the cross, the one cries out, "I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man," and they, "His blood be on us and on our children." Peter too mentions this sprinkling in his catholic epistle, naming himself an apostle "according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." But if you say that his passion took place before he ascended into heaven, whereas the lawgiver speaks of it after the priest's entrance into the tabernacle,

which we said signifies heaven: when you dip your finger in the blood and sprinkle, know the truth, that he who was crucified below in the flesh is in heaven in his divinity. And for this reason he said to the chief priests as they were judging him and about to crucify him: "I say to you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God." In saying "from now on," he was showing that at the very time when the calf was being sacrificed below, he himself, as high priest, was offering the sacrifice for himself in heaven.

What follows agrees with this: "And he shall put of the same blood on the horns of the altar of the most pleasing incense to the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of witness." Here he signifies the seat of the cherubim; for that they are an altar Isaiah made plain through the vision of the seraphim; for he says: "And one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar." And "incense of composition," as the Seventy say: he speaks of the composition of all the virtues, as in incense, which are the incense perceived by the mind. For where is it fitting for the virtues to be compounded, if not at the seat of God? Even if they are practised on earth, they nonetheless come down from heaven. Hence Paul too said of those who lived in the virtues: "But our citizenship is in heaven." And James says: "But the wisdom that is from above is first of all kind," saying that wisdom is one of the general virtues; for after it fortitude and justice and chastity, and much more the others, are ranked with it. These, being four, as I think, and pre-eminent, are fittingly named the horns of the said altar, because they are the kinds of the other virtues. And Isaiah too says: "Mercies …." The Lord anoints these with his own blood, giving them greater and more perfect strength, so that they may prevail against the forces of the adversaries.

He commanded all the rest of the calf's blood to be poured out around the base of the altar of burnt offering, which is in the tabernacle of witness. Let us again understand the altar of burnt offering as the body of Christ: for as he is himself priest and sacrifice, so he is also the altar. And if what is signified by many names is one (for we said that he must be understood also as the veil), there is nothing that can stand in the way of this; for since there are many operations in him, there are fittingly also many names. Nor is it right to reject the interpretation on these grounds as false; for it is the custom of divine Scripture to suggest one thing by many names, as Zechariah shows; for he says: "And I answered and said to him: What are these two olive trees on the right of the lampstand and on its left? And I answered a second time and said to him: What are the two kinds of olives that are beside the two golden beaks, in which are the pourers of gold? And he said to me: Do you not know what these are? And I said: I do not know, Lord. And he said: These are the two sons of the oil of splendour, who stand by the Lord of the whole earth." Zechariah asks about two certain things, the olive trees and those that pour the oil into the lampstand; but the angel who answered him gave one interpretation to the two questions. And that the altar perceived by the mind is the body of the Lord blessed Paul too understands, as you may learn from his own words; for he says: "We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat," meaning the body of Christ; for it is not lawful for the Jews to eat of it. This altar is fittingly at the entrance of the tabernacle of witness, that is, at the entrance of heaven, because through it we have entrance into heaven.

But now let us discuss the rest of this sacrifice. Whatever he commanded in the sacrifice of peace offerings, or of salvation, he commanded to be done also in this one: that the two kidneys be offered, and the net that is over them, and the fat of the liver (which the Seventy render "the lobe of the liver"), and that they be burned on the altar of burnt offerings. He divides the sacrifice in two, so that all may be allowed to imitate the sacrifice of Christ: both those who are of the lower way of life (for we said that the sacrifice of peace offerings suits them) and those who are minded for higher things, for whom it is enough to imitate what follows.

"But the skin and all the flesh with the head and the feet and the entrails and the dung and the rest of the body he shall carry out of the camp." He commanded this so that you may not divide Christ, as some divide him, saying: "He who is from Mary suffered; but he who is from God the Father did not suffer." "For to us there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things," according to what Paul said. Though he suffered as man, yet in his sufferings he works miracles as God, but he is nowhere divided. For this reason [he commanded] his flesh, that is, his humanity, [to be burned], both the man who appeared and the one who was hidden, of whom Paul says: "And even if our outer man is being corrupted, yet the inner is being renewed." For flesh in the Lord means his whole humanity, because "the Word was made flesh." That is why he commanded his flesh to be burned with the head and the feet, or, with the head and the extremities, namely the feet (for so the rest of the interpreters rendered it), so that by the said words we might understand that he who suffered for us is at the beginning and at the end; of whom Paul says: "For in him were created all things, those in heaven and those on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and in him, and he is before all things, and all things hold together in him; and he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he may hold the first place in all things."

Moreover, "with the entrails and the dung," or as the Seventy render it, "with the belly and the excrement": since the belly bears the figure of the mind perceived by the mind, as we showed in the sacrifices of the other burnt offerings, we should by no means be ignorant from this that he who suffered for us had our mind, which some of the heretics deny. And the dung signifies the sins of the human race, which the Crucified took upon himself; for these may truly be called the dung of the Lord. For dung, though it is unclean, does not defile the one who carries it, nor does it belong to our nature, though it is in us; just as our sins, which the Lord bore, were both foreign to him and in no way defiled him, for he remained without sin.

The lawgiver, then, commands the whole calf, that is, the whole Christ, to be cast out of the camp in a most clean place where the ashes are usually poured out, striving to signify most plainly the place of the sacrifice of Christ; for he suffered outside the camp, as Paul testifies, saying: "Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people, suffered outside the gate." And what is the clean place of ashes? Golgotha, namely, and so clean that it cleansed the whole world. And it is rightly called the place of ashes, because in it the sins of the human race were extinguished; hence it is also called a clean place.

"And they shall burn them on a pile of wood." We said that the wood in the fire is the sacred Scriptures. And whatever was done to the Lord at the time of his passion was done to fulfil what the prophets had said, as the Lord shows when he was seized by the Jews, saying: "You have come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to seize me; daily I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not hold me. But this has happened so that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." And again: "But Jesus, seeing that all things were accomplished, so that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said: I thirst." But though the figure of the Lord's passion appears in every detail, the lawgiver seems to figure this mystery still more plainly in what follows.

Verses 13–21. "But if the whole multitude of Israel is ignorant, and through want of skill does what is against the commandment of the Lord, and afterwards understands its sin, it shall offer a calf for the sin and bring it to the door of the tabernacle; and the elders of the people shall lay their hands on its head before the Lord. And when the calf has been slaughtered in the sight of the Lord, the priest who is anointed shall bring of its blood into the tabernacle of witness, sprinkling it with his finger dipped in it seven times against the veil; and he shall put of the blood on the horns of the altar which is before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness; and the rest of the blood he shall pour out beside the base of the altar of burnt offerings, which is at the door of the tabernacle of witness; and he shall take all its fat and burn it on the altar. So he shall do with this calf as he did before also; and when the priest prays for them, the Lord will be merciful. But the calf itself he shall carry out of the camp and burn, as he did the former calf, because it is for the sin of the multitude."

In these the lawgiver changed nothing that could lie outside the said sacrifice, which is the chief priest's: for he commanded the same to be offered by the multitude of Israel and by the priest, for he said "a calf" both here and there. Likewise he commands the blood to be offered in the tabernacle of witness and the calf to be burned outside the camp; and in what has been said it is shown most plainly that the sins of the people and of the priest were the same. For why else would he offer the same sacrifice for them? And what has been changed in the sacrifice pertains rather to confirming that the sacrifice is one: for in the case of the priest he did not say "if he comes to know his sin," since the Lord was not going to be ignorant of the sin which he became incarnate to take upon himself. But of the multitude, that is, of the synagogue or the people, notice what he says: "But if the whole multitude of Israel is ignorant, and through want of skill does what is against the commandment of the Lord, and afterwards understands its sin." At first, then, they were ignorant of their sin, but afterwards they came to know it. The Lord's own words show this, for he says: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin," as being ignorant, certainly; "but now they have no excuse for their sin," as having learned through his teaching what they did not know before. When, then, they came to know their sin, they turned to the sacrifice of the Only-begotten.

Then, in the sacrifice of the priest, we said that he himself laid his hand on the head of the calf; but here he says that the elders do this. For both truly took place in the sacrifice of Christ: the elders of the people, and the scribes, and Caiaphas the chief of the priests pressed to bring it about, and said, "It is expedient for us that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish"; and it could in no way have been accomplished had not the Lord handed himself over to suffering, so much so that he himself said to Peter: "Put your sword into its sheath; the cup which the Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" For he was hastening to bring about the forgiveness of our sins; this is necessarily considered in what concerns the sacrifice of the synagogue, for he says: "So he shall do with this calf as he did before also; and when the priest prays for them, the Lord will be merciful." For Christ became for us a propitiation in his blood, as was written by blessed Paul to the Romans. Through him sins were so far forgiven that even those who sinned against him might be granted forgiveness; for of them he had said: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

But what did the lawgiver say at the end of the sacrifice? For the conclusion of the law itself is enough for us to make plain what is at hand: "But the calf itself he shall carry out of the camp and burn, as he did the former calf, because it is for the sin of the multitude." You see how nothing in the second sacrifice is changed beyond what is commanded in the first; and why? "Because it is for the sin," he says, "of the multitude." This, then, is plain and beyond doubt, that he understood the sin of the people and of the priest to be the same, and for this reason he ordained the same sacrifice in both cases, not dividing them even in his words; which he would not do unless the things that were then [done] had been figures

of what was then being done.

Verses 22–31. "If a ruler sins, and through ignorance does one of the many things that are forbidden by the law of the Lord, and afterwards understands his sin, he shall offer a victim to the Lord, a he-goat from the goats without blemish; and he shall lay his hand on its head. And when he has slaughtered it in the place where the burnt offerings are usually sacrificed before the Lord, because it is for sin, the priest shall dip his finger in the blood of the victim for sin, touching the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and pouring out the rest at its base. But the fat he shall burn on it, as is usually done in the victims of peace offerings; and he shall pray for him and for his sin, and it shall be forgiven him. But if a soul of the people of the land sins through ignorance, so as to do any of the things that are forbidden by the law of the Lord, and transgresses, and comes to know his sin, he shall offer a she-goat without blemish; and he shall lay his hand on the head of the victim which is for sin, and he shall slaughter it in the place of burnt offering. And the priest shall take of the blood on his finger, and touching the horns of the altar he shall pour out the rest at its base. And taking away all the fat, as it is usually taken away from the victims of peace offerings, he shall burn it on the altar as an odour of sweetness to the Lord; and he shall pray for him, and it shall be forgiven him."

Just as in the freewill sacrifices he ordained differences according to the ways of life and conditions of life of those who offer, so again he commands the sacrifices for sins to be proportioned to the sins, whose greatness is set not only by the act of sin but by the person of those who sin. And very rightly, for the Lord too said to the apostles: "The servant who knows the will of his lord and does not prepare himself, nor act according to his will, will be beaten with many stripes; but he who did not know, and did things worthy of stripes, will be beaten with few." And what did he add? "To whom much has been given, much will be required of him; and to whom much has been entrusted, much will be demanded of him."

Understand that this one is he whom the lawgiver called a ruler; hinting at him also in the book of Exodus, he said: "You shall not revile the gods, and you shall not curse the ruler of your people." And David too, designating the priests and the scribes and the Pharisees and the elders of the people, says: "The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ." Yet only Herod the king and Pilate the governor were present; but, as we said, he called the priests and scribes and Pharisees kings and rulers because of the knowledge and the eminence which they seemed to have for the interpretation of the law. If such a one, then, sins, he shall offer a he-goat. But if someone of the people (he means an unlearned or common man, not one who has been set apart by lot to meditate on the law, for such a one too would surely be called a ruler) [sins], he is commanded to offer a she-goat for the lesser sin, just as the other a he-goat: this one a female, that one a male. For both need repentance, the one a greater, who brings a male, and the other a lesser, who brings a female; for though they are of one kind, what is less is placed in the female, since the male is thought to be the head of each kind.

Just as, then, the offering of the she-goat marks a sacrifice for sin, so the he-goat and the she-goat (the one of feminine gender, the other of masculine) express the force of the sacrifice. For the lawgiver did not intend this in vain, but because …. The Seventy render it thus in Greek, saying that a χίμαρος and a χίμαιρα must be offered, which the Latins, translating from the same edition, rendered "a male kid from the goats" and "a female she-goat from the kids." And χίμαρος and χίμαιρα are young goats that are χειμερινοί, that is, born about the time of winter; for since goats give birth twice a year, some young are born in the winter season and some in the summer. This being so, by winter he teaches the sorrow of repentance: for repentance brings forth children in sorrow and weeping, yet its children are not rejected from the sacrifice. Hence I think he commanded the penitent to offer kids, that is, χίμαροι, as men tossed by waves, and as those who, struggling against the shifting waves of the sins that rise against them, will in every way be saved by mercy. For if they persevere in repentance and do not despair, like men in a storm who abandon the rudder of the ship of the soul, they will be delivered; but if they despair, like certain helmsmen or fearful sailors, they perish at once. For the Lord too said: "Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath," calling winter the time of repentance, and understanding the Sabbath as rest of soul and cessation from evil: for the Sabbath was given for rest and leisure from evils, but the nation of the Jews used it in the opposite way. It is grievous for anyone to be tempted or to suffer persecution at a time when repentance is necessary, and much more grievous at a time when he rests from all works; hence he put last, as the greater, the one who suffers persecution on the Sabbath.

Since, then, we have learned the meaning of the he-goat, or the she-goat, or the kid, and the manner of the difference of the sacrifices, let us now see what is done in both sacrifices; for these things are common, since the end and general effect of repentance is the forgiveness of sins, which the lawgiver set out plainly, saying: "But if a soul of the people of the land sins through ignorance, so as to do any of the things that are forbidden by the law of the Lord." He does not say "what," because whoever has transgressed in any point transgresses the whole law, as blessed James says: "Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles in one point is made guilty of all." And what was said, "through ignorance," or, as the Seventy have it, "unwillingly," shows the yoke of the devil's slavery bearing down on sinners, which those who incline to evil have put on themselves, as Isaiah says: "Woe to those who draw sins like a long rope, and iniquity like the rope of a heifer's yoke," by which some are dragged captive and unwilling. But if they return to a sound mind, they are at once released from this rope or yoke. How or when this happens the lawgiver shows: namely, when the one who sinned comes to know his sin; for he cannot repent otherwise than by knowing his sin. Then let the ruler offer a he-goat, or χίμαρος, and the one of the crowd a she-goat, or χίμαιρα; and both without blemish, for repentance must be without blemish.

And what is its blemish? Namely, if the penitent sympathizes with the sin, or is a friend of the thing for which he does penance; for he must withdraw from that sin completely and with a most earnest purpose. Then he shall lay his hand on the head of the victim, himself making his sin known and offering his confession. But according to the Seventy he does not himself slay it; others do. For he needs the help of others too in prayer, so that his repentance may be received. Hence he did not altogether command the priests to slay it either; for he says: "They shall slay it in the place in which the burnt offerings are slain," but he did not add who are to slay it. For in the sacrifice of repentance it is permitted to use each other's help, as James testifies, saying: "Pray for one another, that you may be saved." But much more let us use the help of the righteous; for he himself adds: "The constant prayer of a righteous man avails much."

And where shall they slay it? According to the Seventy, "in the sight of the Lord." The lawgiver explains why, for he says: "It is of sin." For we must confess our sin in the sight of the Lord; that is why David too said: "I made my sin known to you, and I did not hide my injustices. I said: I will declare my injustice against myself to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my heart." For this reason the lawgiver here added: "And the priest shall take and put the blood of the sin with his finger on the horns of the altar of burnt offering," which Jerome rendered in a similar sense: "And the priest shall take of the blood with his finger, touching the horns of the altar." He called "blood of the sin" the blood that is offered for sins. Its first fruits Christ the priest will offer on the horns of the altar of burnt offering, namely on his cross. For if the altar of burnt offering is the Lord's body, its horns will without doubt be the cross, of which Habakkuk said: "Horns are in his hands." He will necessarily offer on his cross the first fruits of his blood, which is offered for sin, because the work and effect of the cross is the perfect forgiveness of our sins.

And in saying, "He shall pour out the rest of the blood at its base," he assigns all repentance to the gospel preaching, which we said is the base of the altar. And rightly he assigns all repentance to the apostolic preaching, because its whole intention is this, that every man, repenting, may be saved by correcting himself. That is why the Lord in the Gospel also put forward as his first word of teaching: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven will draw near." For he also said that he had come for this, saying: "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

After this what does the priest do? "And taking away all the fat, as it is usually taken away from the victims of peace offerings": so that all the desire of the penitent may look upward, that is, aim at heaven; for then his repentance can be reckoned to the one who offers it as in the sacrifice of peace offerings. And what the end of the things said is, he added: "And the priest shall pray for him, and it shall be forgiven him." For we are not able to forgive sins to ourselves, but Christ accomplishes propitiation for us. Hence, too, by his word priests have been ordained in the church, as those who take up his office, to whom he said in the person of the apostles: "Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; and whose you retain, they are retained." And again: "Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound also in heaven."

Verses 32–35. "But if he offers from the flock a victim for sin, namely a ewe without blemish, he shall lay his hand on its head and slaughter it in the place where the victims of burnt offerings are usually slain; and the priest shall take of its blood with his finger, and touching the horns of the altar of burnt offering he shall pour out the rest at its base; taking away also all the fat, as the fat of the ram that is sacrificed for peace offerings is usually taken away, … on the altar as an incense to the Lord; and he shall pray for him and for his sin, and it shall be forgiven him."

Here too the lawgiver, consistent with himself, joined also the ewe to the offering of the she-goat, or χίμαιρα, which we said is offered by those who are of the people and are not occupied in meditating on the law: because among the people, and among idols, there may be some who are simple, for whom the sacrifice of the sheep is fitting, as is shown both in the burnt offerings and in the sacrifices of the victim of peace offerings. The lawgiver, then, wishing plainly to establish that not only the ruler, that is, the one of loftier knowledge, nor only the common man, but also one among the common people who is simple, if he should happen to sin, owes repentance for the redemption of his sins, introduced the sacrifice of the ewe. And he commanded not a ram but a ewe, that is, a female and not a male, to be offered, because he assigned the sacrifice of females to the common people; plainly charging those who receive the law that whoever has been allotted rule and is loftier than others in knowledge should not show simplicity alone, since he must also be wise as a serpent, as the Lord says. But one who is not such, that is, who does not abound in knowledge and therefore lives among the people, even though he is simple, if it happens that he sins, his sin will not be pardoned unless he has washed it away by the offering of repentance. This being so, the rest needs no explanation: for since it is a sacrifice for sin, he gave the command here about the she-goat and the ewe together. Hence, as we press on to what follows, there is no need to linger long on what is at hand.

Verses 1–13. "If a soul sins, and hears the voice of one swearing, and is a witness of what he either saw himself or knows of, if he does not declare it, he shall bear his iniquity. A soul that touches anything unclean, whether what was killed by a beast or died of itself, or any other creeping thing, and forgets its uncleanness, is guilty and transgresses. And if he touches anything of the uncleanness of a man, according to every impurity by which one is usually defiled, and having forgotten comes to know it afterwards, he shall be liable to the transgression. A soul that swears and utters with its lips that it would do either evil or good, and confirms the same by oath and word, and having forgotten afterwards understands its transgression, let it repent for the sin and offer a ewe lamb from the flocks, or a she-goat; and the priest shall pray for him and for his sin. But if he cannot offer a beast of the flock, let him offer two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the Lord, one for sin and the other for a burnt offering, and he shall give them to the priest. He, offering the first for sin, shall twist its head back to the wings, so that it clings to the neck and is not broken off completely, and he shall sprinkle of its blood on the side of the altar; and whatever is left he shall make to drip down at its foundations, because it is for sin; and the other he shall burn as a burnt offering, as is usually done; and the priest shall pray for him and for his sin, and it shall be forgiven him. But if his hand cannot offer two turtledoves or two young pigeons, he shall offer for sin fine flour, the tenth part of an ephah; he shall not put oil on it nor lay any frankincense on it, because it is for sin; and he shall give it to the priest, who, taking a handful full from the whole, shall burn it on the altar as a memorial of him who offered it, praying for him and making atonement; but the remaining part he shall have himself as a gift."

Does the lawgiver repeat the same things? For in what went before he had said, "If one of the people of the land sins through ignorance, so as to do any of the things that are forbidden by the law of the Lord, and transgresses," giving a command generally about every sin and ordering what should be offered; and now he seems to ordain about the same things in other words. And why did he set out above some things for sin and not all? For he ought either to have set out everything one by one, or nothing at all, since a general showing of sin would have been enough for him. But the words of the lawgiver are not as some who read carelessly think. For when he said, "If one of the people of the land sins through ignorance, so as to do any of the things that are forbidden by the law of the Lord, and transgresses," he pointed to the visible Israel, which, knowing the commandments of God, ought not to have transgressed anything of the law, and, having transgressed, ought to fulfil what belongs to repentance. But here, saying "If a soul sins," he did not add "of the people of the land," and most rightly. For he speaks of the sins from which, as James says, even those from the gentiles must abstain, that is, from things sacrificed to idols, and things strangled, and blood, and sexual immorality; for among these you will find what follows enumerated.

Then, above, the sin of each one who transgresses by himself, and what someone has done by himself, is marked out. But here he points to the one who has shared in the sins of others; for this is what the touching of what is unclean, and of carcasses, and of what is caught by beasts, hints at. He sets out not in riddles but openly what some despise: namely, when another falls into error, not to rebuke the error but to give consent. Now, then, he shows that in this case too we need an offering, namely that which pertains to the absolution of repentance.

"If a soul sins, and hears the voice of one swearing, and is a witness of what he either saw himself or knows of": that is, if someone commits a theft or a fraud and gives an oath about them, and someone who saw the theft or the fraud he committed, or otherwise knows that he swears falsely, does not reveal it, "he shall bear the iniquity." And rightly: for one who was free to rebuke the sin and covered it up has without doubt become its helper; and one who has helped has drawn the sin upon himself.

And not only … but also "if anyone touches any unclean thing, or a carcass, or what was caught by beasts," wishing to show not the unclean things of the body but unclean actions, and not those uncleannesses which the nation of the Jews supposes. What the actions are whose sharing is to be avoided as unclean, the Saviour taught the apostles, saying: "Are you also still without understanding? Do you not know that whatever goes into the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the drain? But the things that come out of the mouth come out of the heart, and these defile a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, false witness, thefts, blasphemies. These are what defile a man." That is why the lawgiver understood unclean things, as defiling those by whom they are touched, that is, those who share in them, to be carcasses. Like them in defiling is the man who is dead through sin; of such the Lord said: "Let the dead bury their dead." And one is caught by beasts who, by the working of the devil in him, has been drawn to some evil action, as Judas was drawn to betray the Lord, of whom John the evangelist says: "And supper being over, the devil having put it into his heart that Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, should betray him."

But since in the translation of the Seventy he did not say simply "caught by a beast" but added "unclean," [one may ask]: is not one who is caught by a beast in every case also unclean? And we say: by no means. For not everyone who is caught by a beast is in every case also killed by it. For perhaps even after he is caught he is set free, like Peter: he fell into the devil's snare of rash denial, but, coming to his senses, he escaped, and says with David: "My soul was rescued like a sparrow from the snare of the hunters." This man, then, is not unclean. But certain differences of carcasses, according to the Seventy, are set out: of these he said that some are beasts of the flock and some abominations. A dead beast of the flock is a man who sins through folly and leads the life of cattle against the law; to such David says, "Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding"; and of such Jeremiah too says, "They became stallions; each of them neighed after his neighbour's wife." And the abominations are the unclean among the animals, such as dogs and swine and whatever things of that kind are named, which were also worshipped by unbelievers; or "any creeping thing," that is, what crawls on its belly, which Symmachus and Aquila nonetheless rendered "creeping things," and the Seventy "abominations." By this, then, he most plainly signifies the sect of idolatry, or those who live in some other evil, that is, in idols and in robberies or in other lusts.

If anyone shares in all these by touch "and forgets it," or as the Seventy say, "it escapes him" (since forgetfulness of soul and darkness of mind, or an evil action, is a defilement), in the touching of these, that is, either in that someone … those who do these things, or in that …, he is defiled in every way. This sense comes in the same way also in the present translation, if one attends to it.

"But also if he touches anything of the uncleanness of a man, according to every impurity by which one is usually defiled," of all his uncleanness, whichever he is defiled by touching. According to the letter he means those who suffer a flow of seed, and menstruous women, and certain others, of whom the lawgiver himself speaks with more exactness a little later, where we have reserved the explanation of these; setting down now only this by way of reminder, that not every uncleanness of a man defiles the one who touches it. For this reason he said, "according to every impurity by which one is usually defiled," and according to the Seventy, "from all his uncleanness, which he is defiled by touching." Who these are we shall say when the lawgiver has spoken of them.

"A soul that swears and utters with its lips," that is, openly promising, which the Seventy render "distinguishing with the lips," "that it would do either evil or good": in which there is sin when one who promised to do good lies, or one who threatened evil tells the truth. This Herod too experienced, who, because he had sworn to Herodias, beheaded John the Baptist. "And having forgotten, afterwards understands its transgression." When each one perceives and comes to know all these things that have been said, let him confess the sin which he committed, and offer a ewe lamb from the flocks or a she-goat. For here he speaks of one who is of the people, that is, of the common people, among whom it is possible to find someone simple; [for him] he rightly kept the offering of a ewe lamb from the flocks, as suited to a simple man, as we said above, in this sacrifice, or repentance, of which we are now speaking, adding the conclusion: "And the priest shall pray for him and for his sin." He uses his customary words, recalling to our memory what he commanded above to be done in the prayer for sins, which we need not say again, since it has been said once.

Let us only add this: that if a ruler commits any of these sins, he should offer a he-goat from the goats, an offering and a repentance worthy of himself. For by commanding the multitude … to offer a sacrifice also in these things of which he now speaks, it is plain that he wanted similar things of the ruler too. Or, to put it another way, the one who excelled in knowledge ought neither to sin himself nor to share in another's sins. For he is found leading on, or provoking, those under him who imitate him not to virtue but to iniquity. That is why he left that case undiscussed, as one that ought not even to happen.

But this too must be noted, that "transgression" sometimes means a special iniquity which is committed against God alone, such as that against holy things or that committed in an oath; but sometimes it means every sin. And for this reason, everywhere, whether the knowledge of the sin is put before or after, it is in every way called a transgression, to show that every sin, after it is known, is a transgression against God himself; and so it is called "transgression," that is, πλημμέλεια. For not without cause does the lawgiver use this word often.

For just as the lawgiver, marking out the different ways of life of men at the beginning of the book through the burnt offerings and the sacrifices of salvation, did not set them forth in vain, but desiring to open many ways and doors, so now too he ordained not one kind but many of offerings for sin, in order to set forth several ways of repentance; because not all men can fulfil all ways, nor does every way of repentance suit every sin. For when repentance demands sackcloth, and fasting, and tears, and continual prayer, and vigils, and other such things, how, for example, will one who is weak in body from old age or otherwise be able to do such a repentance? Is he, then, shut out from repentance because of weakness or such an age? By no means; for he has another way to obtain the forgiveness of sins. And who this is, what follows shows; for he says: "But if he cannot offer a beast of the flock." The Seventy translated this, "But if his hand is not able for a sheep," meaning by "sheep" to be understood the sheep or the she-goat, as though the kind of goats and sheep were common, as we said. Here this is rendered more plainly: in order to include all these, he put "beast of the flock." Hence other interpreters too in this place rendered, instead of "sheep," some "pasturing beasts" and others "from the flock," wishing to signify by this the goats as well.

If, then, this man cannot offer a beast of the flock, "he shall offer for his sin which he has sinned two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the Lord." For this reason it is very necessary for us to remember that we said above that the contemplative life, the life spent in meditation, pure and simple, is signified by the young pigeons and the turtledoves. So one who cannot give himself to continual affliction and hardship, so as to

eat his bread with ashes and mingle his drink with weeping, and do other such things as a penitent, being prevented, for example, by weakness or by some other necessity, can repent in another way: for instance, by offering himself to the contemplation of God and to the searching of his law, consecrating his whole mind to the heavenly way of life and holding himself back most fully from earthly things. For by this both the forgiveness of sins and justification are obtained for him. Hence of these one is offered for sin, that is, for the cleansing of sin, and the other is sacrificed as a burnt offering, as for one who crucifies his way of life, or his life, and hands it over most fully to God.

"And he shall give them to the priest," to Christ, certainly; for then each is acceptable, since they are offered through his mediation. "He, offering the first for sin": he offers the first for sin, because no one can become a burnt offering unless he has first been made free from sin. But what is the manner of this freedom? "The priest shall twist its head back to the wings, so that it clings to the neck and is not broken off completely." By the neck, which the Seventy rendered "vertebra," the whole body is understood, because the firmness of the neck is the health and support of the whole body. Since, then, in divine Scripture the head is usually taken for the mind, because the mind holds the leading place in man (hence David too said to God, "You crushed the heads of the dragons under the waters," that is, the mind, when, as the water of baptism gives forgiveness, the mind of the devil is crushed), by what the Seventy say, "And the priest shall nip off its head," and the present translation, "He shall twist its head back to the wings," he wants us not to serve the body nor to suffer with it, but to break it off or twist it back, so that the law of sin, which dwells in the members of the body by the habit of sinning, may not fight against the law of the mind on equal terms nor lead the man captive, as Paul says. But because we must not wholly oppose the body, nor think it a creature of the devil, as some suppose, but subject it to the mind, he therefore did not command the head to be separated from the neck; for both are creatures of one and the same [Creator].

But let us see what follows. "And he shall sprinkle of its blood on the side of the altar; and whatever is left he shall make to drip down at its foundations, because it is for sin." The side of the altar is understood as the body of Christ, of which Christ himself said: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up." And its foundation, or, as the Seventy translated, its base; for the base is the Gospel. So he commands this sacrifice for sins too to be offered according to the intention of the sacrifice of Christ and of the gospel teaching; that is why he added "because it is for sin." For nothing can so snatch us from sins as the imitation of Christ and obedience to the gospel preaching. If anyone is obedient to it, "he shall burn the other as a burnt offering, as is usually done," that is, as a burnt offering ought to be made; which the Seventy render fully in this sense, "and he shall do as he ought." For one who has renounced father and mother and brothers and all worldly things must become a burnt offering, if he wants to be an acceptable burnt offering perceived by the mind. If you do these things, you who cannot repent in the said ways, that is, by vigils and sackcloth and other such afflictions, the priest perceived by the mind "shall pray for him and for his sin, and it shall be forgiven him." Very admirable, then, is God, the maker of this law, who in his clemency grants pardon to the weakness of the human race and has found a way by which the weak can attain no lesser things.

But since it is not always easy to … when we have abused repentance itself and in a way abolished its force (which happens if someone, sinning and pretending to repent, returns again to the same thing; as Peter too says in rebuke: "The thing of the true proverb has happened to them: The dog returned to his own vomit, and the washed sow to wallowing in the mire." And Paul: "Lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one meal sold his birthright. For you know that afterwards, wishing to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it with tears."), since, then, the entrance to repentance is not easily granted to such people, see, the lawgiver now hints at it; for he says: "But if his hand cannot offer two turtledoves or two young pigeons." Because he cannot do this at all, nor can he offer a kid or a sheep. And why can he not, or, as the Seventy say, why does he not find it? Because he has misused the riches of repentance and has not spent them as he ought. What then shall he do, so that despair may not become the cause of his perdition? "He shall offer for his sin fine flour, the tenth part of an ephah; he shall not put oil on it nor lay any frankincense on it, because it is for sin." This kind of repentance, then, which he mentioned, is granted to him. But he must be anxious and afraid lest perhaps his repentance, so often insulted, may not be received. That is why he does not pour oil on it, as one who doubts whether he is worthy of mercy and compassion; nor does he put any frankincense on it, as one who does not know whether his prayer is of good odour, since he has so often transgressed. Hence the prophet Joel said to the people of the Jews: "Turn to the Lord your God, for he is kind and merciful, patient and abundant in mercy, and relenting over evil. Who knows whether he will turn and pardon, and leave a blessing behind him? A sacrifice and a drink offering to the Lord our God." And how can there be doubt about one who is merciful and patient and of great compassion, whether he will turn and relent, and whether he will accept a sacrifice or a drink offering for sins, except that he is speaking to a wicked people that loves sins? Since they had often repented and never persevered in pure repentance, he wants neither to bring them to despair nor again to let them presume too much as penitents; and so he used doubtful words. And for this reason confidence ought not to be easily given them, lest, being given it, they become more careless towards other sins again, as though the former ones had been remitted; for the lawgiver is hinting at certain people who are weak and inconstant in the virtues.

"And he shall give it to the priest," to him, that is, as the merciful Christ; for he it is who even now is understood by the figure of the priest. "Who, taking a handful full from the whole, shall burn it on the altar as a memorial of him who offered it." The kind of offering is acceptable: an ephah of fine flour. And an ephah is a measure of three measures, that is, it offers three, and it is itself the sacrifice that is offered. For since the ephah is a measure of three measures, it clearly hints at the Trinity, which is one measure because there is one Deity in it, but has three measures, that is, three perfect persons and as many subsistences; so that it is plain that we do not sin in calling the Lord's flesh a part of it, because of the inseparable union with it of the incarnate Word. And why is it a part of the Trinity? Because its glory and power are indivisible, so that Paul said of Christ: "In him dwells all the fullness of the divinity bodily." And John too: "Whoever denies the Son," he says, "does not have the Father either; whoever confesses Jesus has the Father also." So the ephah here is God incarnate, the Word, as having in himself the fullness of the Trinity; and its tenth is the flesh: first, to show the loftiness of his divinity in relation to his humanity, for which reason it is also called a part; and then because God the Word became incarnate with a whole man, and as one who would fulfil the law. For the tenth signifies both, because the number ten is perfect; and the commandments of the law are ten. Hence also the tenth: the law assigned the tenth part as the special portion to the priest, namely to Christ, as one who has the first fruits of our lump.

Whoever, then, has violated repentance by often transgressing, and wishes to repent again, let him repent in the hope of Christ, who, when asked by Peter, "If my brother sins against me, how often shall I forgive him, up to seven times?" said: "I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven." This word, then, offers the hope of repentance to those for whom it seems impossible. For this reason, taking from the offering, he fills his handful as a memorial of him who offered it, and burns it on the altar; that is, mindful of his word which he spoke to the apostles for the salvation of those who came to him, "They shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand," he saves the one who comes to him, who has often transgressed, unto repentance; offering for him the handful as a memorial, that is, the word by which he promised that those who have once come under his hand shall not perish. Of this handful, then, he himself brought in the woman, who bore the figure of the church, saying: "Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I had lost." For the ground of hope in repentance had been lost by many who used repentance badly, but in the said manner it was found. This memorial, then, he offers on the altar of his body, which took up every sin, even that which seemed impossible to be saved. That is why he added, "because it is for sin," showing that to take up the sins of all belongs to Christ alone.

So those who by often sinning have transgressed repentance, but at last have been able [to repent], have from their frequent transgressing no hope of repentance; yet Christ even so prays …, as what follows makes plain, "praying for him and making atonement," or, as the Seventy rendered, "And the priest shall pray for him and for his sin which he has sinned, and it shall be forgiven him," so that from this you may understand that it signifies a multitude of sins committed. For this reason, even for one of these, as one who sins in the same way and often repents of the same thing and nonetheless repeats the sin in which he transgressed, the priest rightly forgives and intercedes for his repentance. "For he is a merciful and faithful priest towards God, who makes intercession for the sins of the people."

But let us also know what the end of this ordinance is. There follows: "But the remaining part he shall have himself as a gift," which they rendered, "And what remains shall be the priest's, like the sacrifice of fine flour." And yet this sacrifice is of fine flour, for he commanded a tenth of an ephah of fine flour to be offered. But because he knew that fine flour is theology, whereas this offering is not so much of theology as of repentance, he shows by the comparison that this is something other than that. Hence there he assigned what remained to Aaron and his sons; and we said that his sons are those who can understand lofty and divine things. They are fed on the remains of the knowledge whose whole sum Christ holds in heaven, with whom, as the Apostle says, the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. But now what remains belongs not to Aaron and his sons but to the priest, namely Christ, as the sacrifice of fine flour is "as a gift." So, since we said that fine flour is theology, the present sacrifice is divided into these two: into the forgiveness of sins for the one who repents, and into theology for Christ. For it belongs to God alone to pardon even those things whose forgiveness seems impossible. And rightly

in him this sacrifice is found in many ways to belong to theology.

And do not wonder that we have said that in certain persons, or sins, the entrance to repentance is difficult; for Paul says: "For if we sin wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a victim for sin," putting for impossible what we have called difficult. For the same says in what follows: "For it is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and have fallen away, to be renewed again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and hold him up to mockery," signifying you who have often repented and transgressed, and [have done] injury to Christ who granted it; which what follows makes plain: "For the earth," he says, "that drinks the rain that often comes upon it, and brings forth herbs useful to those by whom it is tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near to a curse, and its end is to be burned." He did not say … that the repentance of one who transgresses is near to a curse and rejected, and its end is to be burned, unless he comes to his senses. But not wishing to bring his hearers to despair (for there were without doubt some among them who were negligent and used repentance wantonly, and for this reason he wrote these things not to others but to them), since, then, there were some such, he added: "But we are confident of better things concerning you, brothers, and things nearer to salvation, though we speak thus," wishing at once to frighten those who used repentance wantonly and again to promise good hope, if they would depart from wantonness. For this reason the lawgiver added neither oil nor frankincense to the offering itself, striking fear into those who offer; and yet he said that the priest receives it.

Verses 14–16. "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: If a soul, transgressing the ceremonies through error, sins in the things that are sanctified to the Lord, he shall offer for his transgression a ram without blemish from the flocks, which can be bought for two shekels, by the weight of the sanctuary; and he shall restore the damage which he caused, and put a fifth part over, handing it to the priest, who shall pray for him, offering the ram, and it shall be forgiven him."

It is good to abstain from every sin, but above all from that which is committed against holy things, because God is insulted by it. How great and how terrible this is, the present offering which the lawgiver has set out shows. For you see that, although he commanded so many sacrifices to be celebrated, nowhere from the beginning of this book, in which the Lord speaks to Moses, did he make mention of the sacrifice of a ram except in this place only, wishing to show the necessity and usefulness of this sacrifice. You see also that he commanded not a he-goat, nor a she-goat, nor a sheep, nor a pair of pigeons, but a ram to be offered, teaching by the offering what kind of sin this is. For the ram is taken as a figure of the Saviour. You know this from the way in which God held Abraham back from sacrificing his only son: since Isaac had to live because of the succession promised from him, and the figure of the Saviour's sacrifice had to be fulfilled, when Isaac had been taken for the sacrifice, the patriarch saw a ram caught in the thorns by its horns, or, as the Seventy have it, held fast in the tree Sabek. And the tree Sabek is the cross, the wood of forgiveness, on which the ram, held by its horns, bore the figure of the hands of Christ fastened on the cross.

He commanded not only that it be without blemish, but also of what price it should be: that it can be bought for two shekels, or according to the Seventy, for fifty shekels of silver, by the shekel of the sanctuary. For no one can acquire the Lord's sacrifice for himself except through the Holy Spirit. For if "no one can say 'Lord Jesus Christ' except in the Holy Spirit," much more can no one attain his sacrifice without the working of the Spirit. Hence it was not said without reason, "of fifty": for this number shows the coming of the Holy Spirit, since he came to the apostles on the day of Pentecost, that is, the fiftieth. And "by the weight of the sanctuary," or according to the Seventy, "by the holy shekel," so that by saying "holy" he might show the power and working of the Holy Spirit. And why the shekel? Because the shekel is twenty obols, and this number twenty is not liable to sins. Hence those who came out of Egypt, when they were twenty years old, did not undergo the punishment of the people's sin; for the spiritual man is clean of all sin.

He commanded not only that a ram be offered but also that a fifth be added. If anyone has unlawfully misused a holy vessel, or food, or such an ointment, this he called a sin committed against holy things; this man, then, shall restore the thing itself, and besides give a fifth, that is, its fifth part, to the priest. This signifies that, since we have five senses, if we sin through one sense, for example if we occupy the eye with adultery at a holy time and place, or the tongue with slander, or the ears with evil speech, or the smell with perceiving harlots' perfumes, or the hand with a profane and unjust touch, we should first abstain altogether from that sin and offer repentance for it through the ram, that is, ask Christ that he himself become our rescue from the sin committed against him; and then offer to the priest, namely Christ, the fifth, that is, the one of the said senses through which the sin was committed, so that we may no longer occupy that sense with wicked action but consecrate it to God. For so he will intercede for our sin. How the ram of sin is offered by the priest is written in another part of the book, where he declared the sacrifice for sin to be equal to the sacrifice that is made for transgression.

But this must now be added, that the lawgiver is accustomed to use, or set down, "transgression" in two ways, and to call "transgression" now a sin that has come to knowledge and is no longer unknown to the sinner, and now one committed against God himself, as in an oath, or also against holy things. Not without cause does he call this transgression, but so that you may know that the sin which is committed in knowledge, and that in an oath, and that against holy things, likewise reach to God.

Verses 17–19. "If a soul sins through ignorance, and does one of the things that are forbidden by the law of the Lord, and, guilty of sin, understands its iniquity, it shall offer to the priest a ram without blemish from the flocks, according to the measure and estimate of the sin; and he shall pray for him because he did it unknowing, and it shall be forgiven him, because he transgressed against the Lord through error."

The present place holds a question worthy of no small consideration, because for sins for which he previously commanded a she-goat or a sheep to be offered (for he says, "But if one of the people of the land sins through ignorance, so as to do any of the things that are forbidden by the law of the Lord, and transgresses, and comes to know his sin, he shall offer a she-goat without blemish"), now, as though he had forgotten what he had commanded, he says: "If a soul sins through ignorance, and does one of the things that are forbidden by the law of the Lord, and, guilty of sin, understands its iniquity, it shall offer to the priest a ram without blemish from the flocks." And there seems to be a great difference between this sacrifice and the one he commanded a little before. But he has neither forgotten the earlier things nor commanded what contradicts them. For since we said that by the name "soul" the gentile is signified, and this one could perhaps transgress the commandments of the law in ignorance (for which reason he rightly said "through ignorance"), the ram perceived by the mind, namely Christ, washes away his sin in the sacrifice offered for him. And this too is shown, and plainly demonstrated in these things: that in every sin, even when we have repented for its forgiveness, we are not able by ourselves to obtain pardon without the sacrifice of Christ. So if someone is placed outside the faith of Christ, a Jew perhaps or a pagan, even if he shows by his way of life and conduct that he repents of his sins, he will not merit forgiveness, because he cannot offer the ram, that is, the sacrifice of Christ. For this reason, wishing in a way to ordain generally about all, he did not say "If a soul of the people," but "If a soul simply sins and does one of the things that are forbidden by the law of the Lord." So what has been said is rightly taken both of the unlearned and of the one who has knowledge, and of every sin.

And because he commands a ram to be offered for transgression, it is most plain that the lawgiver here set down "transgression" for sin that is understood. That is why, having said "through ignorance," he added: "and, guilty of sin, understands its iniquity." And one who has understood his sin keeps it in himself and is soiled by it, or burdened, until prayer is made for him through the said sacrifice. And the understanding of sin must come about, in those who have knowledge but are darkened by love of lusts, when they come to their senses in their thoughts; and in those who lack knowledge, through suitable teaching. When this understanding comes about by either of these, it moves the man to this, that he needs sacrifice and repentance. For one who understands his pollution and does not cleanse himself by repentance is plainly abominable and filthy. For this reason the Lord said of the Jews: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin."

This is proved more plainly from what follows. For what does he say? "He shall pray for him because he did it unknowing, and it shall be forgiven him, because he transgressed against the Lord through error," which the Seventy give as, "And it shall be forgiven him; for he transgressed a transgression before the Lord." And how is the same man unknowing, before him who is a just judge and does nothing against justice? For he does not judge us by the action alone, as when we turn aside to sin either for lust or for avarice or for glory; this we suffer through ignorance of that true pleasure, and of the highest gain, and of that glory which is not false. And love of falsehood produces this ignorance. From it, one who is blinded in mind is also blinded and darkened in knowledge, which, when blinded, is found to differ in nothing from ignorance. Hence David too said: "They did not know nor understand; they walk in darkness." But when they come to their senses, and the darkened mind is restored, then we perceive the sin, and it must be reckoned to us as a transgression until we are cleansed by repentance; and a transgression that is against the Lord, for according to the Seventy he doubles the word "transgression," saying: "For he transgressed a transgression before the Lord." And for what reason is this? Because we said that transgression is the understanding, or knowledge, of sin, and every man has the knowledge of sin by natural right, but this man, as we said, has darkened it by love of lusts; while another is naturally slower and needs another's teaching. So, either to one who comes to his senses or to one who learns from another, transgression, that is, the knowledge of sin, the committing of transgression before the Lord, is reckoned double through knowledge. For then God makes his knowledge liable, and he demands a sacrifice for the sin committed in ignorance, and repentance,

Verses 1–7. "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: A soul that sins, and in contempt of God denies to his neighbour a deposit that was entrusted to his good faith, or extorts something by force, or commits a false accusation, or finds a lost thing and, denying it, swears besides, and does any other of the many things in which men usually sin, being convicted of the transgression, shall restore in full all that he wished to obtain by fraud, and a fifth part besides to the Lord, against whom he had done damage; and for his sin he shall offer a ram without blemish from the flock, and give it to the priest according to the estimate and measure of the transgression; and he shall pray for him before the Lord, and it shall be forgiven him for each thing in which he sinned by doing it."

You see that the Spirit of God hands down that the sin committed against holy things and that committed by oath are of the same rank; this is plain from his commanding the same sacrifice of a ram to be offered in both. For why a little before he commanded a ram to be offered in every sin, we have said, not guessing on our own but following the intention of the lawgiver. And why did he think the sin by oath joined to that against holy things? Because both pertain in every way to God: one who transgresses an oath not only harms his neighbour but also does injury to God himself, whom he made his mediator. And the law itself now begins to teach you in this way: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying." He shows the commandment to be special by setting out specially that God speaks to Moses in it, as also in the sin concerning holy things.

He spoke, then: "A soul that sins, and in contempt of God denies to his neighbour a deposit that was entrusted to his good faith, or extorts something by force, or commits a false accusation, or finds a lost thing and, denying it, swears besides." The Seventy render these words thus: "A soul that sins in anything, and overlooks the commandments of the Lord, and lies to his neighbour about a deposit or about a partnership, or about robbery has harmed his neighbour, or has found a lost thing and lies about it, and swears unjustly." Not in vain did he say "if he lies" twice; for divine Scripture, which seems to leave out much for brevity's sake, is not accustomed to repeat the same words. Here, then, he compares the transgression of an oath to a lie; and so above he mentioned it without an oath, but here he joined the oath to the lie, for he says: "and lies about it and swears unjustly." For the other interpreters too, Aquila and Theodotion and Symmachus, where the Seventy said "if he has harmed his neighbour in anything," said "if he has falsely accused him in anything." Considering this, let us keep ourselves from deceit with all our strength, since God, who is truth, is insulted by deceit.

And he mixed force, or robbery, with the denied deposit, or, as the Seventy also say, with the partnership, judging every injustice to be truly force or robbery. And it is plain from what the Seventy add, "It shall be, when he has sinned and repented, that he shall restore the robbery which he robbed, or the injustice which he did unjustly, or the deposit that was deposited with him, or the lost thing which he found," that each of the said sins is like those listed with it; for they are committed out of avarice. For each of them he commanded the principal itself and a fifth to be added; but here he commanded the fifth to be given not to the priest but to the one who suffered the injustice, meaning similar things in different words. For since, along with the one who suffered harm in the robbery or the deposit, injustice is done also against God himself through deceit or perjury, he rightly commands the fifth of these to be given to God, at whom the injury is aimed. And the fifth is the tongue: for we said that this too is the fifth, since it is one of the five senses. This, then, is offered to God, so that it may sin no more, because each of the said sins is committed through it.

So he ordains the same things in different words, and he has figured God sometimes in the person of the priest and sometimes in that of the one who suffered injustice. Or else, because by the same reasoning Christ is believed to be both our priest and to suffer injustice with us and for us, namely according to the law of his compassion for us, at the end of this ordinance he commands a ram without blemish to be offered to the priest, who is to pray and obtain forgiveness. Of these things there is sufficient explanation in what was said about transgressions concerning holy things.

But let us, coming to our senses, keep ourselves from both sins, and still more from every sin. For if it should happen that we are caught or fall into any one of them, we have examples of supplication and offering which it is good for the suppliant to use. "For these things happened to them as figures, but they were written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come," in Christ Jesus our Lord. To him be glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever and ever. Amen.

Verses 8–13. "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Command Aaron and his sons: This is the law of the burnt offering. It shall be burned on the altar all night until morning; the fire shall be from the same altar. The priest shall put on a tunic and linen breeches, and he shall take up the ashes which the fire has burned up, and put them beside the altar. He shall strip off his former garments and, having put on others, he shall carry them out of the camp, and in a most clean place he shall make them be consumed to ash. But the fire on the altar shall always burn, which the priest feeds, putting wood under it in the morning every day; and having laid on the burnt offering, he shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings. This is the perpetual fire, which shall never fail on the altar."

Since we have shown sufficiently in what went before the manner of the lawgiver, and the foundation of the explanation of the words of the law has been laid, other than which no one who builds in the spirit can lay any (for it is Christ, who lies beneath the whole explanation of the law for us like the cornerstone of the building), let us, then, by his grace and teaching, since he is also the architect, build upon it gold, silver, precious stones.

"The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Command Aaron and his sons: This is the law of the burnt offering." Here the law speaks of the continual sacrifice which in the book of Exodus he commanded the priests to offer daily; for he speaks thus: "This is what you shall do on the altar: two lambs of a year old each day continually"; and a little after, "a perpetual offering for your generations." And he says: "You shall make a burnt offering, one lamb in the morning, and the other you shall make in the evening." By these things, then, we understand that for those who are of the people it is left to their will whether they wish to offer a burnt offering; for this reason that sacrifice is called their gift, as a freewill offering. For not every man is required to have the most perfect wisdom; yet the priest must in every way be perfectly wise. For the perpetual sacrifice, that is, the continual burnt offering, is commanded to be offered twice in the day, morning and evening, so that beginning from perfect wisdom he may end in the same, and order his whole life to perfection.

But since the lawgiver set out at the beginning of this book of Leviticus how the burnt offering is divided piece by piece, how its blood is poured out, how it is laid on the altar, now, as these things have been said sufficiently, he speaks of the burnt offering alone. Accordingly he added: "The fire on the altar shall always burn, which the priest shall feed." For one who owes a burnt offering, that is, the working of perfect wisdom, must always kindle the fire of the Holy Spirit and not allow it to be quenched. And it is quenched by the negligence of those to whom it was given; that is why Paul too says, "Do not quench the Spirit," as though it were placed in our power to quench it or to kindle it. And he commanded the fire to be kindled all night, not because it was not kindled in the day, but [to show] how the burnt offering was made twice every day: since the fire by day was evident, he added the one by night. Since, then, the night is the darkness of this life, that is, the ignorance which holds many, of which Paul said, "The night has gone before, and the day will draw near," he commanded us, who have been made a burnt offering of God, to kindle the fire even in the night, so that while others transgress the law and are earthly, we may be spiritual, remembering David, who says: "It is time to act, O Lord; the wicked have broken up your law." For when others transgress the law, we must above all be raised up to obedience to the law.

And he added: "The priest shall put on a tunic and linen breeches." The priest who offers the burnt offering is here understood as each one who is perfectly wise, because the priesthood is the pattern of perfection; that is why the faithful people too is called a royal priesthood, as receiving the perfect law of the Gospel. One who wishes to offer a burnt offering, then, should be clothed with the tunic, that is, righteousness, and with breeches, that is, chastity. That by the breeches chastity must be understood the members prove, whose covering the breeches are. And we said that the tunic is righteousness, because righteousness above all is the garment of every perfect man; hence Paul said: "Stand, having girded your loins with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness." And of linen, because [linen] is a fitting garment and clings more softly to the body, whereas what is of wool is rough. From this he teaches that righteousness and chastity are lowly and cling closely to the soul; and at the same time he teaches this, that just as linen is easy for anyone to have, so the virtues are easy for those who wish to attain them, and can be quickly acquired.

Clothed in these, he commands him to carry off the ashes of the burnt offering which the fire has consumed from the altar. What does he teach by this, except that just as the victim is taken away, that is, the sacrifice of the burnt offering which has been completed, so that another like it may be offered again, so we too should do? For the virtues which we perform with the Spirit working with us we must lay down one by one, so that we may work others again; and we should not be content with those that went before only, but join others to them, as one who runs, leaving behind what he has run, strains towards what remains to be run; because otherwise he will not be able to reach the prize. For this reason, having commanded the burnt offering consumed by fire to be taken from the altar, he commanded it to be put beside the altar; and we said that Christ is the altar of burnt offering. Let us carry off to him, then, the virtues once completed in deed, when we have the time to work them, as though he will not reckon the earlier ones to us if we are negligent and do not build others upon them. Ezekiel proves this when he says: "If I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, and he, trusting in his righteousness, commits iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall be given over to forgetfulness, and in his iniquity which he has worked, in it he shall die." But he reckons them if we increase and confirm the past by what is to come. Hence he commands the burnt offering to be put beside the altar; for Christ, the just judge, keeps for us whatever good we have done, if we have not betrayed it by wicked actions.

For this reason also he commanded him to strip off his garments and put on others, and to carry the ashes out of the camp to a most clean place, not clothing us with garments of another kind than those he spoke of before. For he did not command us to put on a woollen garment in place of the linen one; rather this same thing signifies much: that what was done and corrected before is not reckoned when it is time to do other things. And so, laying aside the former garment, he wants us to put on another such. And to carry them out of the camp to a most clean place, that is, to send them ahead to the future judgment: for that is outside the camp of the present age, and it is a clean place, because the judgment of the age to come is clean of all corruption.

But what is it that he added? "But the fire on the altar shall always burn, which the priest shall feed, putting wood under it in the morning every day." Just as wood is the fuel of fire, and he commands it to be arranged in the morning, so for us the testimonies of the divine law and meditation on the sacred oracles, which we said above are the wood, are the fuel of the supply of the Spirit. These, then, we must arrange in the morning, in the light, that is, in watchfulness and sobriety of soul; not only in the time of sobriety but also in the night perceived by the mind, of which Paul said: "Let us not sleep, then, as the rest who have no hope, but let us watch and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk are drunk at night." Let the fire of the supply of the Spirit suffice, in which the victim perceived by the mind must be arranged, and the fat of the peace offerings, which the Seventy rendered "of salvation." For we said that in the sacrifice of peace offerings, or of salvation, desire is signified by the fat, so that one who has become wholly spiritual for the Spirit, having nothing material, nothing wretched or earthly, may offer, or devote, the desire of salvation. And the lawgiver, calling us to this, says: "This is the perpetual fire, which shall never fail from the altar." For "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." Hence the altar perceived by the mind, which is the body of Christ, also has the unquenchable fire of the supply of the Spirit.

Verses 14–18. "This is the law of the sacrifice and of the drink offerings, which the sons of Aaron shall offer before the Lord and before the altar. The priest shall take a handful of the fine flour which is sprinkled with oil, and all the frankincense that is put on the fine flour, and he shall burn it on the altar as a memorial of most sweet odour to the Lord; but the remaining part of the fine flour Aaron shall eat with his sons, without leaven, and he shall eat it in the place of the sanctuary of the tabernacle. And it shall not be leavened, because part of it is offered as incense to the Lord. It shall be a holy of holies, like that for sin and for transgression. The males only of the stock of Aaron shall eat it, a lawful and everlasting ordinance in your generations from the sacrifices of the Lord. Everyone who touches them shall be sanctified."

We remember that blessed Paul said: "To say the same things is not tiresome for me, and it is necessary for you." The lawgiver seems to have this intention in the present place, repeating what he set out once, so as to recall the commandment to the reader's memory by manifold repetition. And so that by repeating the law he might make the reading more necessary, he inserts something more, for whose sake this commandment would prove necessary and quite without excuse. Just as, then, in what went before he repeated the sacrifices of the burnt offerings, mixing constancy with them (for it is his concern that the fire on the altar should always burn and never fail), so now too, having brought forward the sacrifice of fine flour, by which, as we showed at the beginning of this book, theology is signified, he added that it must be eaten only in a holy place and by males, and not everywhere or by everyone. See what he now commands about it.

"This is the law of the sacrifice and of the drink offerings, which the sons of Aaron shall offer before the Lord and before the altar." This, then, of which we are now speaking, the sons of Aaron, that is, men lofty in wisdom, alone must offer "before the Lord," that is, according to what is the will of God, not disputing superfluous things in the divine word but [keeping to] whatever Christ has revealed to us; for so understand what he says, "before the altar," since it has been shown that the altar is the humanity of the Only-begotten. Let us, then, set our theology in those things which the incarnate Lord handed down to us: that we think of the Father in him and of him in the Father, and know of the Holy Spirit that he is the Son's own and proceeds from the Father. For these are sufficient for us for the theology that helps and saves. But anyone who seeks higher or deeper things will fall away from the aim of the truth, and sins.

Hence now too the lawgiver added: "The priest shall take a handful of the fine flour which is sprinkled with oil, and all the frankincense that is put on the fine flour, and he shall burn it on the altar as a memorial of most sweet odour to the Lord": with almsgiving and prayer, for these are figured by the oil and the frankincense, by which theology is necessarily acquired; for those who speak of God need the help of both, so as not to fall away from the truth. As a memorial of it, Christ, the priest perceived by the mind, takes the handful, because the sum of knowledge remains with him; and it is a memorial because its memory will remain for ever. For it is not as with our present knowledge, which is done away by progress, because "when that which is perfect has come," as Paul says, "that which is in part is done away." So also will that be which

is with Christ, which he has reserved for us for the age to come, for those who will then be made more perfect. For that, as being complete, always remains in memory without forgetting. And just as what is the sum of all wisdom is taken in a handful (because in the book of Exodus God commanded through Moses that a handful be offered for each head of the sons of Israel), so the lawgiver hints that the sum of acquaintance and of perfect knowledge is with Christ.

And notice what he adds to these things: "But the remaining part of the fine flour Aaron shall eat with his sons," so that we may not cease altogether from theology because the sum of knowledge is kept for the future. But what has been left to us by him, that is, handed down, this knowledge he commands us to eat and to work, that about which we have also been commanded, and which is sufficient for us and in keeping with our strength. But we must consider where and how one ought to work it. There follows: "without leaven, and he shall eat it in the place of the sanctuary of the tabernacle." [The word] of God is not baked with leaven, neither according to Jewish teaching nor according to the gentile leaven: for he does not want us to speak the word [so], but [wants it] to be pure of all admixture and without any leaven. And he commanded it to be eaten in the court of the tabernacle of witness, that is, to be worked in the church. For the tabernacle of witness is heaven, in which Scripture testifies that God dwells; and the court of the tabernacle of witness, that is, of heaven, is the church, not only as the entrance and vestibule of the heavens, but also as the house of God. There, then, that is, in it, one must in every way speak of the divinity, or practise theology. "For in the churches," it says, "bless the Lord." But if someone has a church in his house (for Paul says, "Greet Nympha and the church in her house"; and someone has a church in his house when he has sanctified himself to God and has ceased from worldly business), he too can speak of God, or practise theology, at home. Such are those to whom a part of the sacrifices of the Lord, that is, speaking of God, or theology, is given from the gifts and offerings.

Of this he added: "It shall be a holy of holies," because they possess the contemplation of the Holy of Holies. And he added: "like that for sin and for transgression," wishing to show it to be like the sacrifice for sin and transgression. For speech about God serves above all for the rescue and cleansing of the soul, when the sacrifice of the word of God, that is, of theology, is joined with oil and frankincense, namely with almsgiving and prayer, as the lawgiver commanded it to be offered; not commanding this in vain, but because sins are cleansed by almsgiving and faith, as Solomon said in Proverbs.

"The males only," he says, "of the stock of Aaron shall eat it; it is a lawful and everlasting ordinance in your generations from the sacrifices of the Lord." It does not belong to everyone, then, to dispute about God, but to such as have nothing womanish, nothing unstable in their thoughts. He commanded this to be kept as a lawful and everlasting ordinance in their generations, that is, for ever, so that at all times we may take care by no means to presume to dispute about God while, through certain wandering lapses or other worldly fancies, we fall from the dignity of males; lest it be said to us too: "But to the sinner God said: Why do you declare my righteousnesses and take my covenant in your mouth?"

The following words conclude this law: "Everyone who touches them shall be sanctified." And he touches who presumes to do this fittingly; he will rightly be sanctified. For every remembrance of God bestows sanctification, as Paul testifies, saying: "For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer." But in saying that the one who touches is sanctified, he shows plainly that in disputing about God, that is, in theology, it is enough for us only to touch, as with fire for one who wishes to be warmed: for if he puts his hand inside, instead of being able to be warmed he is burned. So too one who presumes to dispute about God more deeply or loftily falls into blasphemy, in place of what he wishes to show more gloriously, since he cannot grasp the height of the divine doctrines.

Verses 19–23. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: This is the offering of Aaron and his sons, which they must offer to the Lord on the day of his anointing. They shall offer a tenth part of an ephah of fine flour in an everlasting sacrifice, half of it in the morning and half of it in the evening, which shall be fried in a pan sprinkled with oil. And the priest who has succeeded his father by right shall offer it hot as a most sweet odour to the Lord, and it shall be wholly burned on the altar. For every sacrifice of the priests shall be consumed by fire, and no one shall eat of it."

Every sacrifice that relates to the person of the priest bears the figure of the sacrifice of the Only-begotten, as is shown by the present law; for he says: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: This is the offering of Aaron and his sons, which they must offer to the Lord on the day of his anointing." This gift belongs to many priests, for he says "of Aaron and his sons"; but it is offered for one anointed, because the image and the firmness, or subsistence, of every priesthood is the sacrifice of Christ: for by him alone being offered it is for all. And when was it done? "On the day of his anointing," that is, at the time when he became incarnate; for in the person of the Only-begotten the incarnation is called anointing. Of it Peter says: "Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power." And how and when these things took place Gabriel told Mary, saying: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." Hence David said: "Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows," interpreting most plainly what the oil of … was, namely that it was not like this oil with which all priests and kings and prophets were anointed. That is why he says, "above your partners," that is, over your partners. And his partners are holy either because of the flesh or because of the communion of the Spirit. Hence Paul says: "But we have been made partakers of Christ, if indeed we hold the beginning of his substance firm to the end."

What offering, then, did the lawgiver command to be offered when the priest had been anointed, namely after the incarnation of the Word? "They shall offer a tenth part of an ephah of fine flour in an everlasting sacrifice, half of it in the morning and half of it in the evening, which shall be fried in a pan sprinkled with oil." That the tenth of an ephah of fine flour is the humanity of the Only-begotten was shown above, when we rightly said that the ephah, as a measure containing three measures, is the Trinity. And if the [tenth of the] ephah is the Lord's flesh, so that both the surpassing excellence of the divinity and the inseparability of the Lord's flesh from it may be shown, this is none the less for an everlasting sacrifice, because, as Paul says, "by one offering he has perfected for ever those who are sanctified." Hence also "he is able to save for ever those who draw near to God through him."

"Half of it in the morning and half of it in the evening." The passion, beginning in the morning, when in the court of Caiaphas they struck him with slaps, was drawn out until the evening; for since darkness interrupted it, coming from the sixth hour to the ninth, the sacrifice is fittingly said to be divided into morning and evening. "And it shall be fried in a pan sprinkled with oil." The pan must be taken as the Lord's cross, as strong and in no way harmed by the fire of human sins; it also made the Lord's flesh laid upon it eatable for men. For had it not been laid on the cross, we would never have received the body of Christ mystically. It is sprinkled with oil because the impassible one, having compassion on us, endured the passion of the flesh.

And he added "sprinkled," which the Seventy rendered thus: "Kneaded, he shall offer it in morsels, a sacrifice of good odour to the Lord," calling the same thing kneaded and in morsels. They are understood to have said "morsels" of it as proceeding in many ways, because of the sufferings that came one part after another; and "kneaded," as gathered into one; hence for "morsels" Symmachus rendered "spread out," and some copies have "chosen," that is, "joined together," because the sufferings of the Lord cohere with one another. Hence the lawgiver says that these same things are from parts, or breakings, according to the edition of the Seventy just mentioned, understanding by the breakings that proceed part by part the sufferings. "And all this sacrifice is of most sweet odour to the Lord." For it secured the salvation of the human race, and to God, as Creator of natures, nothing is sweeter than this.

For a fuller explanation that it signifies the sacrifice of the Only-begotten, notice what he added: "the priest who has succeeded his father by right," which the Seventy rendered thus: "The anointed priest in his place, from his sons, shall do these things." That he is both Christ and Jesus Paul proves, saying: "To us there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things." For since he is through Aaron, not in his place but instead of him, the priesthood having been transferred to himself, it is plain from the fact that he, taking up the priesthood, made the ministry of that priesthood cease. And what they rendered, "from his sons," is rightly believed to mean that he is of his sons, as one who descended from the loins of Jacob, the line of the most blessed Mother of the Lord descending from the same tribe. And the said Seventy add: "It is a perpetual law to the Lord." This again is rightly understood of the priesthood of Christ, because it was said to him: "You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek."

At the same time we must also attend to what follows at the conclusion of this law: "And it shall be wholly burned on the altar. For every sacrifice of the priests shall be consumed by fire, and no one shall eat of it." What, then, do we affirm by these things, except that it may not be said of the Lord: "He who was born of a woman suffered, but he who came down from heaven did not suffer"? "For to us there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things," whom those who crucified him did not know, of what dignity and power he was: "For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory." The passion, then, which came about in the flesh belongs to the incarnate Word himself; for this reason it shall be wholly burned on the altar. It belongs, then, to him who emptied himself wholly, "and took the form of a servant, and was found in fashion as a man; and he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." In this way, then, you understand also what is said: "For every sacrifice of the priests shall be consumed by fire, and no one shall eat of it." For these words too have the same force and intention. Hence where it says "every sacrifice shall be consumed by fire," the Seventy said "it shall become a burnt offering," Aquila rendered

"it shall be whole." "No one, then, shall eat of it," that is, it shall not be divided; for it belongs to the teeth to divide and portion out foods, since otherwise they cannot be chewed; but the sacrifice of Christ has been shown to be indivisible, and for this reason it cannot be eaten.

Verses 24–30. "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons: This is the law of the victim for sin: in the place where the burnt offering is offered it shall be slaughtered before the Lord; it is a holy of holies. The priest who offers it shall eat it in a holy place, in the court of the tabernacle. Whatever touches its flesh shall be sanctified. If a garment is sprinkled with its blood, it shall be washed in a holy place; and the earthen vessel in which it was boiled shall be broken. But if it is a bronze vessel, it shall be scoured and washed with water. Every male of the priestly race shall eat of its flesh, because it is a holy of holies. For the victim that is slain for sin, whose blood is brought into the tabernacle of witness to make atonement in the sanctuary, shall not be eaten, but shall be burned with fire."

We said above that he does not repeat the same sacrifices in vain, and this is shown also in the present passage. "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons: This is the law of the victim for sin," or "of sin," for so Theodotion and Symmachus rendered it. And what is this law? "In the place where the burnt offering is offered it shall be slaughtered before the Lord, because it is a holy of holies." These commands are given to Aaron and his sons because to offer the sacrifice for sin, that is, repentance, belongs to those who are lofty and highest and lifted up from the earth, which nothing but withdrawal from evil secures. Where the burnt offerings are sacrificed, then, there those that are for sin are slain too: because one who offers repentance now imitates the one who offered his whole self to God and withdrew in every way from the world; hence his way of life too is called a burnt offering. And the offering of both is in the sight of the Lord, for it is pleasing to God when it is offered according to his intention; and being thus pleasing to God, it is rightly called a holy of holies. For if the sacrifice of the penitent were not a holy of holies, it would never have brought the penitent into the Holy of Holies, from which he had formerly been driven out through sin.

"The priest who offers it shall eat it." He says, "the one who offers"; and this is Christ, who took up our sins and rightly offers our repentance. For this reason Theodotion too, instead of "offering," rendered "atoning," that is, cleansing, and through the ministry of his priesthood making perfect the one who is cleansed. And how Christ eats it, learn from the place in which he will eat it: "in a holy place, in the court of the tabernacle," or as the Seventy rendered it, "in the court of the tabernacle of witness." And the court of the tabernacle of witness is the church; for it, before heaven, is the court of the tabernacle of witness, where Christ works the salvation of penitents; and this salvation is also called his food: "For my food," he says, "is to do the will of my Father," and his will is that the sinner be converted and saved.

Moreover he says: "Whatever touches its flesh shall be sanctified." By the flesh of repentance we understand fasting, vigils, the garment of haircloth, prayer with tears, almsgiving; for of these repentance consists, and one who touches them will rightly be sanctified. "And if a garment is sprinkled with its blood, it shall be washed in a holy place." The blood of repentance is, properly, baptism: for as the blood is the life of all flesh, so baptism is the gift of repentance. For everyone who repents, if he has not received baptism, his repentance is useless and without any fruit, dead and lifeless, because no one puts off the old man of sin otherwise than by the washing of regeneration. And if you say, "How then will men who were baptized long ago repent?", know that the power of the baptism that went before works also in the repentance that is done afterwards.

This, then, is the intention of the lawgiver: … one who eats the flesh of the said sacrifice, though the offering is another's, is sanctified. By … it is shown that one who has not … repentance, if he does any of these things, is sanctified by repentance. Likewise, even if someone who has not yet sinned much is baptized, he is cleansed. And what need has he of cleansing? … he has need, because no one is clean of filth, even if his life on earth be of one day; yet he retains [the sin] which by succession from Adam he drew from his generation. And therefore … he did not say that he is to be washed as unclean; for he says: "If a garment is sprinkled with its blood." … for the garment of the inner man … if it is sprinkled, there it shall be washed "in a holy place"; that is, this very thing that is sprinkled shall be washed, not because it is stained by the sprinkling (for if it were so, he would have said or added that), but what [comes] from the sprinkling itself he called a washing done in a holy place, in the mystical house of the Spirit. … if someone has been washed by force, as, for example, the sprinklings of the pagans, he is not lifted up, because he did not receive the sprinkling and washing in a holy place. … wishing to introduce …, he said. And plainly the word of baptism is next to the account of repentance; hence John, beginning to preach repentance, brought in baptism in his preaching, namely because the mystery of repentance has its substance in baptism.

But let us go on to what follows. "And the earthen vessel in which it was boiled shall be broken. But if it is a bronze vessel, it shall be scoured and washed with water." What the earthen vessel is, and where it lies, Paul shows when he says: "In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earthenware, some for honour and some for dishonour," for dishonour, namely, those of earthenware. By the great house, as being the house of God, he understood the church, in which the righteous are the vessels of gold and silver, and sinners the earthen ones. And Isaiah too said of Jerusalem: "Its breaking shall come, and it shall be shattered as a potter's jar is broken with a very strong breaking, and among its fragments no sherd shall be found in which a little fire may be carried from the burning, or a little water drawn from the pit." Since, then, the vessels in which the flesh of the sacrifice is boiled are in the temple, and we have shown from the said apostolic words that there are some weak vessels in the temple of God, whatever earthen vessel is in the temple, that is, someone weak and filthy, who has made a habit of sinning so that he is called, as a lover of sins, a vessel of dishonour, when the sacrifice has been boiled through which the forgiveness of sins is dispensed, is for this reason broken or crushed: because, being weak, he received good things badly. For seeing sins forgiven, he thinks that it is always permitted to sin, and from what helps him there is found another hurt and another crushing of his weakness. But whoever is a strong vessel and has no rust of sin will not be crushed or broken by the boiling of repentance, but is scoured or wiped, that is, washed. And how is he washed? "Washed with water": for seeing another repent, he is moved to compunction and is cleansed, washed with the water of tears.

And why is the repentance of another said to be boiled in the vessels that are set in the temple? Because those who repent need the prayer of the people for their help, as James testifies, saying: "Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be saved."

"Every male of the priestly race shall eat of its flesh, because it is a holy of holies": that is, what pertains to the doing of repentance; for in doing repentance there is need of a strong mind and a manly purpose, having nothing womanish or unstable. But it must be noted that he said that the priest who offers eats the sacrifice, but that all the males of the priests eat the flesh of the sacrifice (Aquila: "every male of the kindred of the priests"), which seems in some way contradictory, unless it is resolved by a suitable explanation. For this reason understand Christ as the priest who offers the whole sacrifice and eats it: he himself offers our repentance, and he himself eats it, because he has the salvation of sinners as his food. But the flesh of the sacrifice, which pertains to repentance, every male of the priests shall eat, showing fittingly all fortitude, to whom it may rightly be said: "Act manfully, and be strengthened, and wait for the Lord."

So much for these things. But we must consider what conclusion he adds: "For the victim that is slain for sin, whose blood is brought into the tabernacle of witness to make atonement in the sanctuary, shall not be eaten, but shall be burned with fire." And whose blood is offered for sin in the tabernacle of witness to make atonement, or to intercede? That of the calf, namely, of the congregation or synagogue, that is, of the calf for the sin of the high priest; for he said this most fully above. Since, then, we have shown with many proofs that those sacrifices pertain to Christ, he rightly commanded that they not be eaten but be burned with fire. For it is not through the things by which each one obtains for himself the forgiveness of sins (through fasting, for example, or vigils or another such way of life; hence these are also called the flesh of our repentance), not through these, then, that Christ accomplishes the forgiveness of the common sin (that is, of the human race, which the people signifies, and the person of the high priest, who, because he presides over the people, makes the sins of the people his own), but by the authority and power of his own divinity. For the sufferings of Christ, through which forgiveness is secured for us, are not those of any mere man, but of God incarnate. That is why it is not eatable by men but is consumed by fire, because it belongs to God alone to grant forgiveness to all his handiwork, which he signifies by the fire; "for our God is a consuming fire."

Verses 1–7. "This also is the law of the victim for transgression: it is a holy of holies; therefore, where the burnt offering is sacrificed, the victim for transgression shall also be slain; its blood shall be poured out round about the altar. They shall offer from it the tail, and the fat that covers the vital parts, the two kidneys, and the fat that is beside the flanks, and the net of the liver with the kidneys; and the priest shall burn them on the altar: it is the Lord's incense for transgression. Every male of the priestly race shall eat this flesh in a holy place, because it is a holy of holies. And as the victim is offered for sin, so also for transgression; there shall be one law for both victims. It shall belong to the priest who has offered it."

He sometimes calls "transgression" a sin that has been recognized, and sometimes that which is committed against God himself, such as what is perpetrated against holy things, as we showed above. The present place speaks again of these; this is plain from his having commanded, for this too, according to what the Seventy specifically say, a ram to be offered. But by discussing it with exactness we shall find both in what it has communion with the sacrifices of other sins and in what it differs from them.

"This also is the law of the victim for transgression," where the Seventy, as was said above, specifically expressed the ram, saying: "This is the law of the ram for repentance; they are holies of holies. In the place where they sacrifice the burnt offerings they shall slaughter also the ram of repentance before God, and they shall pour out its blood at the base of the altar round about." These things, then, are common with the sacrifice that is offered for that other sin; for this reason, having been explained there, they will rightly be passed over here. But what did he add to them? "They shall offer from it the tail, and the fat that covers the vital parts, the two kidneys, and the fat that is beside the flanks, and the net of the liver with the kidneys; and the priest shall burn them on the altar: it is the Lord's incense for transgression." The Seventy render it thus: "And he shall take away all its fat from it, the loin and all the fat that covers the inward parts, and all the fat that is in the inward parts, and the two kidneys and the fat on them which is on the thighs, and the lobes of the liver with the kidneys; and the priest shall offer them on the altar, a victim to the Lord." These things do not belong at all to the sacrifices for other sins, so they must be discussed.

But first it is necessary to attend to this, that transgression relates to God; and whatever relates to God has a difficult pardon, so that Eli said to his sons: "If a man sins against a man, they will pray for him; but if he sins against God, who will pray for him?" Necessarily, then, we said that the ram, bearing the figure of the Lord, of whom it was said, "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world," is taken in the sacrifice, since in him alone it lies to remit the sins committed against him. But we must ask why the ram is not wholly a burnt offering, as the calf which was offered for the people and for the priest; for that too was proved to bear the figure of the sacrifice of the Only-begotten. But there, because a general forgiveness was dispensed and pardon of the whole human race was accomplished, the whole sacrifice of Christ is necessarily offered; here, however, it is that which is done for those for whom the sacrifice and forgiveness are procured. Whatever things, then, can save him, these the lawgiver commanded to be brought into the sacrifice of Christ for him. And what these are Paul says, saying: "Pursue peace with all, and holiness, without which no one will see God." The lawgiver also signified this now through the offering mentioned before: for the inward parts perceived by the mind are the thoughts of the inward parts; when they have peace, we shall have peace with all. And by the offering of the kidneys, and the lobe of the liver, and the thighs, he signifies the sanctification that has been ordained for us for salvation.

It must be noted that whatever he commanded to be done in the sacrifice of peace offerings, he commanded to be done in this sacrifice too. He commands the fat to be offered: for Christ desires to save even the one who has grave sins. With the fat, according to the Seventy, he shall also offer the loin: for he not only wills this but also is able; and the loin, as a strong member, signifies strength. "The two kidneys, and the fat that is beside the flanks": for he wants above all the inner man of the penitent to be cleansed, and he wants him also to have chastity. That is why he commanded to be taken away the fat not only of the kidneys but also of the flanks, or thighs, because these are thought to be the ministers of union and of seed. With these he commanded also the net of the liver, or as the Seventy have it, the lobe of the liver with the kidneys, to be taken away and offered with the rest on the altar as a victim to the Lord. For he wants the one who repents to have no lust of his own, but to offer it all to God. For they say that lusts, or desires, are moved and nourished in the liver; and the offering of their first fruits through the lobe makes them all to be brought to sanctification and corrected.

Having said this, he added: "It is for transgression," showing that not in vain did he say that this sacrifice differs from the other sacrifices that are for sins, but because it is for transgression, that is, his sin is aimed at God. Hence he had to receive, even in a single person, a part of the sacrifice of Christ, which was offered for the whole human race. The rest he did not receive, because it belongs only to the offering that was offered for all. For the sacrifice of the Only-begotten did not secure only the things just mentioned, but also the resurrection of the dead, the condemnation of the devil, the release from the curse, the restoration of paradise, each of which exceeds the power of a penitent. For its completion, since the one who sinned is not sufficient for himself because of the greatness of the sin, he took in a part of the Lord's sacrifice; the rest is kept for the sacrifice that is for all. And this one too, for whom the sacrifice is now made, shares in them, since he too is one of the whole lump.

After he had stated certain things special to the sacrifice for transgression, he added those it has in common with the sacrifices for sins: "Every male of the priestly race shall eat this flesh in a holy place, because it is a holy of holies. As the victim is offered for sin, so also for transgression. There shall be one law for both victims." So we need not set out or add anything else here, since we have heard that the sacrifices for sin and for transgression are common; and we have set out sufficiently in what was said before about those that are for sin. But he added this further confirmation to this law: "It shall belong to the priest who has offered it." And Christ has become a propitiation for us. In him, then, every sacrifice of repentance is ministered and done, and everything that anyone obtains from repentance is referred to him; for repentance is his, and for its sake he came to save us, as is plain from what he said: "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

Verses 8–10. "The priest who offers the victim of the burnt offering shall have its skin; and every sacrifice of fine flour that is baked in the oven, and whatever is prepared on the gridiron or in the pan, shall be the priest's by whom it is offered; whether they are sprinkled with oil or dry, they shall be divided among all the sons of Aaron, an equal measure to each."

The lawgiver does not signify ordinary things by what is now said; rather these are things which, when we search them out, deserve to astonish us. "The priest who offers the victim of the burnt offering shall have its skin." What can be understood by the skin, what the devil said to God about Job shows plainly. For when he had destroyed all the worldly substance of Job, whom he accused as abounding in everything, and all that was about him, and Job yet remained in his piety, [Satan] heard from God: "Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a simple and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil, and still holding fast his innocence? But you moved me against him, to afflict him without cause." Answering him, Satan said: "Skin for skin, and all that a man has he will give for his soul." The skin, then, is the surrounding of riches, which as it were surrounds a man on the outside; and those who wish to become a burnt offering must offer it to the priest perceived by the mind. That is why those who had believed the teaching of the apostles sold their possessions and laid them at the feet of the apostles. Since, then, he said "skin for skin," we necessarily understand the surrounding of riches, which Job lost, [given] for patience, which was left to him. And we declare that the skin is patience because many useful things are made from it. What many things? It provides good things for those who acquire it; and patience, above all that which is in tribulations; hence David too sang: "For I have become like a wineskin in the frost; I have not forgotten your statutes." For as a wineskin is said to be helped and strengthened in the frost, so too patience grows by tribulations. That is why Paul too said, "Tribulation works patience," and at the same time added below: "patience, proof; proof, hope; and hope does not put to shame."

And since the priest who offers our burnt offering is Christ (for to him we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, our rational service), we say that the patience through which we attain the said way of life is necessarily his; the Lord saying: "In your patience you will possess your souls." Then: "In the world you will have tribulations, but be of good courage, for I have overcome the world." And not only in his teachings but also in looking at him we have patience in sufferings, as Paul says: "Consider him who endured such contradiction from sinners against himself, so that you may not grow weary, fainting in your souls." That is why David says: "And now what is my patience? Is it not the Lord? And my substance is before you."

And that he here describes the burnt offering perceived by the mind the text itself shows, for it says: "The priest who offers the victim of the burnt offering": not of oxen or sheep or other such things, but of a man. For where the sacrifices are considered not from those who offer but from what is offered, he necessarily mentions animals; but here, because he wanted to bring in the person of the Lord more openly, he set down the priest offering the burnt offering of a man. For Christ alone offers our burnt offerings perceived by the mind, in imitation of whom the victims and ways of life of these are pursued.

After this he said: "Every sacrifice that is baked in the oven, and whatever is prepared on the gridiron or in the pan, shall be the priest's by whom it is offered." We must remember that we said these are sacrifices of the theology of the dispensation of the Only-begotten, and that the one from the oven signifies the Virgin's giving birth, the one from the pan the passion of the cross, and the one from the gridiron the resurrection from the dead; giving the reason in all of them and adding the proof that was needed. Since, then, these things are close to the theology of the incarnation, they necessarily belong to the priest who offers it, namely Christ, who was born and suffered and rose again. But no doubt what follows seems new to you: "Whether they are sprinkled with oil or dry, they shall be divided among all the sons of Aaron, an equal measure to each."

For he speaks of the sacrifice of fine flour sprinkled with oil which is put neither in the oven nor in the pan nor on the gridiron. We said that this too is theology, but not about the Lord's incarnation. So that we may not, then, confine all theology to the humanity of the Only-begotten, we must also discuss the substance of the Father and of the Holy Spirit, and also of the Son himself, which is from the Father. That is why he did not again require that this sacrifice be borne by himself, but assigned it to the sons of Aaron, who advance to theology through meditation on the Scriptures, dividing it equally to each, so that they might all think not dissimilar things but the same things about God. And this is plain, that he did not command heretics to partake of such a sacrifice, because they do not think the same things about God, but things very different.

And again he speaks of fine flour not sprinkled, when a tenth of an ephah without oil and frankincense is offered for sin by those who are not able to bring a he-goat or a sheep or a pair of turtledoves or young pigeons into the sacrifice. Though this too signifies the Saviour's sacrifice, yet because it was commanded not for the sake of theology but for the benefit of the one who offers, he assigned this too to the sons of Aaron. For since the offering was the same but the cause was not the same (the one is offered for theology, the other for the poverty of one who asks for his sins), the sacrifice had to have some difference, to show what is offered for theology and the glory that is in Christ, and what for the benefit alone of the one who offers.

Verses 11–15. "This is the law of the victim of peace offerings, which is offered to the Lord. If the offering is for thanksgiving, they shall offer loaves without leaven sprinkled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and baked fine flour, and cakes sprinkled with a mixture of oil; and also leavened loaves with the victim of thanksgiving which is sacrificed for peace offerings, of which one shall be offered as first fruits to the Lord, and it shall be the priest's who pours out the blood of the victim; whose flesh shall be eaten on the same day, and nothing of it shall remain until morning."

As he repeated the sacrifices of burnt offerings and of sins, so too those which are offered for peace offerings, or for salvation; saying it a second time, so that by repetition he might implant their memory in those who meditate on the law. And he adds what he did not say before, so that the reading may not be … and contemptible for us. And he arranged that these be divided not in vain but very reasonably; for we find these things when we have searched the lawgiver's words.

"This is the law of the victim of peace offerings, which is offered to the Lord. If he offers it for thanksgiving," or for praise. You see that he gave us, as we pass to the peace offerings, or to salvation, [the choice of] the active life alone, [or] the rational and the active life, granting us the power to choose from either as we wish. For that the sacrifice of thanksgiving, or according to the Seventy of praise, is a kind of rational sacrifice, hear David, who, after he forbade the sacrifices that were according to the law, says: "Sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High." Hear also Paul writing to the Hebrews; he says: "So let us offer the victim of praise always to God, the fruit of lips that confess his name."

And how does he command it to be offered? "They shall offer loaves without leaven sprinkled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and baked fine flour, and cakes sprinkled with a mixture of oil." The Seventy render it thus: "And fine flour kneaded with oil; with cakes of unleavened bread he shall offer his gifts on the altar of the praise of salvation." Understand the loaves without leaven, or unleavened, sprinkled with oil, as the apostolic books, and the wafers anointed with oil as the prophetic, because the former [proclaim the mercy of God] richly, and the latter, even if they too do so richly, do not proclaim the mercy of God so much, since they mix threats with mercies because of the disobedience of the Jews. Hence the wafers are said to be not sprinkled with oil but only anointed. "And baked fine flour, and cakes sprinkled with a mixture of oil," or as the Seventy say, "And fine flour kneaded with oil, with cakes of unleavened bread": by fine flour kneaded in oil we understand theology together with almsgiving; hence it is also called fine flour, because of its fineness. Yet he commanded the gifts of the sacrifice of peace offerings, or of salvation, to be made in cakes of unleavened bread, that is, in the apostolic Scriptures. And one who desires to be saved must above all follow the apostolic teaching.

"And also leavened loaves with the victim of thanksgiving which is sacrificed for peace offerings, of which one shall be offered as first fruits to the Lord; and it shall be the priest's who pours out the blood of the victim." The Seventy say: "And he shall offer of all his gifts a praise to God; it shall be the priest's who pours out the blood of the [victim of] salvation." By these things they show that however much a man has done and lived, run and grasped or attained, he cannot gain or attain salvation without the help of the Lord. That is why Paul too said: "It is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy." And he commanded the first fruits to be offered to the priest himself who pours out the blood of the [victim of] salvation, that is, to Christ, who ministers and completes the sacrifice through his help.

And notice how he concluded the present ordinance of the law: "whose flesh shall be eaten on the same day, and nothing of it shall remain until morning," or as the Seventy have it, "And the flesh of the sacrifice of the praise of salvation shall be his," namely the offerer's, "and on whatever day it is given it shall be eaten; they shall not leave any of it until morning." Here he calls the age to come "morning," as being wholly of light and succeeding the night of the present age. Of it Paul too says, "The night has gone before, and the day has drawn near"; and David says, "In the morning I will stand before you and see, for you are not a God who wills iniquity." He wants, then, nothing of the flesh of the sacrifice to be left in the morning, so that we may not leave imperfect our life, through which we must be saved: knowing that work does not … in that age, and recalling to our memory the five virgins who, when the Bridegroom called them to come to the wedding, wanted to buy oil and were shut out of the wedding, let us leave nothing of what profits for salvation uneaten, that is, unworked, for the morning perceived by the mind. For Solomon too says this to us in Proverbs: "Do not say: Go and come back, and tomorrow I will give to you, when you are able to give at once; for you do not know what the coming day will bring forth"; lest perhaps, he says, you be led away where you can work neither mercy nor any other virtue.

Verses 16–20. "If anyone offers a victim for a vow or freely, it shall likewise be eaten on the same day; but if anything remains until the morrow, it is lawful to eat it. But whatever the third day finds, fire shall consume. If anyone eats of the flesh of the victim of peace offerings on the third day, the offering shall be made void and shall not profit the one who offers; rather, whatever soul defiles itself with such food shall be guilty of transgression. Flesh that touches anything unclean shall not be eaten, but shall be burned with fire; he who is clean shall eat of it. A defiled soul that eats of the flesh of the victim of peace offerings that has been offered to the Lord shall perish from its peoples."

This law at first sight seems contrary to what went before, but when it is examined it is found to agree with it entirely. One who searches it out must understand this, that the law, having the shadow of good things to come, rightly used many and different questions to figure the mysteries that are signified.

"If anyone offers a victim for a vow or freely, it shall likewise be eaten on the same day. But if anything remains until the morrow, it is lawful to eat it; but whatever the third day finds, fire consumes." Every sacrifice of peace offerings, or of salvation, is freewill; hence the lawgiver listed it among the gifts in the earlier part of this book. But the sacrifice of thanksgiving, or of praise, though it is a kind of the offering just mentioned, yet because it is something rational, does not have "freewill" added in the law: because, since we are without doubt rational, we owe the Creator a rational sacrifice as in a way a special debt. For this reason the law kept silent about "freewill" in it, not excepting it from the freewill offerings, for it does not show it to be offered for sins nor from a promise; it only keeps silent, as we said, about "voluntary," or "freewill," so that when this word is passed over we may understand that we, who are rational, owe God rational sacrifices and should cling to him with all zeal.

But there it says, "it is eaten on the day on which it is offered," and here, "on whatever day it is offered, and on the morrow." Nor is this contrary; for most plainly what we call "the morrow" is declared to belong to the present age, as James testifies, saying: "Come now, you who say: Today and tomorrow we will go into that city and trade and make a profit." And you will not find anywhere in Scripture "the morrow" likened to the age to come; rather the present age is called "today," as David says, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation," and again Paul, "But exhort one another every day, while it is called today." And "tomorrow" is also said, yet not wholly in contrast to "today," but because the spans of the present age are not the same, as he shows in Proverbs: "Do not say to your friend: Go and come tomorrow." For he does not describe the age to come but the following time of the present life. That is why he said, "For you do not know what the coming day will bring forth," that is, lest perhaps you die on it or be hindered by some cause. … of the present age …, not in the future. Hence he did not double the day at all, saying only one day in the sacrifice of thanksgiving, or of praise.

Or perhaps it is plain from this that for those who have set the rational life before themselves and the pursuit of quiet, like Mary, who chose the good part and sat at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, life is simple and swift and ready for passing over; but for those who have chosen the active life it is not so, but laborious, like that of Martha, who was troubled about many things. Hence a double time is reckoned for her too, because of her labours. Yet the lawgiver, even if he uses different words because of the richness of the Spirit, and to render manifold, as we have often said, the riddles of understanding, does not depart from strict exactness. For there he said, "They shall not leave any of it until morning," not saying "until the morrow," because the morrow does not signify the age to come; but here, "whatever the third day finds, fire consumes," indicating the age to come by the third day: for in it is the general resurrection of the dead, which the Lord's resurrection, which took place on the third day and came about in the morning, designates. That is why we said that the morning signifies the age to come.

Then, therefore, what is left of the sacrifice of peace offerings, or of salvation, will be consumed by fire. For whatever we have left of what pertains to our salvation is unworked; and also unworked is what has been badly worked and made wood, or hay and stubble; this will be consumed by fire, and we shall suffer loss.

But what did he add to these things? "If anyone

eats of the flesh of the victim of peace offerings on the third day, the offering shall be made void and shall not profit the one who offers; rather, whatever soul defiles itself with such food shall be guilty of transgression." Nor did he add these things to the present ordinance in vain, but because some have presumed to describe, after the end of this life and the resurrection of the dead, another life such as the present one, introducing a certain age of a thousand years, in which, as they say, a visible Jerusalem will be built, and its temple, and the Holy of Holies that once were in it will be restored, and sacrifices will be offered, and there will be marriages and the begetting of children and certain delights with a visible righteousness, and our way of life, when we have risen from the dead, will be no other than the present one of the righteous. Wishing, then, to remove this presumption from our mind, he says: "If anyone eats of the flesh of the peace offerings on the third day," that is, if anyone proposes to himself in thought that after the resurrection of the dead he is going to live out the remnants of this life, and in some way eats the said things in his mind, using fancy for food, and hoping to eat at a time when it is impossible to eat, that is, to work: his offering is not received, nor will it be reckoned to him. For one who thinks false things about the age to come does himself harm and makes his offering abominable and defiled. And not only this, but he also brings sin upon himself; for this reason he said: "Rather, whatever soul defiles itself with such food shall be guilty of transgression," showing that whoever does not think good things about the recompense of Christ both lives in the loss of good things and subjects himself to sin. For the recompenses of God are not corruptible, nor does he set up again what he has once destroyed.

Moreover, he does not want the virtues to be defiled by a false intention; hence he said: "Flesh that touches anything unclean shall not be eaten, but shall be consumed by fire," calling "flesh" the virtues of which the sacrifice of salvation consists: for example, chastity, almsgiving, righteousness. If, then, these touch anything unclean, as when perhaps through pride righteousness and chastity are turned to vainglory, and almsgiving is done from injustice, they will be burned with the fire of the judgment to come. Isaiah shows this, saying: "He who sacrifices an ox is like one who kills a man; he who slaughters a sheep is like one who brains a dog," and the rest.

And the right conclusion of the present commandment is: "He who is clean shall eat of it. A defiled soul that eats of the flesh of the victim of peace offerings that has been offered to the Lord shall perish from its peoples." Here he plainly destroys irony and hypocrisy; for these are the uncleannesses of the soul, so that the inner man of such people was called a wolf when the Lord says: "Beware of those who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." Those who eat of the flesh of the victim of peace offerings, or of salvation, which has been offered to the Lord, who perform the virtues which are possessed from God not with the intention of virtue but fraudulently, perish from their people, so that they are no longer called sheep but wolves, and so that it may be plain that they have been driven out of the flock. And whoever is outside the flock is counted in the portion of the beasts.

"And whoever touches the uncleanness of a man or of a beast, or of anything that can defile, and eats of such flesh, shall perish from his peoples." He wants, then, whoever performs the victim of salvation, or of peace offerings, and desires to share in it, not only to be clean of evil action himself and free of it, but also to abstain from joining with another's evil, whether his thoughts or his works are evil. For since man is rational and intellectual, he rightly understood the uncleanness of a man as the wickedness that lies in counsels and thoughts. The Lord too makes this plain, saying: "Do you not yet understand that whatever goes into the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the drain? But the things that come out of the mouth come out of the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." He does not mean the thefts or adulteries or fornications that are in action (for how do these come out of the heart?), but those that are in thoughts and counsels, because these above all are uncleannesses. Of these the Lord made mention, and so he added: "But these are what defile a man."

Unclean beasts, then, are those who are occupied with unclean and earthly actions; they look to the earth as beasts do. Hence fornicators too are called stallions. "Or of anything that can defile": whoever observe omens and divinations and purifications, or days and seasons, and much more the magicians and sorcerers, for they are abominable before the Lord, everyone who does these things. For perhaps someone shares in their evil counsels or actions; and he, as touching forbidden uncleanness, cannot eat, or work, the things that pertain to the victim of salvation, or of peace offerings. For when he strives to do the things that pertain to salvation, and shares with those who work evil and what pertains to perdition, he will perish from his people, that is, from those who are saved. For to share in the sins of others is deadly; hence David too said, "And from others' [sins] spare your servant." And Paul commanded Timothy: "Lay hands hastily on no one, nor share in the sins of others; keep yourself pure."

Verses 22–25. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel: You shall not eat the fat of an ox, or of a sheep, or of a goat. The fat of a carcass that died of itself, and of that animal which was caught by a beast, you shall have for various uses. If anyone eats the fat that must be offered as incense to the Lord, he shall perish from his people."

The wisdom of the lawgiver is admirable, how through riddles and parables he brings in useful things for those under him, carefully placing the pearl of the commandment as in the bag of the letter. For why did he command that the fat of oxen and sheep and goats not be eaten? Of those whose flesh he called clean and eatable he forbade the fat to be eaten: neither of the one who works the commandment, as the ox is, nor of the simple, who is the sheep, nor of those who repent for sins (for by the goat the sacrifices for sins are signified, since he commanded a she-goat or a he-goat to be sacrificed in these). Of these, then, does he not grant that we eat the desire? For he commands it to be referred to God and offered to God, so that it may not be according to human intention, but that the desire of each thing which anyone attains from the things just mentioned may be offered to God alone.

Likewise the desire of sinners, which is signified by the carcasses and by the things caught by beasts: by the carcasses, as those who have chosen the death of sin through certain impurities and through pride. Paul proves this, speaking thus of widows: "For the widow who lives in pleasures is dead while she lives." And by the things caught by beasts are understood those who, while they are negligent, are seized by … those perceived by the mind; that we may not do this, Peter again says: "Be sober, be watchful; your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour." Of these he does not grant that the fat be eaten, for it is harmful to us …. But what does he command? "You shall have it for various uses." We must, then, transfer it to usefulness, so as to turn the desire of these things to chastity, or to almsgiving, or to righteousness, or to any kind of good work, melting it down and drawing it off into another form. For this is "you shall have it for various uses": because fat too, if it is needed for some use in making any work, is subdued and melted down. "If anyone eats the fat that must be offered as incense to the Lord, he shall perish from his people." Rightly does he perish, namely one who compels, or in some other way persuades, him who has offered himself to God to have his desire not towards heaven above but towards pleasing himself.

Verses 26–27. "You shall also not take the blood of any animal for food, whether of birds or of beasts of the flock. Every soul that eats blood shall perish from its peoples."

That he wants blood to be understood as the soul has been sufficiently shown above. He wants us, then, to attain the virtue of mutual love: and neither of the righteous, whose way of life he has here signified by the birds because of their higher flight, nor of sinners, to whom the name of beasts of the flock is fitting because they look to lower things, is it fitting to eat the blood, that is, to work anything towards their death. And that, as the Seventy render, he commanded this not to be done "in any dwelling," by "dwellings" he hints at different ways of life. For this reason one who is wise in a lofty way, as well as one who is so in a middling way, or who has no zeal for wisdom at all, must abstain from malice against his neighbour; and, to put it briefly, both the righteous man from that malice which can be against the sinner, and the sinner from that which can be against the righteous, so that he lays no snares for him, knowing that he sins against blood, and the lawgiver judges him to eat blood, and this soul "shall perish from its peoples" …, because it had the intention of destroying.

Moreover, attend to this too: the law, suggesting to the soul the ordinance about forbidden foods and the touching of unclean things, makes mention of it because it is above all the custom of the people from the gentiles, whose signification we have shown to be the natural man, to be defiled by all forbidden actions, from which he commanded it to withdraw.

Verses 28–34. "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel: He who offers a victim of peace offerings to the Lord, let him offer at the same time also the sacrifice, that is, its drink offerings; and he shall hold in his hands the fat … what he has consecrated to the Lord he shall hand to the priest, who shall burn the fat on the altar; but the breast shall be Aaron's and his sons'; the right shoulder also of the victims of peace offerings shall fall to the first fruits of the priest. He of the sons of Aaron who has offered the blood and the fat shall himself have the right shoulder also as his portion. For the breast of the lifting up and the shoulder of the separation I have taken from the sons of Israel, from their victims of peace offerings, and I have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons by a perpetual law from all the people of Israel."

Truly, he who meditates on the law of God night and day is a tree planted by the streams of waters, so that he gives his fruit in its season, watered by meditation on the law, which, so as not to cause weariness, nor to let the reader fail, varies its ordinance, commanding about the same things in different ways. And this is said

wisely, for wisdom works this in every discipline too. For see, you will find that medicine also, in time of sickness, brings out many remedies; much more so in what secures the progress and health of the soul. Let us therefore attend to the force of this ordinance.

"The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel," where the Seventy rendered, "And you shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying." Not in vain, then, did we say above that the things then said pertained above all to the people of the gentiles; for the lawgiver, mindful of this, did not now say, according to the edition of the Seventy, "Speak to the sons of Israel," but "and to the sons of Israel," showing this, that he speaks not only to them but also to those who are from the gentiles; for this law according to the Spirit is common to them.

And what does he say? "He who offers a victim of peace offerings to the Lord, let him offer at the same time also the sacrifice, that is, its drink offerings." According to the Seventy: "He who offers a sacrifice of salvation to the Lord shall offer his gift to the Lord from his sacrifice of salvation." And what interpretation this has, what follows makes plain: "He shall hold in his hands the fat of the victim," or as the Seventy have it, "His hands shall offer the entrails to the Lord"; that is, each one must himself work the things that pertain to peace, or to salvation, since he cannot be saved by the zeal of another, a friend perhaps or a kinsman. Just as "the iniquity of the wicked shall be upon him," so also "the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him."

And how must the victim be celebrated? "He shall hold in his hands the fat of the victim and the breast," or according to the Seventy, "He shall offer the fat that is on the breast and the lobe of the liver, and he shall offer them, and let them be placed in the sight of the Lord." He calls faith and confidence "the breast," because these are joined to strength. And strength of the soul usually designates the perfect; for the Lord too speaks thus to Job: "Will you give the horse strength, or clothe his neck with neighing?" And according to the Seventy he adds: "And you have put all kinds of armour about him, and the glory of his breast is boldness." … And since, when he commanded the sacrifice of salvation, … making mention of the lobe and the liver and the fat and the thighs, … of the belly and the kidneys and the loin, … he did, wishing namely, as was said, to vary the legislation, and to keep time for himself to command often about the same things … he set out what he had not said before.

"He shall hold in his hands the fat of the victim and the breast," or as the Seventy have it, "the fat on the breast and the lobe of the liver," commanding them to be offered: by the lobe and the kidneys leading us back once to the memory also of the other things already said, and by the breast designating the faith and confidence which he wants to be offered to the Lord by one who desires to be saved; for "without faith it is impossible for us to please God." And what did he add to these? "He shall hand it to the priest, who shall burn the fat on the altar." Rightly; for we said that he wants all our desire to become a burnt offering. "But the breast shall be Aaron's and his sons'; the right shoulder also of the victims of peace offerings shall fall to the first fruits of the priest." The right shoulder is good actions. So one who wishes to be saved must offer both faith and actions. But since he assigned the breast to the sons of Aaron, who are lofty in life, and the right shoulder to the priest, who holds the image of Christ, for which reason the priest alone can complete this sacrifice, the lawgiver shows plainly that to believe, and to propose good things, or to begin them, is ours; but to complete them with works, and to bring to their end the things that have been begun, this belongs to divine grace. That is why Paul said: "It is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy." For it belongs to him alone to direct actions. That is why he himself is also called the arm of God; for Isaiah says: "Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" As one, then, who is himself the true arm, he rightly received our shoulder, or, as the Seventy say, our arm.

Then, widening our attention, the lawgiver added: "He of the sons of Aaron who has offered the blood and the fat shall himself have the right shoulder as his portion." For it is Christ who offers the blood perceived by the mind of the peace offerings, and the fat, namely the souls and the desires of those who are being saved; he is of the sons of Aaron, not by kinship but by his own dignity, the singular priest, pre-eminent in all things; into his portion passes the right shoulder, or right arm, that is, every good action and the accomplishment of the work.

And summing up what has been said, he added: "For the breast of the lifting up" (or according to the Seventy, "of the setting forth") "and the shoulder of the separation I have taken from the sons of Israel, from their victims of peace offerings": because he wants faith and action as the special offering from the sacrifices of peace offerings, or of salvation. That is why he said … not only the breast but also the shoulder … of giving. For see, now … that without … namely the division mentioned above. The confirmation of this whole commandment follows: "It is by a perpetual law from the sons of Israel." For there is no time at which God does not receive specially from those who are saved the offering of faith and action. For Paul says that all who were strong in the virtues, such as Abel, Enoch and Noah, and whomever he numbered with them, were made perfect through faith.

[Verses 35–36.] "This is the anointing of Aaron and his sons in the ceremonies of the Lord, on the day on which Moses offered them to serve in the priesthood, and which the Lord commanded to be given to them by the sons of Israel by a perpetual observance in their generations."

The things said seem in a way to pertain to the anointing of the priests, but the lawgiver had not proposed to discuss this at present; for what fellowship with the anointing of the priests have the sacrifices mentioned before? He only wants to show the dignity of the things he has said above and what progress they secure for those who keep them. For in saying, "This is the anointing of Aaron and his sons in the ceremonies of the Lord," he referred it to what went before, so that you might know that one who keeps whatever the law said above advances to the dignity of the priest, and by striving after these things you may be called a royal priesthood, a holy nation; but in no other way. For this is "the anointing in the ceremonies of the Lord," namely from the observances that are described in the sacrifices mentioned before. That is why he added: "On the day on which Moses offered them to serve in the priesthood, and which the Lord commanded to be given to them by the sons of Israel." In these, then, he has given us the anointing, and in these God has called us, "on the day on which he offered them." And when is this? On the day on which he anointed them to serve in the priesthood, that is, on the day on which he anointed them from among the sons of Israel, namely by the anointing which has now been spoken of. For those who live, or conduct themselves, more loftily are rightly more excellent than all the people. Hence the lawgiver very fittingly added, "by a perpetual observance in your generations," so that you might know that this observance is unshaken with God: that no one can excel the people, or the many, by dignity, or wisdom, or kinship with the righteous, or any other such thing, unless he has attained the things that were commanded above. For so does anyone become a priest also according to kinship with Christ the true priest, who showed a life without blemish and perfect. And that he understood the anointing by the things plainly said above, what follows proves.

Verses 37–38. "This is the law of the burnt offering, and of the sacrifice for sin and for transgression, and for the consecration, and for the victims of peace offerings, which the Lord appointed for Moses on Mount Sinai, when he commanded the sons of Israel to offer their offerings to the Lord in the desert of Sinai."

… to God, whether through the perfect honour of wisdom, which is signified by the burnt offering, or through the middling righteousness, which is fit … to work the things that pertain to salvation. For the law understood these sacrifices of peace offerings, whether performed through burnt offerings or through the offering, to be rightly useful, as securing the priestly dignity; and for this reason, on the day on which he commanded the law of anointing to Moses on Mount Sinai, he also added the things concerning the sacrifices, and at the same time briefly enumerated and recalled them all. For the Seventy added, "and of the completion," though we do not find that specifically expressed in the lawgiver's words in what went before, even in the edition of the Seventy itself. But since the sacrifice of fine flour is neither for sin, nor of the burnt offering or of transgression, nor of the sacrifice of salvation, so that we might not be ignorant of the kind or name of this sacrifice, in this place he called it the sacrifice of completion, wishing you to understand that whose name he had left out. And what is more perfect than theology? which we said the sacrifice of fine flour offered with oil and frankincense signifies.

But where did he say these things were appointed? "In the desert of Sinai." And Sinai is interpreted "bush" or "temptation." And temptation is like a bush, for it is a rough shrub and hard to grasp with the hand. By it is signified that, just as the crown of those who contend in the contest lies in sweat and toil, so the crown of a good life is completed in temptations and tribulations, as Paul too said: "All who wish to live in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution"; above all if they offer their offerings to the Lord, or as the Seventy rendered, "in the sight of the Lord." For it is plain that one who has attained pure righteousness, pleasing to God, suffers both temptations and tribulations. For the enemies perceived by the mind do not rest, nor are temptations lacking to the righteous, because godliness is an abomination to sinners. And the end of temptations and tribulations James has set out for us sufficiently: "Blessed is the man who endures temptation, because when he has been proved he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him."

Verses 1–3. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Take Aaron with his sons, their garments and the oil of anointing, a calf for sin, two rams, a basket with unleavened bread; and you shall assemble the whole congregation at the door of the tabernacle of witness."

What the force of the things just mentioned is will be shown plainly and fittingly in what follows, when the lawgiver adds what is done with them. But what these things now said signify, the discourse that went before will hand on to you: that the anointing is both common and not common to Christ and to those who are his. It is common, because they too are partakers of the same anointing, which is why we too are called Christians by sharing in Christ; and not common, because … and the grace in which we share with him. David signified this when he said to the Lord: "Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of your kingdom is a right sceptre. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows." But who are his partakers? We, certainly, of whom it has been said: "For we have been made partakers of Christ, if indeed we hold the beginning of his substance firm to the end." Yet you see how he is anointed in a special way with the oil of exultation, that is, the Spirit, above his partakers, namely us, as the Psalmist says: he himself substantially, but we by his working and grace. For this reason his sons are anointed together with Aaron, but not with such things as are done in Aaron's anointing, as what follows shows.

But the mind must be fixed at present also on this, that not in vain do we take these things of Christ. For the lawgiver, knowing that these mysteries befit the church, commanded the whole congregation, or synagogue, to be called together (which the Greeks express by ἐκκλησιάζω) to the door of the tabernacle of witness. And the synagogue can have communion with this law in no other way than by coming together to the church, with which the truth of these figures is preserved.

Verses 4–9. "Moses did as the Lord had commanded; and when the whole multitude was gathered before the doors, he said: This is the word which the Lord has commanded to be done. And at once he brought Aaron and his sons, and when he had washed them, he clothed the high priest with a linen undergarment, girding him with a belt, and putting on him a tunic of hyacinth, and over it he put the ephod, which he bound with a girdle and fitted to the breastplate, in which were teaching and truth. He also covered his head with the mitre, and on it, over the forehead, he put the golden plate, consecrated for sanctification, as the Lord had commanded him."

That these things of which we speak are a shadow and figure of what is done in the church, the things now set before us also testify most plainly. "Moses did as the Lord had commanded; and when the whole multitude was gathered before the doors, he said." This is translated more expressly in the Greek tongue in the Seventy, that is, ἐξεκκλησίασεν τὴν συναγωγήν. And why does he not say "he gathered the congregation, or synagogue," but "having called together," that is, ἐκκλησιάσας, "the whole multitude," that is, the synagogue or congregation? Because without doubt he hints at something by this: calling it a synagogue, because this name was from of old proper to the assembly of the people; but he commanded it to be called together, that is, ἐκκλησιάζειν, so that we might know the church that was to come a little later, which is found to be the force of this ordinance. And it becomes plainer from the fact that the law of God, who brought out Israel, who called Abraham, who did all the things that are written through the prophet Moses, the Spirit of God commanded many generations beforehand the things that are done mystically in the church.

And though there are doors of the tabernacle of witness, here he says, "he called together the congregation," not to the doors but to the door of the tabernacle of witness; plainly admonishing our ears that the teachings of the apostles, which the earlier discourse explained to be the doors of the tabernacle of witness, and the teaching of Christ, were poured into their tongues, and from those things in which he himself taught. Just as, then, between many doors and one door there is only this difference, that those are many and this is one, so the words and teachings of the apostles differ in nothing else from the teaching of Christ, except that the Lord's word is one, of which Paul says, "For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any two-edged sword"; and Peter with the other apostles says, "It is not right that we should leave the word of God and serve tables." For it has been divided into many and different tongues; and these, though they are doors because of their number, lead the hearer to the one entrance of life, that is, the door of Christ.

"And when the whole multitude was gathered before the doors, he said: This is the word which the Lord has commanded to be done." What word is that? That of which David said: "The Lord will give the word to those who preach the gospel with great power." And Peter says more plainly: "This is the word that has been announced to you." For the present word is of the gospel, because the mysteries announced by him are also of the gospel, and in them is the grace of baptism. For the lawgiver is accustomed to use such words whenever he describes the riddles of the church's mysteries. For when he was writing of the manna, which bears the figure of the bread that came down from heaven, he also puts a word about it like the present one: saying, "This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat," he at once added, "This is the word which the Lord has spoken."

But what is it that he now sets out God commanding? "And at once he brought Aaron and his sons, and when he had washed them." When he who is truly priest, Christ, is offered to the Father (for Daniel too mentions his offering, when he says, "And behold, one like a son of man with the clouds of heaven, and he came to the Ancient of Days, and was offered in his sight"), he is offered certainly for our sake, and with us, and on our account. For this reason he now says that he was offered with his sons, namely with those who are minded for loftier things and imitate him as far as is lawful for men, as Paul says: "Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ." And the offering itself is celebrated through baptism, which he means by "and when he had washed them." And you are sure that Christ was baptized in the river Jordan to sanctify the waters of our baptism. But these things are common to Aaron with his sons, namely to Christ with us; what follows is not at all. For it surpasses us and is loftier than we are, and befits only the first and true priest.

"He clothed the high priest with a linen undergarment, girding him with a belt," [which the Seventy rendered]: "And he put on him the tunic, and girded him with the belt, and clothed him with the robe." Here he plainly sets out the incarnation of the Only-begotten, who, because he became incarnate as our whole man, is said to put on the tunic and the robe. For our make is twofold: one in us is from the dust, the other heavenly; yet both are one. For Moses says: "God formed man from the mud of the earth"; this one, then, is earthly. "And he breathed into his face the breath of life"; most plainly this one is heavenly. "And man became a living soul"; for both are one living being. If he turns himself to bodily things and carnal pleasures, the whole man will be called earthly, the heavenly being as it were quenched and shut up; but if we busy ourselves only with what profits the soul and allow it to hold the leading place and to rule the body, he is rightly called heavenly, the earthly being neglected. When Adam fell through disobedience, he without doubt became earthly, and for this reason he heard, "Earth you are, and to earth you shall go"; that is, you have loved the corruption of the body; you have a punishment like your sin. But Christ put on the earthly, that is, that old man who is from the earth, whom he also fastened together with himself to the cross; for Paul says, "Our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed." And he put on also the heavenly, which he himself had breathed in. But because he did nothing earthly here, nor near to corruption, he is without doubt called heavenly. Paul, setting this out, says: "The first man is from the earth, earthly; the second from heaven, heavenly." This must be taken in two ways. For our first man, that is, the body, was formed from the earth, which is why it is called earthly; but the soul is from heaven, for it is the breath of God. Again, the first man, the disobedient Adam, is from the earth, earthly, because he assigned himself to the works of dust; the second man, the new one, is Christ, who is from heaven, not only because he came down from heaven, but because he also kept the dignity of the heavenly, since he did nothing earthly nor near to corruption.

Here, then, he calls the tunic the earthly man; for the tunic was made of linen, which is from the earth, for he says, "And he made them linen tunics." And the robe [he calls] the heavenly, because the robe is … and at the same time it is of hyacinth. And this is the colour of heaven; and what is the colour of heaven is heavenly action and subsistence, for which reason it is also called heavenly. The robe has many other things too that signify the heavenly man, which the lawgiver set out in the construction of the tabernacle when he explained the high priest's robe. Of these we shall speak, if God permits, when we come to the arrangement that is there. But now whatever things seem necessary for the matter in hand have been included, to prove that Christ took up both parts of our man, and to make plain that … whole; for, as creator of both, he saved both.

Attend also to this, how other interpreters rendered the robe, which we said is the heavenly man, ἐπενδύτης ("over-garment"), because it is that with which we desire, as Paul says, to be clothed over; he speaks thus: "For while we are in this tabernacle we groan, being burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed over, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." And that this over-garment belonged to our make of old, and that we are now going to receive it again as something we once had, he explained in what follows: "And he who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the pledge of the Spirit." The Seventy call it ὑποδύτης, as being inside, or hidden. Yet because it was brought in second in the order of creation, since the tunic, which is from the earth, is first, they name it second. And yet the ὑποδύτης is an inner garment; but by not putting it first he kept the order of creation. And by calling it ὑποδύτης he shows that it is our inner man.

To these things the lawgiver added: "And over it he put the ephod, which he bound with a girdle and fitted to the breastplate." The Seventy rendered: "And he put on him the ephod, and girded him according to the making of the ephod, and bound him to it." The ephod is the sweet yoke of Christ, that is, the gospel life, which, as one who himself showed it, he rightly carried on his shoulders; of which he says: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls; for my yoke is light and my burden is sweet." Hence the law in Exodus too speaks thus of the ephod: "And you shall make the ephod of gold and hyacinth and scarlet twice dyed and twisted fine linen, of embroidered work," or, as the Seventy have it, "a variegated work, two shoulder-pieces joined one to the other," calling it sometimes one ephod and sometimes two, because the Lord too mentioned a yoke and a burden, dividing one into two, as though dividing the ephod. This is not in vain, but because the man of the gospel must by no means pass over the commandment of the law which said, "You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery," and whatever else there is, but must show a double working in it: that is, abstaining not only from murder but at the same time from the anger which brings about murder; not only from adultery but from the desire from which adultery is born. So the one ephod and the two cohere, one found with the other, because restraining anger also makes one careful not to commit murder. And he necessarily joined the ephod to the robe, for it belongs to the heavenly man alone to take up the yoke of which Christ spoke.

And what is the girdle with which he girded the tunic and the robe? Learn its very work … the mitre is the covering of the head, and the work of the girdle, or belt, is in a way to strengthen and bind fast the one who is girded; the lawgiver proposed to show this, that

Christ, at once summing up, or restoring, all creation, at the same time also strengthens our lump, whose first fruits he took in order to dispense the mystery of the incarnation. Of this Paul says: "Who has made known to us the mystery of his will, for the dispensation of the fullness of times, to restore all things in Christ, those in heaven and those on earth." Of him David too: "The Lord has reigned; he has put on beauty; the Lord has put on strength and girded himself." He himself also shows how Christ strengthened our lump, girding round the first fruits by the word of the dispensation, which he also called strength, because through it we too have been made strong. And what the manner of the dispensation is, John says: "The Word was made flesh." And therefore Moses says that the mitre and the belt are of fine linen, a variegated work: for fine linen, since it is from the earth, shows the flesh, which is from our earth; the embroiderer's work is the Lord, the Word, who alone is the craftsman and diversifier of creation. He himself worked for himself the flesh taken from us, [working] in it in a way various mysteries and the miracles of creation.

After this he added, according to the Seventy: "And he put the breastplate on them." And how? Some copies have "on him," but both look to the same thing. "Which he bound with a girdle and fitted to the breastplate, in which were teaching and truth." The Seventy rendered: "And he put on the breastplate the showing and the truth." Elsewhere, when he sets out the priestly robe, he called this "the breastplate of judgment": for the preaching of the judgment to come is governed according to the breastplate of Christ, that is, his teaching. It has, then, the showing, that is, the manifestation, and with it the truth, as manifesting to men the unknown truth of the mysteries. And he commanded the breastplate to be made of four rows, that is, of the four general virtues, and of twelve stones, partial in a way and special. And what are these? Those, certainly, of which Paul wrote: "For a bishop must be blameless, as God's steward." And how he is blameless, that is, clean of accusation and free of every complaint, he shows by what follows: "not proud, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for shameful gain; but hospitable, kind, chaste, just, holy, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is according to the teaching." These things it befits each one to attain, but above all the priest, since he bears the figure of Christ, who carried the said twelve stones on his own breast.

"He also covered his head with the mitre," or according to [the Seventy] …. But since we are not ignorant of the working of the mitre, or tiara, and have learned that the head of Christ is the Father, let us hear what follows: "And on it, over the forehead, he put the golden plate, consecrated for sanctification, as the Lord had commanded him." Not in vain does he make mention of what the Lord commanded Moses, but wishing us to recall what was said about the plate in the construction of the tabernacle; for there its use and force are plainly set out, when he says: "You shall make also a plate of purest gold, on which you shall engrave with an engraver's work, Holy to the Lord," or as the Seventy have it, "And you shall make a plate of pure gold, and you shall form on it the forming of a seal, Holiness of the Lord." But what forming, or what seal, he does not yet say. He says it also in another place: "They made also the plate of sacred veneration of purest gold, and they wrote on it with a jeweller's work, Holy of the Lord." According to the Seventy: "And he made the golden plate, a drawing out of pure gold, the redemption of the holy, and he engraved on it letters formed as seals, Holiness to the Lord." Yet he does not say what the letters themselves were; we can neither see nor hear them. The forming, then, signifies that mark of which Paul says: "Who, being the radiance of his glory and the figure of his substance."

For since many things have been said about the incarnation of the Only-begotten in this ordinance, so that not all things about him may be thought lowly, the lawgiver, wishing to raise us up to the substance of the incarnate Word in the beginning, of which John said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," mentioned the mitre, or tiara, upon the head, because of the Father. By the plate and the engraving, or forming, of sanctification, he plainly set out the dignity in the beginning of God the Word incarnate, who has also become our priest, which he has together with the Father. That is why he puts it both upon the tiara, or mitre, and over the face of the mitre, or tiara; and he says: "And you shall bind it with a hyacinth band," or according to the Seventy, "And you shall put it on twisted hyacinth," understanding by the twisted hyacinth the humanity of Christ, because it is inseparably joined to the divinity. "And it shall be on the tiara, hanging over the forehead of the high priest," or as the Seventy have it, "And it shall be on the mitre, over the face of the mitre." It shall be on the mitre, because the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father. And over the face of the mitre: for one who sees the Son is said to see the Father also, as Christ answers Philip in John when he asks about the Father. So the whole present ordinance has been plainly explained in the mystery of the Only-begotten.

Verses 10–11. "He also took the oil of anointing, with which he anointed the tabernacle with all its furniture. And he anointed it and all its vessels. The laver also with its base he sanctified with oil."

"I have multiplied visions, and in the hands of the prophets I have been likened"; this he said, having spoken beforehand in the prophets, so that one who wished to know his mysteries might know that it was not by one image, nor by one sign, but by many (because he also works many things, above all through the flesh he dispensed) that we were to comprehend the salvation of men. And just as he is called not only shepherd but also sheep, and priest, and door (shepherd, as one who turned back, or led back, man who had strayed; sheep, as one who was made a sacrifice for us; priest, as one who offered himself; door, as one who showed us the way of knowledge), so many prophets bore his likeness, and to each certain things were entrusted, to signify the working of the dispensation for us.

Hence, because he was himself the one who anointed them and himself the one who was anointed (anointing by the word of the divinity, according to which all things are common to him with the Father and the Spirit, by whom he is said to be anointed; for David said that the Father anoints, when he says, "Therefore God, your God, has anointed you"; and Isaiah referred the anointing of the Son to the Spirit, saying, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me"; but whatever the Father and the Spirit do, these same things the Son also does), by reason of the divinity, then, he himself is the one who anoints himself, and he himself is the one who is anointed by the dispensation of the humanity. Likewise he offers and is offered; hence Daniel too sees him offered, but did not see who offered him, because it was he himself who was offering himself. So, that the truth of the figures may be preserved, Moses anoints and offers, he too bearing the image of Christ, of whom he said to the Jews: "The Lord will raise up for you a prophet from your brothers like me." The Lord, referring this to himself, said: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me also, for he wrote of me." And Aaron again is anointed as the figure of the true priest, and the image of that mystery is open.

Moses, then, sprinkles the altar, namely the Lord's body, seven times: because the anointing of the Lord is the whole fullness of the Spirit, who is designated in seven operations, as Isaiah said. And he anoints also all its vessels, both the apostles and those who live so like them that they are rightly named the house and vessels of Christ. So too the Lord, choosing Paul, said to Ananias: "Go, for this man is a vessel of election to me, to carry my name before the gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel." He sanctifies also the laver, or basin, namely baptism, with its base, by which we understand repentance. It is set under baptism here because we correct and prop up by repentance its grace, which we often make to totter by our falsehood.

"And he sanctified the tabernacle with all its furniture." For by our sanctification the creation above too … has obtained a greater sanctification through the Lord's flesh which he took from us. And let it not seem ridiculous to say that the creation above has shared in the sanctification that was made in us, after it shared in the knowledge granted to us in Christ; Paul shows this, saying: "That the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places through the church, according to the arrangement of the ages which he made in Christ Jesus our Lord." So through the church the higher creation has been chosen to share in greater knowledge, since its sanctification has been called just.

Verse 12. "And pouring it on Aaron's head, he anointed him and consecrated, or sanctified, him."

Even if, according to Paul's word, the head of Christ is understood as the divinity, the lawgiver has not written now in vain, nor out of order, that in this mystery the head of the priest is anointed: so that we may know that, just as the head cannot be divided from the feet, so the divinity of Christ is not divided from the humanity after the union. But whether he is said to be anointed, or born, or to suffer, or to rise, or to be taken up, we say this of the incarnate Word without dividing him, and without saying that the man was anointed and God not anointed, but [we say it of] the same one, God and man together. For David too establishes this without any doubt when he says: "Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of your kingdom is a right sceptre. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you." You see that the one anointed is called God, because it is plain that he who became incarnate claims for himself all the things of his flesh. For what else was his anointing but altogether the incarnation itself? In this way the head of the priest perceived by the mind was anointed, and he himself was sanctified.

Verse 13. "His sons also, when they had been brought, he clothed with linen tunics, and girded with a belt, and put mitres on them, as the Lord had commanded."

On the sons of Aaron are put a tunic like Aaron's, and a girdle, or belt, like his, and tiaras, or mitres. For they put him on, they are girded with him, they carry him on their heads; hence Paul too says: "Stand, having girded your loins with truth" (and Christ is the truth) "and having put on the breastplate of righteousness," namely him who was made for us from God wisdom and righteousness. Paul also commanded us to put on the helmet of salvation; for Christ is salvation, as Simeon testified: "Now you dismiss your servant, O Lord, according to your word, in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation." For whoever put on Christ put on through him the Father also.

Verses 14–17. "He offered also the calf for sin; and when Aaron and his sons had laid their hands on its head, he slaughtered it, drawing off the blood, … round about. When it had been atoned for and sanctified, he poured out the rest of the blood at its foundations. The fat also that was over the vital parts, and the net of the liver, and the two kidneys with their fat, he burned on the altar, burning the calf with its skin and flesh and dung outside the camp, as the Lord had commanded."

What the force of the said ordinance is, and how each of its chapters is taken of the sacrifice of the Only-begotten, the earlier discourse contains. The calf is offered for the sin of the priest and also for the congregation of the people. Understanding those things, we shall also fully understand the things now said. And we now speak only of what has been changed in the ordinance: for there Aaron laid his hands on the calf, but here his sons also; not in vain did he keep this, but he wrote it also of the anointed. For when we too are anointed and offered to baptism, we are made partners of the Lord's passion, whose image baptism bears; these words of Paul also teach this: "For whoever of us have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into his death; we were therefore buried with him through baptism into death." Necessarily the sons of Aaron lay their hands on the sacrifice, since they share in it.

Verses 18–21. "He offered also the ram for a burnt offering; and when Aaron and his sons had laid their hands on its head,

he slaughtered it and poured out its blood round about the altar; and cutting the ram itself into pieces, he burned its head and limbs and fat with fire, having first washed the entrails and the feet; and he burned the whole ram together on the altar, because it was a burnt offering of most sweet odour to the Lord, as the Lord had commanded."

Not one thing only, but many, have been given us from the sacrifice of the Only-begotten: the forgiveness of sin, that is, of the whole human race; life in perfect philosophy; and the singular introduction of the mysteries of the new testament, after whose patterns and figures were offered the sacrifices that are assigned to the person of the high priest, showing above all the shadow of heavenly things through the things done on earth. Paul shows this, speaking thus of the Lord: "For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are those who offer gifts according to the law, who serve a pattern and shadow of heavenly things." He means those who were then sacrificing in the temple of Jerusalem. And since he depicted one and the same man sitting, running and again standing, wishing also to set out his different operations, he is rightly compelled to assign various figures to each of his works. For this reason the law commanded the priest, who in many things bears the image of the Lord, now to sacrifice the calf for sins and burn it outside the tabernacle (for so the Lord's sacrifice too was made for the washing away of the sins of our nature); and now again it commanded another sacrifice to be made for him in the burnt offering of the ram. For the way of life that is crucified to the world and renounces the world, which is the burnt offering, has Christ as its first fruits, its teacher and its example; for this reason he said, "He who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me," that is, he who does not renounce the world as it has been handed down to him by me (for this is to follow him) is not worthy of me.

But for what reason is the burnt offering divided? "And its feet and entrails," or according to the Seventy, "belly," "are washed." The interpretation of the burnt offering given at the beginning of the book has sufficiently covered this; and what he changes in the sacrifice is necessarily said. For there he said that the offerings were made in pieces, signifying by this that body and soul must be offered; and in us these are called divisions, as being contrary to each other, as Paul says. But in Christ there are no divisions, for he became incarnate as a man clean of sin, who is not divided in the works of the flesh, against which the spirit is turned; that is why the law made no mention of divisions in his sacrifice. And in that the priest offers the calf for sin and the ram for a burnt offering, the law signifies absolutely that, since the perfect way of life is known by the offering of the burnt offering, the ram is necessarily offered in the sacrifice: for it is accustomed to lead the sheep as they go to pasture, and in going out of and coming into the folds; just as Christ too is the leader of the perfect way of life, from whom, namely, it took its beginning; and therefore he taught the sheep to go in and out through him.

Verses 22–29. "He offered also the second ram, for the consecration of the priests; and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on its head. And when Moses had slaughtered it, taking of the blood, he touched the tip of Aaron's right ear and the thumb of his right hand, and likewise of his right foot. He brought also Aaron's sons; and when he had touched with the blood of the slaughtered ram the tip of the right ear of each, and the thumbs of the right hand and foot, he poured out the rest on the altar round about. But the fat and the tail, and all the fat that covers the entrails, and the net of the liver, and the two kidneys with their fat, he separated with the right shoulder. And taking from the basket of unleavened bread which was before the Lord a loaf without leaven, and a cake sprinkled with oil, and a wafer, he put them on the fat and the right shoulder, handing all together to Aaron and his sons. And after they had lifted them up before the Lord, he took them again from their hands and burned them on the altar of burnt offering, because it was the offering of consecration, for an odour of sweetness of the Lord's sacrifice. He took also the breast, lifting it up before the Lord, from the ram of consecration as his portion, as the Lord had commanded him."

This ordinance plainly sets out the tradition of the mysteries that are performed among us, and signifies the mystical Passover which Christ ate with his disciples; this is taught by the things which are commanded to be done part by part in the sacrifice. "He offered also the second ram, for the consecration of the priests." The Seventy render: "Moses offered the second ram, of completion." Rightly is the mystery that has been celebrated for us called the sacrifice of completion; for it perfected us when we had formerly been weak, and brought us out from the imperfect nurture of milk, that is, from that which is in the law, of which Paul says: "For everyone who partakes of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child." And again: "For the law brought nothing to perfection, but there is the bringing in of a greater hope that has been given," … "by which we draw near to God." Yet this sacrifice hints at what is called the greater hope, through which we always draw near to serve God.

And why is the ram here now named the second ram? Because, namely, after the Lord, dining with the apostles, had first [eaten] the sheep that figured him, he afterwards offered his own sacrifice, and secondly he slew himself as a sheep, as what follows shows. "And Aaron and his sons laid their hands on its head. And when Moses had slaughtered it." Necessarily the sons lay their hands on the head of the ram together with Aaron, because Christ celebrated the common supper of the Paschal feast with his disciples. For when he sent some of the disciples to prepare the house in which he was going to celebrate the Passover, he said thus: "Say to the master of the house that the Teacher says: Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?" But Moses celebrates this sacrifice, because he above the others bears the figure of Christ. And then above all Christ celebrated his sacrifice; hence also he begins it. For see what follows.

"And when Moses had slaughtered it, taking of the blood, he touched the tip of Aaron's right ear and the thumb of his right hand, and likewise of his right foot. He brought also Aaron's sons; and when he had touched with the blood of the slaughtered ram the tip of the right ear of each, and the thumbs of the right hand and foot, he poured out the rest on the altar round about." What the sacrifice … chose, the anointing of the ears and hands and feet shows: for in return for our obedience good action and a good way of life are celebrated. Hence our ears too are anointed, so that, being free of the disobedience of Adam, they may attain the obedience of the Only-begotten. After this the extremities of the hands and feet are anointed, because not only the hands but also the feet are taken for action; this is proved by what David says, "My foot stood in the right way," and again, "He set my feet upon a rock." And since we have some good actions and some bad, and the left bears the figure of the bad, the right is rightly anointed. For the things that are anointed are strengthened, and the things that are not anointed are destroyed and brought to ruin; this is plainly shown by the angel who destroyed Egypt, because where he found the anointing of the slain lamb he did not strike.

But the priest was anointed first with the blood, and after him his sons, according to the law: because the Lord himself too, at the mystical supper, first received the blood perceived by the mind, and then gave the cup to the apostles. But see, the lawgiver here, after the anointing of Aaron and his sons, added: "He poured out the rest of the blood on the altar round about." This too we find that Christ did: for drinking himself and giving the apostles to drink, he then poured out the blood perceived by the mind upon the altar, namely his body. And the body of Christ is the church and all his people; we find Mark saying this specially: "And taking [the cup], giving thanks, he gave it to them; and they all drank of it; and he said to them: This is my blood of the new testament, which is poured out for many."

What follows agrees with these things: "But the fat and the tail, and all the fat that covers the entrails, and the net of the liver, and the two kidneys with their fat, he separated with the right shoulder." For "tail" the Seventy rendered "loin," for "entrails" "belly," and for "the net of the liver" "the lobe of the liver." What these bear the figure of has been discussed one by one in the sacrifice of salvation, or of peace offerings. Not in vain does he now mention them in the ram of completion, but because the mystical Passover of Christ and the receiving of it come about for the salvation of men, … the power of our mystery prepares to build up what follows.

"And taking from the basket of unleavened bread which was before the Lord a loaf without leaven, and a cake sprinkled with oil, and a wafer." For "basket of unleavened bread" the Seventy rendered "basket of completion." By the basket of completion we understand the tongue of the Lord; for it alone brought in the special and perfect teaching. That is why he said, "I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it," as himself fulfilling what was lacking in the law. And well did he call it a basket, both because of the weaving together of his sayings (since he said many things in parables, so that the Jews did not understand everything), and because it was in a way the dish and table of all teaching. Since, then, the mystery was rational, and the things that are brought about subsist from reason, he rightly sets forth the mystical bread from the basket of completion, that is, from his tongue.

And how does he set forth the bread? "Without leaven, and a cake sprinkled with oil," that is, the apostolic teaching, and that of the law and the prophets. For the law and the prophets and the apostles make mention of him: the law, saying, "This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat"; the prophets, "Bread shall be given him, and his water shall be sure; they shall see the king in his beauty"; and the apostles set out the mystery of Christ more richly; hence they are called neither wafer nor cake, but loaves of teaching, as nourishing more. For those which the Seventy here called "loaves of oil," the lawgiver, according to the same Seventy, called "cakes" when setting out, at the feast of Tabernacles, the basket of completion which was received at the anointing of the priests, signifying by the cake the word of the law. And there is no doubt how much inferior cakes are to loaves. Hence the words of the apostles are put before the words of the prophets and of the law, because they received greater grace, so that Paul said: "God has set in the church first apostles, then prophets." Then they themselves, after the tradition of the gospel, bring in the mysteries of Christ; and they bring them in using the testimonies of the law and the prophets. That is why the cake and the wafers are placed beneath them together and joined to them.

But let us attend to what he adds to these: "He put them on the fat and the right shoulder, handing all together to Aaron and his sons." The law declares this, that every desire and every good action must be offered to the mystery, if you wish to receive it according to the intention of God and of the law. And following the said order, he says: "handing all together to Aaron and his sons." For first Christ began his mysteries, and then handed them to us, who have been made his sons through the washing of regeneration. "And they lifted them up before the Lord": for the very mystery which he handed to us, this he lifted up into heaven with his flesh. And saying, "He lifted it up before the Lord," he set out the manner in which he offered them for those who were to come after. "And he took them again from their hands and burned them on the altar of burnt offering, because it was the offering of consecration, for an odour of sweetness of the Lord's sacrifice." The altar of burnt offering is called the body of Christ, and also the most sweet odour; for in the Song of Songs it is plainly said of Christ: "Your name is ointment poured out; therefore the maidens have loved you." "Of the Lord's sacrifice," that is, of the sacrifice and of the burnt offering. "As the Lord commanded": for he himself commanded, "As often as you drink this, proclaim the death of the Lord in yourselves."

"He took also the breast, lifting it up before the Lord, from the ram of consecration," or according to the Seventy, "of completion," "as his portion, as the Lord had commanded him." As in the sacrifice of peace offerings, or of salvation, the breast is offered, so here too; the breast of the ram of consecration, or of completion, is set apart, namely for Moses perceived by the mind, that is, for Christ, because faith and confidence are figured by the breast, as we said before. And since the sacrifice is his, the faith which is in it must also be assigned to him.

"Taking, then, the ointment and the blood that was on the altar,

he sprinkled it on Aaron and his garments, and on his sons and their garments. And when he had sanctified them in their clothing." That the blood of the Only-begotten and the anointing of the Spirit are of one working and power, and that the lawgiver very rightly anointed with the oil of anointing and the blood of the altar, that is, of the Lord's body, hear John saying: "There are three that bear witness, and the three are one: the Spirit, the blood and the water." For they have one effect of sanctification. And very rightly the law separated Aaron's garment from the robes of Aaron's sons. For though we who have been adopted by him have a garment in imitation of the Lord, yet how much the high priest's garment differs we have learned from what went before, or what it is, and how manifold. For he said that that tunic has the ephod and the breastplate, hence it is rightly named now too in the plural. And that which belongs to the sons of Aaron, though it is a tunic of one form, is yet also …. But since one tunic, or robe, has many virtues (for the tunic, or robe, of Christ, which those who have been anointed by him put on, is known to have adoption, to have incorruption, and rest in the heavens, and other such things), it is therefore called a tunic, or robe, though it is one for all: "For whoever of us were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Yet because of the abundance of the [gifts] that come from it, it is named in the plural, and very rightly, because of the truth that is figured in it. The one who figures it in outline is compelled to pass over, without sharp precision, the way that is in it. For see, though the tunic, or robe, of the sons of Aaron is of one form, he named many tunics and not one.

And if we have come to know that Aaron perceived by the mind is sanctified by the sprinkling of blood and oil, let us not wonder at what is said; for Christ himself, for our sanctification, offered his passion for us, namely by the sprinkling of his own blood. Hence he said that the sons of Aaron and their tunics, or robes, were sanctified with Aaron, because whatever happens in us is necessarily referred to him, as the head of the whole body. For proof of what has been said, let us take the Lord's words; for when he was about to be crucified for us, he said these things in the form of prayer, to instruct the apostles in obedience: "As the Father sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world; and for them I sanctify myself, that they too may be sanctified in truth." So he plainly called "sanctification" the sacrifice which he offered for us, from which sanctification profits us also.

Verses 31–36. "And when he had sanctified them in their clothing, he commanded them, saying: Boil the flesh before the doors of the tabernacle, and eat it there. Eat also the loaves of consecration which are placed in the basket, as the Lord commanded me, saying: Aaron and his sons shall eat them. But whatever remains of the flesh and of the loaves, fire shall consume. Also you shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle for seven days, until the day on which the time of your consecration is completed. For in seven days the consecration is ended, as has been done at present, so that the rite of the sacrifice might be completed. Day and night you shall remain in the tabernacle, keeping the watches of the Lord, so that you do not die; for so it has been commanded me. And Aaron and his sons did all things which the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses."

The lawgiver has now provided specially for the mysteries and set them apart, and has handed down in figure, through the things he has now contemplated, that they are to be performed within the church, and by no means published to the uses and ears of the profane, nor is anyone who wishes to be given the opportunity of profaning them. Hence, since the tabernacle of witness of God is heaven, and the court of this tabernacle is the church (because it is placed before the entrance of heaven, for it holds the image of the heavenly Jerusalem, as we said before), he commanded the flesh of the sacrifice to be boiled within. For he says: "He commanded them, saying: Boil the flesh before the doors of the tabernacle, and eat it there," and, as the Seventy add, "in a holy place." And the holy place is the altar, for there the Holy of Holies rests.

But what did he add? "And eat it there. Eat also the loaves of consecration," or as the Seventy render, "and the loaves that are in the basket of completion," "as the Lord commanded me: Aaron and his sons shall eat them." How then is the wisdom of the Spirit not to be admired in these things? For it has left no doubt about such an understanding: for this reason it commands the flesh to be eaten with the loaves, so that we might understand that by it is meant that mystery which is at once bread and flesh, as the body of Christ is the bread of life which came down from heaven. That is why, according to the edition of the Seventy, the ravens brought to Elijah from above flesh in the morning and loaves in the evening, the Lord wishing to prefigure this mystery: which must be boiled and eaten within, in the church, in the holy place, that is, at the altar, and by no means elsewhere. That is why Paul commanded the Corinthians: "When you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper; for each one takes his own supper first to eat, and one is hungry and another is drunk. Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God?" And this was so that the mystical supper should be celebrated there absolutely. Aaron and his sons rightly eat it; for unless Christ, entreated by the mouth of the priests, himself comes and sanctifies the supper, the things that are done in no way become the Lord's sacrifice.

But what is left of the flesh and the loaves he commanded to be burned with fire. This we now see done also visibly in the church: whatever happens to remain unconsumed is given over to fire, not at all the things that have been kept for one day, or two, or many; for, as is evident, the lawgiver did not command this, but commands that what is left be burned. He did not mention days, so that, for whatever reason things may remain unconsumed, whether time is the cause or something else, they may be the work of the fire and be consumed. So from what is done visibly there comes, to those who attend, the signification of something perceived by the mind: that when we fall short in eating the sacrifice and cannot eat it whole, our mind perhaps growing weary or failing (since by the things that are seen we must understand the body of the Lord, into which not even the angels can look with their eyes), we should not leave them, but should give them over to the fire of the Spirit, so that it may eat the things that are uneatable for us through weakness. And how it eats them [we understand], when we have considered that what seems impossible to us is possible to the power of the Spirit.

Hence the lawgiver seems to discuss this next. For he says thus: "Also you shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle for seven days." Why seven? Because the fiftieth day is completed by the number seven multiplied by itself, with one added to it. Hence that feast is called the feast of weeks in Moses, as what follows shows; for he says, according to the Seventy, "until the day of the completion of the fifty days," meaning Pentecost; for it completes the number seven multiplied by itself. And for what reason they are called the days of completion, what follows shows: "For in seven days the consecration," or completion, "is ended, as has been done at present." For he did not consecrate them once only with the blood and the loaves; for so we have learned in what went before that the consecration, or completion, was accomplished. Luke hands down things like these; for he says of the Lord and the disciples: "To whom he also presented himself alive after his death by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking of the kingdom of God; and eating with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father." You see how he consecrated, or perfected, them, appearing to them and teaching about the kingdom of God and eating with them. And in saying they should not depart from Jerusalem, he commanded them not to go forward or out of the door of the tabernacle, that is, he did not permit them to preach until they received the promise of the Spirit, which came about on the fiftieth day. And not to go out of the door of the tabernacle of witness is to rest from the word of teaching and not to preach openly, because Christ hinted that he himself is the door, as the beginning of every divine word and of knowledge. And he himself handed down to us going in and going out by his door, so that we may understand that we are to venture in him, when, rebuking certain people who before his coming taught foreign things and led into error, he said: "All who came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them." And after this he added: "I am the door; if anyone enters through me, he will go in and go out and find pasture," calling the going in through himself, and the going out, progress in the divine Scriptures.

And that that is above all called the completion of the days, the Spirit hands down plainly through Luke: "And when the days of Pentecost were completed, they were all together; and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting; and there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit." Not in vain, then, is Pentecost called the day of the completion of days and of the consummation, but as having the completion of the sevens of days, and bearing the fullness of the Spirit, filling with perfection those into whom it poured the Spirit. And if it be said that Christ was with the apostles forty days, perfecting them, while the seven days of perfection according to the law describe, as we said, the whole Pentecost, it must be known that he was not separated from the apostles even in the days between the Ascension and Pentecost; for how else did he say to them, "Behold, I am with you all days"? And again: "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you."

For this reason the lawgiver added: "As has been done at present, so that the rite of the sacrifice might be completed," or as the Seventy have it, "On this day the Lord commanded so to do, that you might make atonement for yourselves." For on the day on which he handed down the mystery of the supper, on the same day he hinted at the propitiation, or atonement, that is, the forgiveness of sins, saying: "This is my blood of the new testament, which shall be poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." In the very words he foretells what is written in the Gospel, as you can learn from what follows: "Day and night you shall remain in the tabernacle," or as the Seventy have it, "At the door of the tabernacle of witness you shall sit seven days, day and night." And the Lord said to the apostles: "But you shall sit in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." So plainly "you shall sit," he says. And he himself commanded the disciples to remain a week of days doing nothing and not to preach. Hence we find that the apostles did not teach at all before the said days were completed; but when the days were completed, Peter at once began the preaching, when about three thousand souls were added. So they themselves kept this commandment in every point, and in them above all are fulfilled the things said in what follows: "Keeping the watches of the Lord, so that you do not die; for so the Lord commanded me. And Aaron and his sons did all things which the Lord spoke by the hand of Moses."

If it is asked why he joins Aaron to his sons, a cause will be found altogether necessary and suited to considering the matter. For he commanded those just mentioned not to go out of the door of the tabernacle of witness, that is, not to handle the gospel preaching meanwhile. When Christ appeared to the apostles, then, he did not go out of his own door, since he himself was the one who was to be preached and who spoke in the apostles. For this reason Aaron himself too was said to be consecrated, or completed, with his sons. But who the one consecrating, or completing, is, the lawgiver does not add at all; for he says: "In seven days the consecration is ended," or according to the Seventy, "he completed your hands," as he also did. And it is plain that he himself was the one who consecrated, or perfected, the sons, who was also said to be perfected, or consecrated, in them, as in his own members.

Verses 1–4. "And when the eighth day had come, Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel, and said to Aaron: Take a calf for sin and a ram for a burnt offering, both without blemish, and offer them before the Lord. And to the sons of Israel you shall speak: Take a he-goat for sin, and a calf and a lamb of a year old and without blemish, for a burnt offering; an ox and a ram for peace offerings; and sacrifice them before the Lord in the sacrifice of each, offering fine flour sprinkled with oil; for today the Lord will appear to you."

As sometimes the image of some animal, or perhaps of a shrub, is painted, or drawn, or struck in bronze, and at the beginning of the work the drawing or the stamping in bronze is not clear, but in the progress of the work it is completed by partial additions, so too whatever the lawgiver now sets out in figure becomes clearer and plainer by the addition of the things he ordains part by part. Since, then, we have shown that the day of completion, or consecration, must be understood as Pentecost, and that until that day preaching was restrained by the Lord's command, for this reason he commanded the sons of Aaron not to go out of the door of the tabernacle of witness. We must consider what kind of things the law commanded to be completed on this day too.

He calls Pentecost the eighth day because the day of Pentecost falls on the day on which the Saviour rose, which is believed to be the eighth: for it bears the figure of the first fruits of the future, and also of the completion of the present age, which revolves in seven days. And the cycle of Pentecost is under the said number; therefore it rightly falls in the present age. The day of Pentecost signifies the completion and at the same time the resurrection: for it was fitting that on the same day on which Christ rose the Spirit too should come.

Then, therefore, he says that Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel were called, building the church in a way through the calling of those mentioned. For then first was the spectacle of the church called together, in which Aaron perceived by the mind, that is, Christ, is believed to be the priest; and his sons are those who are of a lofty way of life, and therefore ministers and fellow workers of the priesthood; and the elders of Israel are the order of presbyters; for of these the body of the church is composed.

And Aaron there took a calf for sin and a ram for a burnt offering, both without blemish, and offered them before the Lord. For then Christ began to make his sacrifice known, when the Spirit, coming, gathered the Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and the first fruits of all nations, to the upper room of the apostles. And the order of the elders of Israel, which we said is that of the presbyters, also took [offerings], as itself bearing the lot and figure of the teachers, and as useful for teaching us and able to perfect the life of those who come together in the church. And what are these things which it took? "A he-goat for sin," namely the sacrifice for repentance. "And a calf and a lamb of a year old for a burnt offering, without blemish," namely the perfect and complete life, or way of life, which is signified by the victims, that is, by the burnt offerings. "And an ox and a ram for peace offerings," but for the sacrifice of salvation: the middling way of life, which yet can save those who offer it, as we said above. And he commanded everything to be done before the Lord: for every work of virtue must be performed as in God's sight, and not be corrupted or vitiated when we mix our own will with it. "A sacrifice of fine flour sprinkled with oil": theology with almsgiving; for these said sacrifices, discussed carefully by us earlier, have made this known.

And what did he now add to these things? "For today the Lord will appear to you." This is the conclusion and proof that all the things mentioned were said of Pentecost: for on it the Lord appeared to them, namely the Spirit, of whom Paul said, "Now the Lord is the Spirit." And how he would appear among them Luke said: "There appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and they sat upon each of them."

Verse 5. "So they brought all things which Moses had commanded to the door of the tabernacle, while the whole multitude stood there."

Here he has plainly set out the church. "To the door of the tabernacle," or, as the Seventy have it, "before the tabernacle of witness," namely of heaven. For if the church is the assembly of the firstborn angels who are enrolled in heaven before the tabernacle of witness, that is, before the face of heaven (for so Aquila too rendered "before the face"), what was said according to the Seventy, "before the Lord," [is to be understood]. If, then, it is so, since it is fitted to that way of life, it is rightly understood as "before the tabernacle." And here the whole multitude, or the whole synagogue, comes near, that is, the congregation which is from all and from everywhere: for every contrite soul, and every sinner, everyone who needs mercy, everyone who turns from error, is gathered in this church; for he commanded to be called not only those from the streets and lanes but also those from the roads and hedges, so that they might enter and fill the royal supper.

Verse 6. "Moses said: This is the word which the Lord has commanded; do it, and his glory will appear to you."

That the glory of the Lord is the Spirit is shown plainly by what Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "We all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Spirit of the Lord." So that the glory of the Lord might be seen, then, that is, so that the coming of the Spirit might be celebrated, "this is the word," he says, "which the Lord has commanded: do it," namely the mystical [word] of which the Lord had commanded: "Do this in remembrance of me." And the lawgiver by his custom calls it a "word," because the dispensation of this mystery subsists more than by word, above all since the Lord's word changes the things that appear into something else greater and perceived by the mind. Hence when he presented the manna as the image of the bread of life which came down from heaven, he said: "This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat; this is the word which the Lord has appointed." What, then, does the lawgiver signify by what has been said, except that without doubt the Spirit came while they were performing the holy mystery and celebrating the Lord's supper? And even if we do not have this set out more plainly (for divine Scripture has passed over many things for the sake of brevity, which it is right to gather from other things), it was the day which is called the Lord's day, on which the apostles were bound in every way to perform the mystical and sacred rites. For we too, following their tradition, set apart the Lord's day for the divine assemblies. And we find that Christ likewise, after his resurrection from the dead, was made known through the mystical supper and the breaking of bread; this Luke hands down plainly, but John the evangelist more fully.

Verse 7. "He said to Aaron: Approach the altar and sacrifice for your sin, offering the burnt offering, and pray for yourself and for the people; and when you have slain the victim of the people, pray for it, as the Lord has commanded."

Where our translation has more plainly "for yourself and for the people," the Seventy rendered "for yourself and for your house." Who are the house of the priest perceived by the mind, learn from Paul's words; for he says: "But Christ as a son over his house; whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the glory of our hope firm to the end." So those who have advanced and are more perfect are rightly called his house; for them he intercedes, and for all the people, as one who has become our propitiation. But why also for himself, since he needs no propitiation, but rather grants propitiation? But as one who takes up our sin, he intercedes also for himself: for plainly this belongs to man and to God, that is, as man receiving propitiation, and as God granting it to himself. For another man cannot grant propitiation to himself.

Verses 8–14. "And at once Aaron, approaching the altar, slew the calf for his sin, whose blood his sons brought to him; dipping his finger in it, he touched the horns of the altar, and poured out the rest at its base. And the fat and the kidneys and the net of the liver, which are for sin, he burned on the altar, as the Lord had commanded Moses. But the flesh and its skin he burned with fire outside the camp. He slew also the victim of the burnt offering, and his sons brought him its blood, which he poured out round about the altar. They brought also the victim itself cut in pieces, with the head and each of the limbs; all of which he burned with fire on the altar, having first washed the entrails and the feet with water."

And for what reason these sacrifices are performed in this place too, we said above. There is no need, then, to state again one by one the force of the things that are performed in this sacrifice, since we have discussed them earlier in order and have shown, leaving nothing out, what they bear the comparison of. And just as in the Lord's sacrifice, which, though it is one, not only grants us the forgiveness of sins but also brings about a life perfect and complete in philosophy, it must necessarily be reckoned both in the calf which is for sin and in this ram which is sacrificed as a burnt offering (hence we see both offered in the person of the priest), let us now go on to what follows.

Verses 15–21. "And offering for the sin of the people, he slew the he-goat; and having made atonement for the altar, he made the burnt offering, adding in the sacrifice the drink offerings that are offered with it, and burning them on the altar, besides the ceremonies of the morning burnt offering. He sacrificed also the ox and the ram, the peace offerings of the people; and his sons brought him the blood, which he poured out on the altar round about. And the fat of the ox, and the tail of the ram, and the kidneys with their fat, and the net of the liver, they put upon the breasts. And when the fat had been burned on the altar, Aaron separated their breasts and right shoulders, lifting them up before the Lord, as Moses had commanded him."

What the things said bear the figure of, and how the he-goat for sin signifies the sacrifice of repentance, the burnt offerings the crucified way of life, the fine flour theology, and the sacrifice of salvation, or of peace offerings, the life that can save even those who are wise in a middling way: the earlier discussion of the sacrifices [and] the anointing of the priest shows. So one who does not know the explanation of this ordinance, searching it out there with exactness, will know these things too one by one. But this we now necessarily add: considering that the descent of the Holy Spirit came about at Pentecost, when the apostles were gathered together, the lawgiver took care to signify everything that they were doing according to the law of the church; he commanded the sacrifices of the priest to go first rightly, and then those of the people to follow. For the teaching of the church must begin from the sacrifice of the Only-begotten, so that those who teach may be brought in [to show] what the Lord's passion has profited or conferred on us; and so the word of repentance is to follow, which all of us, as men, certainly need. Hence the Lord too preaches one teaching, that is, repentance, and [commands] the perfect ways of life to follow wholly, and theology to be mixed with them; and he adds also those things by which, correcting ourselves, or anointed, we can be saved, even if we do not live loftily. For in these the church must be gathered and receive the manifestation of God's glory.

Without doubt the Lord's disciples were doing these things above all in the days of Pentecost, for which reason they were then gathered together, as Luke shows, saying: "And when the days of Pentecost were completed, they were all together with one accord." And what had they been gathered to do, if not in every way the things that have been said? For even if they did not preach openly, and for this reason were within, sitting in the upper room, not yet spreading the word or speaking openly, because they had been commanded not to go out of the door of the tabernacle of witness until they were clothed from on high with the power of the Spirit, yet it is plain that they were doing these things among themselves, and did not cease to meditate on whatever befits the church, so that they might have in themselves Christ himself, who is the head of the church. Hence also, when Peter had addressed the assembly and set forth the explanation and testimonies of divine Scripture, they set apart Matthias by lot for the apostleship. And whether to address the assembly, that is, to exhort the people, or to interpret the prophets, or to join clergy to their number, belonged to the church's dispensation and order. It is plain, then, that they were gathered in those days as in churches; and the lawgiver, taking care to signify this in every way, accordingly added also what follows.

Verse 22. "And stretching out his hand towards the people, he blessed them. And so, having completed the victims for sin, and the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he came down."

Notice that he wants to set out plainly for us the whole figure of the church. For after he said "he came down," after he had made [the offerings] for sin and the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he shows that by the completion of the sacrifices he understood their explanation; and for this reason he said "he came down," designating by the coming down the teacher's seat, from which, after the explanation, the priests, to whom the figure of Aaron perceived by the mind has been entrusted, come down, and through prayer lift up their hands to heaven. For Paul too understood the lifting up of hands as prayer; he speaks thus: "I want the men to pray in every place, lifting up pure hands." Stretching out, then, or lifting up his hands, he blessed them: because through the lifting up of hands, namely through prayer, priests bless the people. But from where they give the blessing, what follows shows.

Verse 23. "And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of witness, and then came out and blessed the people."

Why do they first go into the tabernacle of witness and afterwards give the blessing? Only so that we may not be ignorant that the priests bring forth the blessing from the tabernacle perceived by the mind, namely from heaven, saying with Paul: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." For the Lord himself too handed this down to us when, blessing the five loaves and again the seven, he looked up to heaven. And why do not Aaron alone but also Moses bless the synagogue, or the people? Only that we may learn that priests do not give the blessing by their own power, but, because they bear the figure of Christ, they can give the fullness of blessing on account of him who is in them. Hence Moses too, as one to whom the image of the Lord has been entrusted, is rightly included in the blessing. And the law signifies this too by what has been said: that not only one who has been allotted the priesthood, but also every righteous man who has Christ in himself, and who is, like Moses, the figure of his Lord by a good way of life, is fit to give a blessing. While the Lord's disciples, then, were doing these things, the Spirit came; for this reason let us hear what follows.

Verse 24. "And the glory of the Lord appeared to the whole multitude. And behold, fire came out from the Lord and devoured the burnt offering and the fat that was on the altar. When the crowds saw this, they praised the Lord, falling on their faces."

Do you think that the present words of the lawgiver need any interpretation? For they agree with the words written about the coming of the Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles. "For the glory of the Lord," he says, "appeared to the whole multitude." How, someone may perhaps say? Certainly such as Ezekiel described above the cherubim, or such as Micaiah or Isaiah [saw], of whom one saw the seraphim round about and the other the heavenly host. But it was by no means one glory that appeared to all and everywhere to spiritual men; rather it gave different visions to those who saw, as being incomprehensible. Yet the present one was like that one, because a fire perceived by the mind came out from the Lord on the day of Pentecost; for this reason he says: "The glory of the Lord appeared, and fire came out from God." So it appeared in the form of fire, as Luke too sets out: "And there came a sound from heaven of a mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting, and there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire." The lawgiver also mentions the whole people, which Luke too sets out in this way: "And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and was confused in mind." And that it not only came together but was frightened, he himself shows, saying: "For they were amazed and marvelled"; and they also fell on their faces, if not visibly, yet in a way perceived by the mind they suffered it: for they did not understand what had happened, but one said to another, "These men are full of new wine," which is the mark of those who cast the face of the mind down to the earth.

And what did the fire that came out do? It devoured all the burnt offerings that were on the altar, and the fat which had been offered from the peace offerings and for sin and laid on the altar. The word hands down to us, then, that the said sacrifices and their explanations must necessarily be laid on the altar perceived by the mind, the body of Christ, so that our imitation may hasten to it; and then they become food for the fire perceived by the mind, that is, the Spirit, of whom it was said: "The Lord our God is a consuming fire." Hence here too, for "devour," Symmachus rendered "consume."

Verse 1. "And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, taking their censers, put fire and incense on them, offering strange fire before the Lord, which had not been commanded them."

Here he has set down that those who teach foreign things, who blaspheme the Spirit of God himself, who interpret otherwise the Scripture inspired by him (of which Paul says, "All Scripture inspired by God is profitable"), must necessarily be punished by the fire perceived by the mind. They are called sons of Aaron as having the dress of teachers and pretending to teach spiritual things. Hence their tongues too are called fire: for we have heard that the Spirit came in the form of tongues of fire. And they put incense on the censers, or on the fires of their tongues, the doctrines of the law and of the prophets, of which the church said to Christ in the Song of Songs: "The odour of your ointments is above all spices." But they offer strange fire, for they do not interpret according to the intention or the power of the Spirit.

For these, fire comes out from the Lord, not simply as before. For by that the Lord burned the sacrifices, and it was called the glory of the Lord; but this is a fire of punishment. For the church has both: the one for the enlightenment of the righteous and the perfecting of offerings, the other for the punishment of the ungodly, which the priests pronounce on those who blaspheme, kindling it from the supply of the Spirit who rests in them. That is why Paul too punishes Hymenaeus and Alexander, as teaching other things. These die before the Lord, he seeing it and condemning them to this death, so that they may not by imitation of themselves give others cause of death. And in this the lawgiver greatly marvels, why from the very thing from which they should have enjoyed life, that is, "before the Lord," they suffer death, which they suffer by interpreting the divine Scriptures badly, subjecting themselves to a curse in the very matter from which they ought to have earned a blessing.

But see what he added. Verse 3. "And Moses said to Aaron: This is what the Lord said: I will be sanctified in those who draw near to me, and in the sight of all the people I will be glorified. Hearing this, Aaron was silent," or as the Seventy render, "and Aaron was pierced with compunction."

And where at all do we find that God said these things? When, namely, he said to Moses: "Go down and charge the people, lest perhaps they draw near to God, and a multitude of them fall; and let the priests who draw near to the Lord God be sanctified, lest perhaps the Lord depart from them." These things, then, even if they differ in words from those that were said, yet hold the same intention unchanged. For he commanded the people not to draw near to God, or to know him, not as grudging them the vision, but sparing them as imperfect and less capable of so great a contemplation. But the priests who draw near he commands to be sanctified, so that they may become worthy to see and contemplate God; because no one can acquire true knowledge of God without sanctification. That is why Paul says: "Pursue peace with all, and holiness, without which no one will see God," calling his sight his knowledge, that is, the contemplation of him; hence he commanded the priests to be sanctified. See how he threatens in what follows: "lest perhaps the Lord depart from them," that is, lest the knowledge which is of God flee from them; for the departure of knowledge becomes perdition for them.

But let us now take up the words which were spoken through Moses as from the person of God. "And I will be sanctified in those who draw near to me." He calls his sanctification the cleansing away of the profane or the wicked, because he has us as his body; and the cleansing of the body is the casting away of filth. This, then, he works as good and merciful in those who draw near to him, namely in the abundance of knowledge or in some divine ministry, so that through them he may strike fear, "and in the sight of all the people be glorified," that is, praised and made manifest; for the word glorifying shows both, both the praise of God that comes from this and the manifestation. David says: "For the Lord is righteous, he has loved righteousness; his face has seen equity."

At these things Aaron was silent, or as the Seventy have it, "Aaron was pierced with compunction," namely the church; for the church is the body of Aaron perceived by the mind; hence he himself said, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?", and again said to the disciples of those who receive them, "He who receives you receives me."

[Verses 4–5.] "[And Moses called Mishael and El]zaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them: Go, take your brothers from the sight of the sanctuary and carry them out of the camp. And at once they went and took them as they lay, clothed in linen tunics, and cast them out, as had been commanded them."

By those who cast them out understand [how] those who were taken away, or cast out, [are to be understood]. And who were those who took them away? Mishael and Elzaphan, or Misadai and Elisaphan, of whom one, that is, Misadai, is interpreted "handling of God," and Elisaphan "watchtower of my God." Whoever, then, knows how to handle God, and moreover to watch, both to handle the flesh of Christ and to behold with the eyes of the mind the divinity (as Thomas, handling the flesh with his hand and beholding the divinity by faith, said, "My Lord and my God"), he can take away the fire of foreign teaching and cast it out with its tunics from the face of the holy things; because the persons of the holy things are the priests, and the tunics of the priests are the way of life and the life which they put on in the dress of the priesthood. So they are expelled, together with the priesthood which fell to them by lot, from the priestly portion; and not only from that of the priests but also from that of the people; hence he adds, "out of the tabernacle." For the tabernacle of God is the people of the church.

And those who can do these things are reasonably named the sons of Aaron's uncle, or of the brother [of Aaron's father]. For if the father of Aaron perceived by the mind is David, and through him the whole body of the prophets is believed [to be meant] (for the prophecies make him manifest and in a way give birth to him for those who do not know him), then the own brother, and, so to speak, the brother of prophecy, is the Gospel: for all things that were done in the Gospels were foretold by the prophets. For this reason Peter commanded us to be helped to perfect knowledge by the prophetic word, because "a brother helping a brother is like a strong city"; for he says: "We have the more sure prophetic word, to which you do well to attend, as to a lamp in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts," that is, until the gospel knowledge shines in you. So those who have learned the gospel way of life are well and very fittingly called sons of the brother of Aaron's father; and they are necessarily appointed to refute and repel those who teach other things, as having perfect knowledge. Of this John said: "Everyone who goes ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the teaching has both the Son and the Father. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into the house, nor say to him, Hail." It is the proper task, then, of those who have been taught the gospel teaching to drive out and cast away from the face of the holy things and of the tabernacle those who preach adulterated and foreign things.

Verses 6–7. "Moses spoke to Aaron and to Eleazar and to Ithamar, his sons: Do not uncover your heads and do not tear your garments, lest perhaps … your brothers and the whole house of the sons of Israel lament the burning which the Lord has kindled. But you shall not go out of the doors of the tabernacle, otherwise you will perish; for the oil of holy anointing is upon you. And they did all things according to the command of Moses."

We are not ignorant of what the priests' tiaras signify, namely, since "the head of every man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God," the signification of the tiara is necessarily in a way at once of the humanity and of the divinity of the Only-begotten; for we showed this above too through the make of the tiara. So he has commanded what the priests and teachers must keep: that is, that they neither deny nor contradict either the divinity or the humanity of Christ, since he is God from God and the Word from the Father. For this is not to take the tiara off the head, namely not to uncover [the head] of the tiara perceived by the mind. Nor should they reject or blaspheme the dispensation. For those who blaspheme the dispensation of Christ tear the priestly robe: because all men who have believed in Christ, and much more the priests, are those who have put on Christ, since "whoever of us were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Priests who do these things will neither die nor bring wrath upon the congregation. For the vices of those set over others are a stumbling block to those under them, and much more do the teachers become for their disciples an occasion of the wrath of God.

That is why he wants the whole house of Israel, namely the whole church, to lament the burning with which they were burned by God: for if the fall of one member of the church, of anyone at all, is cause for weeping, how much more the perdition of teachers and priests? So much so that Paul writes to the Corinthians of the one who had committed fornication: "And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned." But if, when one of the people commits fornication, he commanded the whole church to mourn, much more when priests and teachers are found acting impiously or blaspheming.

This being so, we must ask how, when by the preceding ordinance he had commanded them not to go out of the tabernacle of witness for seven days only, after these were completed (for these things take place on the eighth day), Moses again commanded them not to go out of the door of the tabernacle. He does not, then, ordain things contrary to himself; but it is plain that here he commanded them to keep another going out of the door of the tabernacle of witness. For he added, "so that you do not die," and yet he did not write this above. So by the addition of the threat he signified that he had ordained something else: since certain priests perished as offering the fire of foreign teaching, he commanded the others by what was said not to go out of the door of knowledge, namely of Christ and his tradition; that is, not to transgress the preaching which he himself commanded, but to follow the Lord's precept in all things; for so each one will not die. This he commanded the priests, to whom as teachers and preachers the ministry of the word [has been given] as a gift; "for the oil of holy anointing is upon you." John the evangelist shows us the power of this anointing, saying: "And as for you, let the anointing which you received from him abide in you, and you have no need that anyone teach you; but as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is no lie." Moses commanded these things through the Spirit, and the church keeps them. So the lawgiver accordingly adds: "And they did according to the command of Moses."

Verses 8–11. "The Lord also said to Aaron: Wine and anything that can make drunk you shall not drink, you and your sons, when you go into the tabernacle of witness, lest you die; because it is an everlasting precept in your generations; and that you may have the knowledge to distinguish between holy and profane, and between polluted and clean, and that you may teach the sons of Israel all my statutes which the Lord has spoken to them by the hand of Moses."

You find this law kept in the churches until now. For he did not command total abstinence from wine, but when we go up to the tabernacle of witness or to the altar, that is, when we touch any ministry of the heavenly teaching. For the altar is the figure of ministry, and the tabernacle of witness of the handling of heavenly things. Hence Paul too wrote to Timothy: "Use a little wine for your stomach's sake and your frequent infirmities." But one who

uses a little, namely at the time of ministry and teaching, abstains from all wine-drinking and drunkenness. Likewise those who strive to keep the law [do so] as priests; for this reason he handed down this commandment not only to Aaron but also to his sons, namely to those who have attained loftier things. And Paul wrote things like these to the Ephesians: "Do not be drunk with wine, in which is all debauchery, but rather be filled with the Holy Spirit." For drunkenness makes the mind dull and turns its sobriety to the worse, so that the things that are done are not understood; Isaiah testifies to this, saying: "Woe to you who rise early in the morning to follow drunkenness, and to drink until evening, so as to be inflamed with wine. The harp and the lyre and the timbrel and the flute and wine are in your feasts, and you do not regard the work of the Lord, nor consider the works of his hands." And how can those who do not see the works of the Lord distinguish between holy and profane, or clean and unclean, or how can they exhort and enlighten the people from the Scriptures? Hence, wishing to show this commandment as loftier, he says that the Lord himself spoke it.

But notice how even this is not foreign to the exactness of what was done at Pentecost. For what he here commands not to be done, some suspected had been done when the grace of the Spirit came, and said, "These men are full of new wine"; and Peter denied it as a forbidden thing, saying: "For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is the third hour of the day." … He commanded the priests to teach the sons of Israel [the things that God] spoke through Moses, and he says "not by the tongue but by the hand." Or else he wanted to show the dignity of the law altogether, because God set it out, but Moses wrote it, and received it at God's command, as it was arranged.

Verses 12–15. "And Moses spoke to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons who were left: Take the sacrifice that remains from the offering of the Lord, and eat it without leaven beside the altar, because it is a holy of holies. And you shall eat in a holy place what has been given to you and to your sons from the offerings of the Lord, as I have been commanded. The breast also which was offered, and the shoulder which was set apart, you shall eat in a most clean place, you and your sons and your daughters with you. For they have been reserved for you and your children from the victims of salvation of the sons of Israel, because the shoulder and the breast and the fat, which are burned on the altar, have been lifted up before the Lord, and pertain to you and to your sons by a perpetual law, as the Lord commanded."

That the breast signifies the confidence and faith of those who offer, and the arm the action and correction of the way of life they have promised, has been sufficiently shown by us in what was discussed part by part about the sacrifice of peace offerings, or of salvation. But why he assigned the things mentioned to Aaron and his sons (for there the lawgiver set out their distinction: what belongs to Aaron's [sons] and what Aaron himself has specially) [must be considered]. For he said that "the sacrifice that remains from the offering," or from the burnt offerings of the Lord, is what is left over of the fine flour. Aquila rendered it plainly, saying: "the gift that is left of the grain." And its interpretation is also what the lawgiver added, for he says: "and eat it without leaven beside the altar." Everywhere he signifies the teaching of theology by the sacrifice of fine flour without leaven, wishing it [to be free] of outside teaching; showing likewise that theology with us is something partial, for its fullness is in heaven. For this reason he commanded what remained, that is, what is left over, to be eaten, to show that the sum is with him and is kept there. And it must be eaten beside the altar, that is, the body of Christ; for from it all theology is ministered to us.

But what remained of the fine flour shall be Aaron's and his sons'; while what is from the sacrifices of peace offerings, or of salvation, is Aaron's and his sons', or according to the Seventy "and his house's," namely of all the people. For to devote oneself to theology does not belong to all, but to the lofty, and to those who draw near to the Lord and who follow Christ; but to attain the things that pertain to peace offerings, or to salvation, belongs to the whole people, which is named the house of the priest perceived by the mind. And it is the church, of which Paul too said: "In a great house [there are vessels not only of gold and silver, but also] of wood and of earthenware." That is why it does not belong to all to attain theology.

Verses 16–18. "Meanwhile, when Moses was seeking the he-goat which had been offered for sin, he found it burned. And being angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron who were left, he said: Why did you not eat the victim for sin in the holy place, which is called a holy of holies and was given to you, so that you might bear the iniquity of the multitude and pray for it in the sight of the Lord? Especially since of its blood none was brought within the holy place, and you ought to have eaten it in the sanctuary, as I was commanded."

Since every sin is blotted out by repentance, and those who committed the said sin of other teaching and of blasphemy were not saved, the lawgiver sets out the cause of the death which came upon them without mercy. Here Moses brings in the he-goat for sin, namely the offering of repentance, because "seeking he sought it out," as the Seventy render, that is, he sought it greatly. And being angry he said to the sons of Aaron who were left that they had not eaten what was for sin in the holy place, that is, because as priests they had not performed repentance for the sin committed against the church: for it was commanded to them to eat the things that are for sin, and to pray the prayer which is for the repentance of the congregation, and to obtain it. Why? Because Christ has set them in his own place in the churches. And he himself offered the blood of his offering, which was offered for our blood, in the holy place, namely within, in the heavenly dwelling, in the sight of his Father. And he commanded this sacrifice to be eaten in the holy place (and we say this is the church) for the forgiveness and propitiation of sins. That is why Moses says: "As I was commanded," that is, as I commanded and charged; for we said that Moses too bears the person of Christ.

And he inquires not out of ignorance; for, as in what went before he added the cause, so, having said that Moses "seeking sought out" the he-goat for sin, he at once added: "and it had been burned," or "he found it burned," showing that, since the sin of other teaching is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (for which reason Stephen calls the teachers of the Jews transgressors of the law and disobedient, stiff-necked and hard of heart, and said to them as to men who interpret the law and the prophets badly, "You always resist the Holy Spirit"), the offering for repentance was necessarily taken away from them by the fire perceived by the mind, namely of the Spirit; and for this reason the he-goat for sin is said to have been burned up. For those who sin knowingly and willingly, even if they say they repent, do not repent purely, for their heart has been blinded by blasphemy. That is why Paul too said: "For if we sin wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains [a sacrifice] for sin." … "[every sin] is forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit is not forgiven." Peter showed this by the deed itself: for because Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit, he said to them: "Why has Satan blinded your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? You have not lied to men, but to God." For he did not give them time for repentance, knowing that, having a heart blinded in transgression and blasphemy of the Spirit, they would not bear to repent; for he at once condemned them to death as a punishment. What follows, then, can better establish and explain the things now said.

Verses 19–20. "Aaron answered: Today the victim for sin has been offered in the burnt offering before the Lord; but to me has happened what you see. How could I eat it, or how could I please the Lord in the ceremonies with a mournful mind? When Moses heard this, he accepted the excuse."

Paul plainly handed down to us what time must be understood by "today." For when David had said, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation," and he himself interprets that what was said must be understood loosely of the present time but properly of the time after the Lord's coming, see what he added: "Since, then, it remains that some enter into it, and those to whom it was first announced did not enter because of unbelief, he again fixes a certain day, saying in David 'today', after so long a time, as was said above: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Jesus had given them rest, he would never speak of another." By the things said before, then, it is shown that this day plainly signifies the time after the Saviour's coming, in which the rest of the Sabbath perceived by the mind has been preached to men.

Aaron, then, seems to say this in the person of the church, as bearing the figure not only of Christ but also of the church: that because today they offered the things that are for their sin, and their burnt offerings, that is, because after the coming of the Saviour they had been appointed to minister and to offer for repentance and to set out the philosophic life, [and] teaching other things they were rebuked, and such things befell the church in them that it mourned the death that came upon priests and teachers from blasphemy, it rightly could not eat today what was for sin, nor did its repentance obtain prayer, because, namely, it displeased the Lord Christ. And he added "today" to show that if they had committed this sin before the forgiveness [brought by] the Saviour, it might perhaps have been pardoned, as knowledge had not yet been poured out in its perfection; hence the Lord too says: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin," that is, no satisfaction. When Moses perceived by the mind heard this, then, it pleased him, because he found the church keeping his teaching.

Knowing this, let us too … from all other teaching and blasphemy … the living and true God, and the name of the Father and of the Son and … Amen.

God did not fill creation with variety in vain, but so that from the difference of his making we might infer the skill of the craftsman and who he is. For those who look at the heavens understand from the variety of the stars that God is their greatest craftsman and founder. And those who consider the earth come to know him from the different character of its situation, that is, from the animals, the shrubs and the seeds, and from all its variety. And those who turn their gaze to the immense spread of the waters perceive, from the movement of the winds that comes from different quarters, from the size of the islands and of the sea monsters, and from the distinctness of the fishes and the birth of their innumerable kinds, that God is the maker also of this visible creation. So too he adorns the law with all its precepts, bringing man forward, and he has commanded what those ought to be who wish always to be with God: now in the offering of sacrifices, now in abstinence from foods, now also in the treatment of bodily diseases, and sometimes in certain contracts. Let us come, then, to the words of the law themselves.

Verses 1–8. "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: Say to the sons of Israel: These are the animals which you may eat of all the living things of the earth. Whatever has a divided hoof and chews the cud among the cattle you shall eat; but whatever chews the cud and has a hoof but does not divide it, such as the camel and the rest, you shall not eat it; you shall count it among the unclean. The rock-badger, which chews the cud and does not divide the hoof, is unclean. The hare also, for it too chews the cud but does not divide the hoof; and the pig, which, though it divides the hoof, does not chew the cud: you shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their carcasses, because they are unclean to you."

The things of which we now speak seem to be very contrary to the divine oracles themselves. For he who said to Noah, "Everything that moves and lives shall be food for you; as green herbs I have given you all things," how does he now forbid some of the things that were earlier granted to be eaten? How, too, when he made the beasts of the earth according to their kind, and the cattle and the creeping things, was it said, "And God saw that they were good," and again, "And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good"? For what is unclean can in no way be good, still less very good. But now, as though he had forgotten the judgment he had pronounced on them, he said that some of the animals are clean and some unclean. So some will be good and some not good. But it is not so. For even if he wished to chastise for a while the gluttony of the Jews, yet the true consideration of the law is plain, and the spiritual explanation of the precepts. And the lawgiver has the intention of teaching what those must be who give their zeal to the law. For if "man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God," then, as bread is the nourishment of the body, so the law of God is the nourishment of the soul, being rational strength and support for the rational. And just as above, by the things that are sacrificed, he figures those who offer them, signifying by the sheep the simple, by the calf the doer of the commandments, and by the kid the penitent, so now too by the animals he signifies those who eat them.

For he speaks thus: "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: Say to the sons of Israel: These are the animals which you may eat of all the living things of the earth." The law is common; this commandment pertains to all, and is the justification of the whole people. For he commanded them to speak to the sons of Israel, namely to all the people. And what did he command them to say? "These are the animals which you may eat of all the living things of the earth." He would by no means say "of the living things of the earth" unless he had the intention of distinguishing them from the heavenly living things. For there, he taught, is the face of a lion and of a calf and of an eagle, as also of a man, when Ezekiel hands down the living creatures of the cherubim. So among the heavenly living creatures we do not need any watchfulness or other caution to know which are clean; for all are alike clean and holy, since the holy God sanctifies also those who stand round about him. But not all the living things of the earth are clean, not because of their nature but because of our excess, and because we have corrupted nature by iniquity. But how we may know their cleanness or uncleanness must be seen from what follows.

"Whatever has a divided hoof and chews the cud among the cattle you shall eat." In animals the greatest strength is believed to be in the claws, which also have kinship with the teeth. For it belongs to the claws to tear apart what is made fit for eating by the teeth; Daniel hands down both to us when, setting forth a strong kingdom, he says: "I was looking in the vision of the night, and behold, a fourth beast, terrible and marvellous and exceedingly strong; it had great iron teeth, eating and crushing, and trampling the rest with its feet." The Seventy say more specifically: "its claws of bronze." Since, then, it is so, he shows in figure who those are who have devoted themselves to meditation on the law, whether clean or unclean: for he commanded you to chew the cud and to divide the hoof. And those animals split the hoof which divide the nail down to the lowest skin. So he eats clean animals who not only meditates on the law but also chews the cud, that is, brings it up again and gives it forth in action and works. For the bringing forth of the words of God, and the chewing of the cud of the commandments, is also their carrying out: for this reason hear David saying, "My heart has brought forth a good word; I tell my works to the king." He without doubt understood this bringing forth of good things, and chewing of the cud, of the declaring of the works he has achieved. And not only to chew the cud; we need also to divide the hoof of the law, and to distinguish the letter from the spirit, and to hand down some things according to history alone, to understand some according to contemplation, and some according to both, keeping a strict division among them. For one who is such is complete and perfect, and for this reason is rightly called clean. But whoever lacks one of the things that have been said is plainly unclean, as the letter of the law itself teaches, for it says: "You shall not eat it; you shall count it among the unclean."

"Whatever chews the cud and has a hoof but does not divide it, such as the camel and the rest, you shall not eat, and you shall count it among the unclean." The Jew, swelling with pride, is rightly understood to eat the camel, that is, the scribes and Pharisees, to whom the Lord said: "Straining out the gnat but swallowing the camel." Isaiah too said: "For thus the Lord said to me: Go and set a watchman, and whatever he sees let him announce. And he saw a chariot of two horsemen, a rider on an ass and a rider on a camel," signifying by the ass the way of life of the gentiles, and by the camel the Jewish way of life. The camel also figures the letter of the law and its heavy yoke, as an animal accustomed to carry burdens; hence Abraham's servant led ten camels carrying the goods of his master for the arrangement with Rebecca. These figured the ten commandments of the law, which bear not all the good things of God, yet some of all good things, because the law has a partial justification. So the scribes and Pharisees eat what chews the cud, because they glory in meditation on the letter of the law, and in the observance of the Sabbath and of purification and of sacrifices and other such things; but the things eaten by them do not divide the hoof, nor do they distinguish the letter from the spirit, and for this reason their knowledge is unclean.

Such also are those who eat the hare and those who eat the rock-badger: for these too chew the cud but do not divide the hoof. In the common multitude, the race of the Jews is taken to be both; for these animals are said to be weak, as David and Solomon testify to the weakness of both kinds of animal: Solomon, when he says, "The little hare, a feeble folk, made its lair in the rock"; and David, "The rock is a refuge for the hedgehogs," or rock-badgers. Of these, they say, one is swift and timid, with weakness, that is, the hare; and the other weak indeed, but rapacious and beastly and deadly, that is, the rock-badger; which is in every common people, but above all in the people of the Jews, of whom David said, "Their feet are swift to shed blood." And how timid and how low those of the Jews are, the divine voice shows when it says, "Woe to the fearful hearts and the slack hands." And how great injustice and savagery there was among them, hear Isaiah saying: "How has the faithful city full of judgment become a harlot? Righteousness dwelt in it, but now murderers."

After these he says that the pig is unclean, because it divides the hoof and does not chew the cud. Who, then, those are who imitate it, and are therefore said to eat it, take Peter as your interpreter and teacher: for he called a pig the one who has the knowledge of divine things but does not use it well, and defiles it by unfitting actions and gives himself up to an unclean life, saying: "It would have been better for them not to know the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment handed down to them; for the thing of the true proverb has happened to them: The dog returned to his vomit, and the washed sow to wallowing in the mire." Since, then, we have shown that one who devotes himself to the law must chew the cud, one who is such as this, having a filthy life and not fulfilling the law, is rightly said not to chew the cud of the things of the law. Hence he also vomits up the food of meditation on the law, as undigested and not reaching to effect at all. So even if he divides the hoof, and knows how to divide the letter from the spirit, he is nonetheless unclean.

But what did he add to the things said? "You shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their carcasses, because they are unclean to you." Neither the camel nor the hare nor the rock-badger nor the pig did he judge among the clean; by these also he designates, apart from the animals, those whom he made manifest from the things said. He set down these four in number, then, for this reason: because there are four general virtues, and the signification of the said animals lacks the virtues, being contrary to the four virtues. For the camel, taken for the pride of the scribes and Pharisees, is contrary to wisdom: for it is the mark of fools to be proud. And that the scribes and Pharisees were held by both these diseases, hear the Lord saying to them: "Fools and blind, which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold?" And again he beats down their pride in this way: "For they love the first places at suppers, and the first seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the market place, and to be called Rabbi by men." So some of them were thus fools and proud. The hare, as timid, is contrary to fortitude; the rock-badger, as rapacious, to justice; the pig, as living a filthy and unclean life, of which it was said, "Like a gold ring in a pig's snout, so is a woman beautiful and foolish," is contrary to chastity. Let us not eat of their flesh, that is, let us not follow the virtue they seem to have; for they pursue it in hypocrisy and not in truth. And much more must their carcasses not be touched, nor must we share in their evil actions; for such things are without doubt the carcasses of a man.

Verses 9–12. "These are the things that are born in the waters, and that it is lawful to eat. Everything that has fins and scales, both in the sea and in the rivers and pools, you shall eat; but whatever does not have fins and scales, of those that move and live in the waters, shall be abominable and accursed to you. You shall not eat their flesh, and you shall avoid their carcasses. All things in the waters that do not have fins and scales shall be defiled."

Since divine Scripture did not set out openly the kinds of fish from which it wants abstinence, it is superfluous to inquire into these things at present; for we shall nowhere find the names of fishes in it. Here, then, it imitates its own manner. Yet this must now be noted: just as in the freewill sacrifices, which the lawgiver also called gifts, he signified by the kinds of offerings sometimes the doers of the law, sometimes the simple, sometimes the contemplatives, and sometimes those who are saved from among the gentiles (to whom he also assigned the sacrifices of fine flour, as to simple people; he showed this by saying, "If a soul offers a gift to the Lord," not adding "if a soul of the people of the land," as he is accustomed to do in announcing the other sacrifices), so too here, wishing to show by abstinence from foods what those must be who meditate on the law, he signified by chewing the cud and dividing the hoof the Jew, who must fulfil the commandments of the law and divide the letter from the spirit and understand the law spiritually; and by these things now said he shows that he is speaking of the gentiles. Hence I think that mention of the fishes was made without naming them expressly, because the church does not wish the names of her own to be written upon the earth; hence David too says, "Let these things be written in another generation," namely the one to come in heaven; for there the names of her sons have been written, 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." And the Lord says to the apostles: "Do not rejoice that the demons are subject to you, but rejoice and exult that your names are written in heaven."

And the words of this ordinance prove these things too, for they say: "These are the things that are born in the waters, and that it is lawful to eat." By these are understood those from the gentiles who have been saved, as having regeneration in the water of baptism; of whom Isaiah too said, "And the gentiles …," or as the Seventy have it, "As many waters, so the gentiles." Hence what follows also suits them: "Everything that has fins and scales, both in the sea and in the rivers and pools, you shall eat." The same … for those who are from the gentiles, from meditation

of the law, he commanded in other words. For he wants them to have fins in meditation on the law, and a lofty and heavenly life, and an explanation of the law like this; for which reason he wants them to have not one fin but fins. And since ignorance of divine Scripture had held the gentiles (for they had received neither the law nor the prophets, nor was there any subtler divine knowledge among them), so that they might not labour under this disease permanently and for ever, he wants them to have scales, which may easily be removed. And that scales signify an ignorance that is temporary and easily got rid of, what is written of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles shows. For when with Jewish zeal he persecuted the church and did not know him whom he was persecuting, he easily got rid of his zeal, because it came from ignorance: after he came to know whom he was persecuting, called by Christ, and after the gospel had been preached to him by Ananias, scales fell from his eyes and he at once saw. So temporary ignorances lay upon him like scales.

Hence very consistently the lawgiver added: "But whatever does not have fins or scales, of those that move and live in the waters, shall be abominable and accursed to you." For there are certain kinds of fish that have a shell in place of skin, whose scale cannot be removed. Such are those who will neither lay down the scales of ignorance by the word of God nor bear to receive the knife of the Spirit. These, even if they are found in the sea of baptism, even if in the rivers of repentance, are abominable among all that move and live in the waters. And though they have been allotted life in baptism, they have corrupted their calling and regeneration, since they do not have fins and scales, namely a lofty life and the knowledge of divine things, which is heavenly, but keep a blind heart in ignorance; and for this reason they are not numbered among those who have scales.

Notice with what exactness of words the lawgiver uses them, signifying by them very great and wonderful mysteries. For he joined scales to fins, because, just as fishes that have scales in every case also have fins, so to those whose ignorance is temporary, and can therefore quickly be got rid of, lofty knowledge and a heavenly life are also added. Of those who are not such, then, one must not eat the flesh, nor touch the carcasses, nor have any fellowship at all with them; Paul testifies to this, saying: "If one who is called a brother is a fornicator, or covetous, or a servant of idols, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a robber, with such a one not even to take food." … or covetous, or a drunkard, or a slanderer, has no fins, as one who leads a filthy and unclean life; and the worshipper of idols is not counted among those who have scales, for he seems to have an ignorance of divine things that is hard, like a shell, and incurable; otherwise he would by no means serve idols any longer after he had been joined to God.

Verses 13–19. "These are what you shall not eat of the birds, and they are to be avoided by you: the eagle, and the griffon, and the osprey, and the kite and the vulture according to its kind, and everything of the raven kind in its likeness; the ostrich, the owl, and the gull, and the hawk according to its kind; the eagle-owl, and the cormorant, and the ibis, the swan, and the pelican, and the porphyrion, the heron, and the plover according to its kind; the hoopoe also, and the bat."

Nor did the lawgiver leave undiscussed in this the life of those who give themselves to contemplation; rather, just as in the offering of the sacrifices he assigned them their own chapter of the law, so also in the inquiry into foods he gave them their own limits; and setting these forth and making them more terrible, he ordains about these not as about the cattle and the fishes. For there he says, "These are the animals which you may eat of all the living things of the earth," and again, "These are the things that are born in the waters, and that it is lawful to eat"; but here, "These are what you shall not eat of the birds, and they are to be avoided by you." Truly it is worthy of abomination, and to be counted among things unlawful and much to be avoided, that one who gives himself to contemplation should willingly have such stains as the lawgiver signifies by the birds listed. For he says: "The eagle, and the griffon, and the osprey, and the kite and the vulture according to its kind," signifying by these the rapacious, who wickedly pursue others' food and rejoice in unjust gains. For that some are found in the churches, among those who are thought to devote themselves to contemplation, who do not give themselves to it as they ought but are vainly puffed up, hear Paul saying: "If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the teaching which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but sick about questions and disputes of words, from which arise envy, strife, blasphemies, evil suspicions, wranglings of men corrupted in mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain." These, then, are signified by the animals now listed, which seek their living by plunder.

Some of these attack other birds and are fed by hunting them; others, going into houses, carry off what they find, not even sparing the provisions of those who keep them; like these are certain people who make their way into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, whom Paul rebukes. The vulture rejoices in quarrels and wars because of the corpses of battles, so much so that it even follows an army. One who devotes himself to contemplation, then, must not feed and be nourished on the falls of others. The animals of the raven kind are without affection, which is plain from the fact that the raven, sent out by Noah, deserted him at its first flight; like it was Judas towards his Teacher and Lord. The ostrich is a bird, but it cannot fly, and spends its whole life on the ground; such are certain people who serve as soldiers of God and entangle themselves in worldly business. The owl, for which the Seventy said γλαῦξ, they assert has sharp sight at night, but when the sun appears gets less use from its eyes. Such are those who glory in the contemplation and knowledge of the law but cannot take in the light of the gospel way of life. The gull is an animal that lives in both, that is, in water and on land, which flies like a bird and swims like a water creature. To it are not badly compared those who venerate circumcision and baptism together, to whom Paul says: "If you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing." The hawk is among the birds of prey, but it has something else for which the lawgiver set it down: for it is tamed and works together for plunder. Those imitate it who seem to be gentle and calm in mind, but are with the powerful and the covetous and the rapacious. The night-raven is an animal that creeps about and works only at night, like the gentiles, in the works of the night perceived by the mind, which are fornication, uncleanness, impurity, the worship of idols, and things like these. The ibis and the porphyrion, and the one the Seventy name pelican, and the swan and the heron and the plover, are said to have long necks and to draw their food from the height of the earth and the waters. These animals we must imitate, and pluck our food not from lower things but from heavenly ones. For he gives himself to contemplation who strains with his mind towards higher things, and expects from God not only the food perceived by the mind but also that perceived by the senses; hence the Lord says: "Do not be anxious for your soul, what you will eat, nor for your body, what you will put on; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things." The hoopoe is a mournful animal and loves grief; but the sorrow of the world works death. That is why one who loves God must always rejoice, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all things, because joy is a fruit of the Spirit. Bats fly near the ground, so that they use their wings for feet when they walk; this is unworthy in those who devote themselves to contemplation; for those whose flight is near the ground, their contemplation too is without doubt busied with earthly things.

Do not be unbelieving, then, nor doubt that the lawgiver set down these animals now listed too, to show and figure those from whom those who give themselves to contemplation must abstain. But you will say: How is it not the eating of these animals but the imitation that is forbidden, when the prophet David compared himself to the pelican and the night-raven, saying, "I have become like a pelican; I have become like a night-raven in the house"? And Moses signifies God himself by the eagle, when he says to Israel, "How I carried you on eagles' wings." For the prophets too call Christ a lion, and on the other hand Peter says that the devil is a lion; yet Christ is not a lion in the sense in which the devil is so called. Far from us, far be this impiety! But since it is an animal at once royal and also rapacious and fierce, and bears a praiseworthy dignity but a blameworthy working, what it has that is praiseworthy is taken in the kingdom of Christ, and what is blameworthy, that is, rapacity and fierceness, in the devil. Considering this also in the eagle, we find without any doubt that Moses took its figure for God because of the height of its flight, but said its food was to be abstained from because it is rapacious. And the prophet David, mourning a man set in sin, compared him to the night-raven, as living in the night; and by the pelican, as an animal that loves solitude, he figured one who is perhaps deserted by friends or kinsmen and deprived of the company of others like them.

Verses 20–22. "Every winged thing that goes on four feet shall be abominable to you. But whatever walks on four feet, but has longer legs behind, by which it leaps on the earth, you shall eat, such as the bruchus in its kind, the attacus, and the ophiomachus, and the locust, each according to its kind."

Those who profess the contemplative life must be clean of all sin and filthy action. For this reason whoever are like winged creatures, namely promising to attain the contemplation of things above, which leads to heaven, but are compared to creeping things because they feed on the earth and give themselves to lusts, even if they walk on four feet, that is, even if they make a show of the gospel preaching (which said, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance," and, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick," by which the thief was saved and the adulteress justified, and those who owed more are said to love the one who forgives more), yet because they embrace the social life not according to the truth, but abuse the compassion of the preaching for their own pleasures, they are unclean and abominable, as those who in such a way of life and such knowledge enter on a shameful and unclean life. But those who have higher legs, so as to leap up from the earth by them, are for this reason put among the clean, because, though they are in the flesh, they do not war according to the flesh, but leap away from filthy actions, and mix with worldly men in order to teach and instruct them; so that they sometimes dwell both with adulterers and with publicans, and yet do not mix in their unclean actions: for they spring back from them and fly; and while they flee from fellowship in their sin, they often live with sinners in order to free them and call them back from the filth of sins. So the Lord, who "did no sin, nor was deceit in his mouth," ate and drank with sinners, justifying them by teaching and instruction and provoking them to emulate him, imitating nothing of theirs and not defiled by them. That is why the Song of Songs said: "Behold, he comes leaping on the mountains, passing over the hills."

We must, then, have legs higher than the feet, not such as the feet of the Jews have, who limp in both their tracks, namely in the law and the prophets, but such as those have that are called cherubim, of whom it was said: "And their legs were straight legs, and their feet winged," upright and unswerving in the gospel feet, of which it was said: "Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." Such a one, though he walks on the earth, though for the sake of some dispensation and help he lives among sinners, fulfilling that apostolic word, "If any of the unbelievers invites you to supper and you wish to go, eat whatever is set before you, asking no question for conscience' sake," yet remains a winged creature and is clean, knowing how to spring up and leap away from the earth, and not to cling to worldly actions.

And well did the lawgiver also bring out the names of such animals, naming the bruchus and the locust, the attacus and the ophiomachus. What their working, or power, is, the prophet Nahum explains well enough; for he says: "The bruchus spread out and flew away; your guards are like locusts of locusts, which trust in the hedges in the day of cold," or as the Seventy have it, "He sprang up like the attacus mixed with you, like the locust that leaps over the brushwood in the day of cold." From these you see that even if we mix with sinners, even if on the day of frost or hoar-frost, that is, of abundance of sin (for "when sin has abounded," he says, "the love of many will grow cold"), we should leap over the brushwood, namely the thorny exasperation of sins, not becoming like them, but subjecting them to ourselves, so that they may become obedient to the teaching and plainly be saved. "To the Jews [I became] as a Jew, to those under the law as under

the law, though I myself was not under the law; to those without law as without law, though I myself was not without the law of God but under the law of Christ. I have become all things to all, that I might gain all." Yet we must, like the bruchus, make a dash and fly away, so that we may be able to leap and spring up like the locust, or the attacus, as they call it who say attacus for such a creature. For so what follows in the same prophet will fittingly agree: "The sun rose and was lifted up, and its place was not found"; because, when the Sun of righteousness has risen, who lights up hidden things, those who live among sinners flee and leap away to the consolation of righteousness, and that place is no longer known to be theirs whose dress they formerly showed when in a way they were dealing with those whom it was also necessary to save. And the power of the ophiomachus ("snake-fighter") is shown by its name: it is good to imitate it and to fight against the serpents perceived by the mind, remembering that "our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." For these are the serpents perceived by the mind, and the poisonous dragons.

Verses 23–26. "Whatever of the winged things has only four feet shall be accursed to you; and whoever touches their carcasses shall be defiled and shall be unclean until evening. And if he must carry any of these dead, he shall wash his garments, and he shall be unclean until sunset. Every animal that has a hoof but does not divide it, nor chews the cud, shall be unclean, and whatever touches it shall be contaminated."

We showed in what went before that the creeping winged things which walk on four feet signify those who abuse the gospel life and pursue a filthy and unclean life; and that to divide the hoof, as the Seventy say here, but not to chew the cud, means to meditate on the law as one ought and to divide the letter from the spirit, but not to work the things that are written in it nor to live so. Hence he necessarily commanded us to flee their carcasses, that is, the actions in which they perish by the death of sin, and in no way to share in such things nor to touch them. And not only those who touch, but also those who carry or receive anything from them are defiled. And he carries sins who calls evil good, and bitter sweet, and darkness light, which is rebuked by the voice of the prophecy of Isaiah; because by this, training others to iniquity and inviting them to the evil from which he ought to have held them back, he in a way takes the yoke upon himself. But no one should transfer another's sin to himself; for this reason David too says, "And from others' [sins] spare your servant." We remain unclean until evening, that is, until we repent. For David speaks of this evening: "At evening weeping shall linger, and in the morning gladness." For this reason the lawgiver also commanded the garments to be washed, showing plainly that we are unclean until we wash away our actions with tears.

Verses 27–28. "Whatever walks on its hands, of all the living things that go on four feet, shall be unclean. He who touches their carcasses is defiled until evening. And he who carries such carcasses shall wash his garments, and he shall be unclean until evening, because all these things are unclean to you."

The law passes over no sin in silence; but whatever actions are forbidden by the gospel testament, it first covered them with riddles, so that, telling the harmony of both ordinances, you may confess God, who spoke in them, and in fear withdraw from all the things they have forbidden. He goes on four, then, who passes over to the gospel way of life. And he walks on his hands who takes it up for the sake of gain and shameful profit, quickly laying hands on it so as to take something from it. Here he is fittingly numbered with all and compared to beasts. For whether you speak of the adulterer, or the covetous, or the murderer, or the slanderer, or the blasphemer, he is among all these, as sharing in the sins of all through the unjust laying on of hands. His carcasses are those on whom he has laid hands, for in them he suffers the death of sin. One who touches them, then, and one who lifts any of them, is rightly defiled. He means by one who touches them one who lives with them; because they have in no way fittingly seized the dignity which, if they had once made up for it in every way, they would have been justified by it, if after this they did not remain in their old iniquities. And also one who carries any of them, as carrying false witness, by testifying and teaching that one is worthy who is unworthy, is unclean and impure "until evening," which we said above is repentance. But washing his garments he will be cleansed.

Verses 29–31. "This also shall be counted among the defiled, of those that move on the earth: the weasel, and the mouse, and the crocodile, each according to its kind; the mygale, and the chameleon, and the stellio, and the lizard, and the mole: all these are unclean. He who touches their carcasses shall be unclean until evening."

Nor here does the lawgiver accuse the creation of God in commanding these animals to be held unclean; for how is it that you will find them praised in another place of divine Scripture? For Solomon says in Proverbs: "There are four things that are least on the earth, and they are wiser than the wise," among which he counted the hare, or according to the Seventy the hedgehog, and the stellio; of which the law accused the one above, with the camel and the hare, as unclean; and it has now made mention of the stellio. So their nature is not unclean, nor is every action; for how could they be praised? But there are certain actions about them suited to irrational animals and requiring no judgment, which neither suit us nor are properly ours; and therefore, when they touch us, they make us unclean. For to creep on the earth does not belong to men, to whom it has been granted to walk upright and to look up to heaven; because to creep on the earth is to do filthy and earthly works. These the lawgiver signified by the differences of the animals now listed; for he speaks thus: "This also shall be counted among the defiled, of those that move on the earth"; not because some creeping things are clean, for every work that creeps and is dragged along the earth is without doubt unclean. For this reason Paul said such things of those who do them: "Whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things." And in proof of this you will find a little later the lawgiver saying: "Everything that creeps upon the earth shall be abominable, and is not taken for food." So he has now listed kinds of creeping things, not because some are clean and others unclean, but so that through these we may learn accordingly that creeping things are to be rejected, inferring every kind of creeping thing from the life of these.

For the weasel is a crafty animal and very given to thefts. The mouse, because of the gluttony of its belly, endures many dangers daily. The crocodile is of hard hide and malicious, and feeds on mud. The mygale ("shrew-mouse") is a compound animal, not by nature but by the condition of its life fit for mockery, that is, for making tricks and snatching and filling its belly; for this reason it received a compound name, from both the animals from which it has these vices. The chameleon is wretched in evil and feigns itself gentle through weakness, though it is an untamed animal. The stellio, that is, ἀσκαλαβώτης, is very small, or most wretched, but poisonous. The lizard lives in tombs. The mole is a blind animal which is begotten from the earth; for they say it is produced from earth and rain together, from corrupted mud, when the mud has first received the rain. These, then, are unclean among all that creep on the earth, not because the others are not, [but] because they have greater pollution or malice.

"Everyone who touches their carcasses shall be unclean until evening." The letter itself, then, proves well the intention of the lawgiver. For if the animals now mentioned were unclean by nature, the one who touched them alive would also have to be unclean; but now only the one who has touched their carcasses is unclean. And their carcasses are the said actions, that is, craft, theft, greed, or irony, and being busy about other things, and also haste after earthly things, by which the eyes of the mind are blinded. Since, then, death comes to … they are rightly named carcasses; and one who touches them, that is, one who is defiled by them (as Paul too says, "It is good for a man not to touch a woman"), is without doubt unclean. For nothing so defiles a man as sin. Until the evening comes, of which David said, "At evening weeping shall linger" (he speaks of repentance perceived by the mind), let us wash ourselves by purification.

Verses 32–33. "And whatever any of their carcasses falls upon is defiled, whether a wooden vessel or a garment, or a skin or haircloth; and in whatever any work is done, they shall be dipped in water and shall be defiled until evening, and so afterwards they shall be cleansed. But an earthen vessel into which any of these falls shall be defiled, and therefore it must be broken."

Here too the lawgiver uses an admirable division. For since we sin sometimes from negligence, and sometimes from deliberate work and zeal for evil, like those of whom Solomon said in Proverbs, "Who has woe? Whose father has woe? Who has strife? Who has woe? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Is it not those who linger over wine and give themselves to draining cups?", he rightly put these among those who touch carcasses. But those who transgress through negligence that comes upon the mind, and through numbness and failing of virtues, as David, rising at noon from his bed and walking on the roof, and seeing the wife of Uriah washing herself, was caught by the woman, who was very beautiful, and committed adultery and murder together, are said to be those on whom carcasses fall. For they did not themselves hasten to sin, but fell into it, and in a way receive sin falling upon them. But because they received it altogether and did not resist, they are therefore rightly unclean, "whether a wooden vessel or a garment, or a skin or haircloth": that is, whether he has a light and middling …, for such are wooden vessels, or one sufficient for dyeing, as a garment is, or a patient one, which the skin signifies, or that which belongs to those who suffer, for this the haircloth, or sackcloth, signifies. And altogether a vessel is that in which the work of virtue can be done; for so you understand "in whatever any work is done." "They shall be defiled until evening," that is, until the time of repentance. And it shall be dipped in the water of washing, or of tears, and shall be cleansed.

"But an earthen vessel," which is wholly earthly, that is, spattered with the mud of the world: if a carcass falls into it, sin that is unto death, and penetrates within him and rules over him, as David said, "And he put on cursing like a garment, and it went like water into his inward parts" (he says not only that the curse entered but also that it rules in him into whom it entered), he necessarily commanded it to be broken. For his uncleanness cannot easily be cleansed like that of the others; it needs much labour and contrition, a humbling of the mind, as David says, if he wants to be cleansed. Hence blessed Paul too so broke the one who had committed fornication with his father's wife that he handed him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that by such a breaking he might save the spirit.

Verse 34. "All food which you eat, if water has been poured on it, shall be unclean; and every liquid that is drunk from any vessel shall be unclean."

We understand the food and drink in every vessel as good actions. For this reason he said, "the food which you eat, and the liquid that is drunk," because both the food and the drink of evil actions, that is, sharing in them, is forbidden. If, then, into any of the good actions which are in every vessel, that is, in every man, whether ruler or commoner, whether wise or unskilled, any one of the said carcasses falls, he will necessarily be unclean. For even if he did not begin the good action with some evil intention from the beginning, as those do who feign piety for the sake of trade or gain, but afterwards pride, deceit or hypocrisy, or something like it, falls into his action (which is called a carcass, as in a way bringing death on the one who shares in it), he too will be unclean; for an evil intention creeping in defiles a good action. And what did he add to the law that concerns food? "If water has been poured on it." He shows that those that are

after baptism he has sought out as actions, and his word is about the faithful and baptized man, and he makes mention of that action of the unbeliever …. Blessed Paul proves this, saying: "I wrote to you in the letter not to associate with fornicators; not at all with the fornicators of this world, or the covetous, or robbers, or servants of idols, since then you would have had to go out of this world. But now I have written to you, if one who is called a brother is a fornicator, or unclean, or covetous, or a servant of idols, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a robber, with such a one not even to take food. For what have I to do with judging those who are outside?" So far is it that he has no word about the action, or way of life, of those who are outside.

Verses 35–36. "And whatever any of such carcasses falls upon shall be unclean, whether ovens or pot-stands; they shall be destroyed and they shall be unclean. But springs and cisterns and every gathering of waters shall be clean. He who touches their carcasses shall be defiled."

The things of which the lawgiver now treats seem in a way strange. For why does he say that ovens and pot-stands are so unclean that he commanded their cleansing, but wrote that springs and cisterns and other gatherings of waters are clean? Is it perhaps because these are not usually defiled? For if gatherings of waters wash away our pollutions, how can they be defiled? You will find in every way an interpretation of the words that coheres with the letter of the law, if we search it according to its meaning. For why should ovens or perhaps pot-stands be called [unclean] when a dead mouse falls into them? And if ovens and pot-stands are so called, why not rather the gatherings of waters, in which it happens that these animals fall in and rot? But what do you think the ovens or pot-stands signify? Teachers, namely, in whom the foods of the sacred teaching are cooked, the fire of the working of the Spirit being put under them. Nor is it strange that they are called ovens and pot-stands by metaphor, since we know that divine Scripture has used such names in many places. For David called Moab, that is, the gentiles, a cauldron, for he says, "Moab is the pot of my hope," because of the waters of baptism which are heated in them. And Ezekiel calls Jerusalem a cauldron, but full of flesh, or as the Seventy have it, of poison, signifying the men in it who teach and live badly. By this reasoning, then, the ovens and pot-stands in which the foods, namely the teaching of the people, are cooked can be so called. If, then, a carcass falls into these, that is, if the action of a sin that kills comes upon them, they become unclean and are destroyed: because those who teach not to steal steal, and those who preach not to commit adultery commit adultery. But the teaching is good; it is not unclean. Nor do we for this reason abhor the divine oracles, because some preachers of them have perhaps become unclean. And therefore the lawgiver said that the springs, namely those rich in teaching, and the cisterns, or pools, the tongues that speak middling things and have a borrowed teaching, and also the gatherings of waters, those who gather from everywhere the abundance of such words, are clean.

But what consistency did it have, that speaking of ovens and pot-stands he should add, "except the springs of waters"? Because by the former he signified teachers, he necessarily added the springs and cisterns and gatherings of waters, which, as has been shown, are taken of teaching. That is why the Lord said to the Samaritan woman: "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst again, but it will become in him a spring of water leaping up to eternal life." And well did the law add: "He who touches their carcasses shall be defiled," where the Seventy render: "But he who touches all the uncleanness of the soul of their carcasses shall be unclean." And they added "soul," lest perhaps you think it is said of visible creeping things or beasts: for one who touches their carcasses touches an uncleanness not of the soul but of the body. So it must be understood of teachers who have become unclean by some unclean and evil action. For we must attend to their teachings, when they are according to the law of God, but in no way share in their works, nor handle them, nor touch them at all, remembering the words of God which [he spoke], to confirm the things at hand, to the people, or the disciples: "On the chair [of Moses sit the scribes and the Pharisees] …; all things whatever they tell you, do and keep; but do not do according to their works."

Verses 37–38. "If it falls upon seed, it does not defile it. But if anyone has poured water upon the seed, and afterwards it is touched by carcasses, it shall at once be defiled."

The lawgiver leaves nothing undiscussed, but discusses everything in what follows, desiring to prove the spiritual perfection of the law, even if it seemed imperfect to them when they looked only at the letter. Here, then, he sets out the difference of unbelievers who have not yet been baptized, and calls both kinds "seed," as those who have received the preaching of the kingdom. Of them the Lord, setting forth the parable of the seed, said: "The good seed are the sons of the kingdom." But [here it is] seed that has not yet been sown; hence the Seventy rendered "any seed for sowing that will be sown," that is, which has not yet been sown but is to be sown; he rightly so named those who have not yet been baptized but are to be baptized. If any of the said carcasses falls upon these, they are said to be clean, because they have not yet received the safeguard of the mysteries, nor gained the whole knowledge of God which could keep them from sins that come upon them through negligence; they are worthy of pardon for the said cause. But those on whom water has been poured, namely of baptism, necessarily become unclean if one of the things that are carcasses falls upon them: for by sharing in so great a thing the gifts ought to have served to guard them. God the Spirit, then, frightens those who have once received baptism, so that they may not become unclean by sinning through negligence.

Verses 39–40. "If an animal which you may eat dies, he who touches its carcass shall be unclean until evening. And he who eats anything of it, or carries it, shall wash his garments and be unclean until evening."

Just as sinners who remain in their sins are to be abhorred, but by no means those who withdraw and repent, so we must run with all zeal to the righteous, knowing that we are sanctified by them. But if they have died the death of grave sin, we must not touch their life nor be partakers of their way of life, knowing that if anyone touches it he will be unclean until he too repents. And one who eats of their carcasses, that is, one who defends them as an advocate or helper of their sins, and therefore takes their sins upon himself, must wash his garments, namely his actions, because he too will be unclean until evening, that is, until he repents.

Verses 41–43. "Everything that creeps upon the earth shall be abominable, and shall not be taken for food. Whatever four-footed thing goes upon its breast and has many feet, or is dragged along the ground, you shall not eat, because it is abominable. Do not defile your souls, nor touch any of them, lest you be unclean."

The lawgiver has set out these things too above. But now he repeats them so as to move the hearer by frequent meditation to keep the law. For this reason they are to be summed up by us too, since he has also added something new to the present ordinance, adding the action of meditation as necessary to them. Those that creep upon the earth, then, are those who mind earthly things; and those who feed on muddy actions likewise go upon the breast, or upon the belly, giving themselves to gluttony. Those go on four upon the earth who abuse the preaching of the gospel books for a wanton life, because the salvation of sinners is preached in them, not understanding that the preaching calls sinners not so that they may remain sinners, but so that they may cease from sins. And to those that walk on four he added, "and have many feet," showing that even if they wish to confirm this not only from the gospel books but from other Scriptures and from varied teaching, as it seems to them, they will be unclean even so. And to put it briefly, everything that creeps upon the earth, that is, those who mind earthly things, we must turn away from and flee, knowing that sharing with them defiles, and that the one who does and the one who runs with the doer are alike unclean.

Verses 44–45. "For I am the Lord your God. Be holy, because I also am holy. Do not defile your souls with any creeping thing that moves upon the earth. I am the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall be holy, because I also am holy."

He altogether forbids us to be companions of those who mind earthly things: not even if some are powerful, nor if they feign righteousness or wisdom, nor if perhaps they are clothed with the priesthood or any other dignity. Hence he briefly made mention of all creeping things that move upon the earth, rejecting not simply creeping but creeping upon the earth. For to be humbled is good, but to bend down to earthly wisdom is not good, nor is such humility useful to souls; wishing to free us from it, he says: "I am the Lord your God," that is, he in whose image you were made, so that you might mind heavenly things, imitating him who dwells in heaven; for which reason he added: "You shall be holy, because I am holy." He would not have added this, nor doubled the sanctification in us, unless we were partakers and had been made sharers of his sanctification, [and] needed to keep it through philosophy and a holy way of life. Hence he says: "Do not defile your souls." First, because it has been given to souls to be in the image of God, and he wants sanctification to be above all in the soul, as that which holds the leading place over every living being. Then he shows that the pollution which he hates is not made by dead bodies or by unclean foods, as some think, but is that which comes to souls from evil actions.

And having said that our souls must not be defiled with all the creeping things that move upon the earth, he added most fittingly: "I am the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God," showing by Egypt the evils of Egypt and all the works of darkness; for Egypt is interpreted "darkening." If anyone truly wishes to be free of these, and to have as his God him who truly is God, he must not only beware of idolatry, but, if he truly desires to cling to him, because he is holy, he too must strive for holiness, without which no one will see God.

Verses 46–47. "This is the law of the beasts and of the birds and of every living soul that moves in the water and creeps on the earth, that you may know the differences of clean and unclean, and know what you ought to eat and what to reject."

Here too the lawgiver uses a recapitulation after his custom, so that the readers may know the things of which the law has already spoken, and may easily search them out. But what he has now added is admirable and full of every help, and must be noted. For he said that the law was set out with the animals listed not only so that he might separate between clean and unclean, but so that the sons of Israel might know, or recognize, [the difference] between the things that are eaten that give life. So foods do not make us clean nor defile us; rather we [make] them [so], since we give life to the things that are eaten. And just as "every food is good, and nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God," as Paul says, "and by prayer," so the things that are eaten, namely those that nourish the soul, that is, good actions, we make alive if we use them well; but if badly, we do not make them alive but put them to death. For one who gives alms from iniquity puts to death its virtue, or power. And those who abstain from foods but slander their brothers with the tongue, of whom David says, "Who devour my people as they eat bread," put their abstinence to death. That is why it belongs to blessedness to know how to discern between the animals that are eaten that give life, and those that are not eaten, that is, between those who do good things well, and evil actions. For these are the animals that are not eaten. And he discerns who not only knows but confirms his knowledge by works. Few study this in this age, since many infect it by deceits and many adulterate it by hypocrisy, so that some now doubt even among true goods which are to be eaten and which are not to be eaten; for this reason he says: "This is the law," not only of discerning but of knowing, for the sons of Israel. And these things are recognized, or known, when we teach what agrees with the teaching of the law.

Verses 1–5. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: If a woman, having received seed, bears a male child, she shall be unclean seven days, according to the days of the separation of her menstruation. On the eighth day the infant shall be circumcised. And she shall remain thirty-three days in the blood of her purification. She shall touch nothing holy, nor shall she enter the sanctuary, until the days of her purification are fulfilled. But if she bears a female, she shall be unclean two weeks, according to the custom of the menstrual flow; and she shall remain sixty-six days in the blood of her purification."

The lawgiver's intention is plain: he is pointing to the ancient transgression of the human race, and so from all these things he wishes to bring us to this, that we avoid worldly things and the deeds of the flesh, since they do not serve us well for pursuing the holiness without which no one will see God. For the world in itself is good: to behold the rising of the sun, the moon, and the stars that crown the sky, the earth stretched out, the sea poured abroad, so that from all these wisdom may be gathered and the Maker inferred. Likewise the body too is good, and very good, since it works together with us in the virtues. For it has an instrument for glorifying God, the tongue, and the other senses that are in us, through which, looking upon the creation of the world and all its comfort, and through these perceiving something else, we infer from the things that have been made the things that are invisible. But because we have used both the world and the flesh badly, so that the Lord said of the world, "The world lies in the evil one," and Paul, "I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind," and again, "But I am carnal, sold under sin," and again, "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are sexual immorality, adulteries, uncleanness, and things like these," the law tries to set us free from these things, and does not cease to write many enigmas on this matter, as it does now, some general and some particular.

Notice with what words the Lord spoke to Moses, so that he might deliver the same words to the sons of Israel. He did this not in vain, but showing openly that he himself spoke to Moses, as one fit to understand the force of the law, and Moses to the people, since the people could neither receive the whole nor take in a spiritual command, nor hear the law from God speaking and telling of higher things. Hence it was that, when God himself was giving the law, they said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will hear; let not the Lord speak to us, lest perhaps we die." But they were to receive it humbly too, and according to human capacity, that is, with a man handing it on, so that by degrees one might ascend to the spirit. By the letter, then, … seed. He says that she is unclean seven days. And why? Because the sower is unclean, being the heir of Adam, who was made unclean through the transgression and, being so joined with Eve, made the whole human race unclean. For it is read plainly in Holy Scripture that after he went out of paradise Adam knew his wife, and so the human race began to be propagated. And he commanded that the woman be unclean seven days because Adam, through whose seed she received uncleanness, defiled our life together with our race. The number of seven days signifies the number by which the times revolve; this is why its rest, the seventh day, that is, the spiritual Sabbath, is hoped for. And how did he defile our life? By bringing a curse upon it and transferring it to misery from the blessedness which had been our lot from the beginning. This is clear from what God says to Adam: "Cursed is the earth in your works; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you." Therefore the lawgiver now also said, "according to the days of the separation of menstruation," or, as the Seventy have it, "according to the days of the purging of menstruation she shall be unclean." What this means the other interpreters have rendered more plainly: Symmachus saying "according to the days of separation, of affliction"; Aquila, "of separation, of …"; Theodotion, "of separation, of her pain." For misery and affliction and pain began to be from the time when Adam, separated from paradise, received our life as his lot, because we were condemned "to eat bread in the sweat of the face."

To this sense he added a fuller and unanswerable proof when he said, "On the eighth day the infant shall be circumcised." For the eighth day, since it follows the seventh day, which is the image of the present life, bears the figure of the age to come, in which we circumcise the flesh of the foreskin, putting off all the works of the flesh; for then we shall not only not sin, but shall neither eat nor drink nor marry. Beyond any doubt we shall be, as the Lord says, incorruptible instead of corruptible, like the angels; and we are made clean in every way instead of unclean. "It is sown," says Paul, "in corruption"; if then a natural body is sown in corruption, a spiritual body rises. This, then, is the reason why he commands the infant to be circumcised on the eighth day. And he shows that the uncircumcised perishes from his people because before circumcision he has abominable and unclean flesh, for the reasons we gave above; but he is cleansed through circumcision, which bears the image of the resurrection of the dead.

But this too must be asked: why the law, commanding circumcision, is silent about the infant himself but says that the mother is unclean until the day on which the infant is circumcised. For he commanded circumcision on the eighth day, the seven days perhaps because Eve was led astray through disobedience, and the transgression, or disobedience, contracted uncleanness and filth for us; so the lawgiver turned the greater part of this onto the woman. But it must also be asked why for this reason he commanded the woman to remain in the blood of her purification, not in sordid blood but in clean blood, that is, the blood of her purification, as is shown in what follows: she touches nothing holy and does not enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed. If then she is in clean blood for thirty-three days, and touches nothing holy and does not enter the sanctuary, where shall we find the reason for this except by examining the days? For he set thirty-three days so that, with the seven added, there might be forty in all. By this, then, the lawgiver signifies something else. Since the male infant is said to be formed in forty days, two things are proved by what has been said: first, that the substance of the human race in itself is clean, as created by God, for "all the things that God made were very good," and much more man; this is why he says that the woman sits in clean blood, or the blood of purification. But because it was harmed through descent from Adam the transgressor, she who has received seed and conceived necessarily touches nothing holy and will not enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed, that is, until the forty days are completed in which the child is formed. For the image of God itself is the cleansing of our nature, even though it had been soiled. We would therefore never have been commanded to enter the sanctuary or to touch anything holy, unless the image of God, once given to our race, had granted us entry to holy things. For its salvation the Lord himself also became incarnate, wishing to save his own image. But in forty days he took it up to heaven, just as, when he fashioned man, he gives it in the womb; and then our nature enters the true sanctuary.

These things are proved plainly by what is enacted concerning the female sex. For since the female is said to be formed in the womb on the eightieth day, he commanded the same number for the completion of the days of purification of those who receive seed. For he speaks thus: "If she bears a female, she shall be unclean two weeks, according to the custom of the menstrual flow." And when he ought to say fourteen, he does not say so, but "two weeks, according to the custom of the menstrual flow." By this he sends us to that sense, namely, that we understand human life to be in the seven days, and the menstrual flow to be its affliction and pain and misery. And he rightly says "two weeks," because the female sex was changed twice over: for Adam has the common curse, eating his bread in the sweat of his face. … It has also the earth bringing forth thorns and thistles, since, having arisen from the earth, it returns to the earth. It has also a special penalty: "In sorrow you shall bear children, and your turning shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you." And therefore, he says, she shall be unclean two weeks, according to the custom of the menstrual flow, and she shall sit sixty-six days in clean blood, that is, in purification, touching nothing holy, until the days … are completed. For fourteen added to sixty-six make the eighty in which the female is formed. So he shows … that our race, made unclean by the curse without any doubt, would never enter into holy things except through the image of God which it once received; and therefore women who receive seed are forbidden holy things for the days of the forming of the infants to be born. And if you say, "Why then are women not rather forbidden holy things while they have it in the womb, during the days of formation?", you ask this in vain; for it is uncertain to her who is with child whether she will bear a male or a female, and how could it be clear for how many days she ought to be kept from holy things? So the reason for which the lawgiver arranged these things in them is plain.

Verses 6–8. "And when the days of her purification are fulfilled, for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of a year old for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for sin, to the door of the tabernacle of witness, and give them to the priest, who shall offer them before the Lord and pray for her, and so she shall be cleansed from the flow of her blood. This is the law of her who bears a male or a female. And if her hand does not find, and she cannot offer a lamb, she shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for sin, and the priest shall pray for her, and so she shall be cleansed."

Here the lawgiver has opened his whole intention: that it is not natural motions that make pollution but sin, of which David said, "For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother bore me." Not … sin …

Many think that importunity is done at festivals; but they do not know that … they envy the festival, and drag festivals down to worse things: for they are eager to celebrate the feasts not with the mind but with the body. So not carelessly … to say these things, but …

[The conclusion of Book 3, chapter 12, printed here by the scan text:] … signifying that the uncleanness of the sin of Adam and Eve came down into our whole race. And therefore, when the days of purification have been completed in the manner described, he commands a sacrifice for sin to be offered. And because he commanded a lamb of a year old to be sacrificed then as a burnt offering, he shows clearly, and proves to one who considers it, that the image of God bestowed perfection on our race. For the days of cleansing show the forming, and the sacrifice of the burnt offering the perfection. For it is plain that he assigned a lamb of a year old, offered in a burnt-offering sacrifice, to signify an entire and perfect way of life, marking … from both. For what it means to offer a lamb, or something else in sacrifice, or perhaps, if one does not find it, a pigeon or a turtledove; and why the sacrifice is led to the door of the tabernacle of witness, to the priest; and how it is offered before the Lord; and how, too, propitiation is obtained and carried out through the priest, has been said in the case of the many sacrifices offered for sins.

But here, for the moment, be amazed at the lawgiver's wisdom on this account: it could happen that students of the law would say, "What need of prayer did she have who bore an infant, when she herself had not sinned? For she did not give birth from sexual immorality but from marriage." Wishing to explain the necessity of this prayer, he added, "And he shall cleanse her from the flow of her blood," calling disobedience the "flow of blood"; from it uncleanness, and its penalty, flows into the whole human race. Let us too put it away, offering for ourselves the sacrifices that have been named: two turtledoves or two young pigeons, that is, meditation on the law and contemplation, and knowledge or understanding; for it has been shown that the animals named bear the figure of these. And since neglect of the law brought uncleanness upon human beings, meditation and knowledge, through which correction plainly comes, will be able to cleanse us and free us from the penalty long since inflicted, in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit for ages of ages. Amen.

[The preface to Book 4 continues:] … Let those also suffer this who on the wedding day shut their doors to singers or harpists, who send the bridal carriages ahead without applause and the music of instruments, stripped of the wedding torches, and who, calling themselves friends of the bridegroom, deprive the festivities of sacred verses, trumpets and dress. … But Christ does not do so; for, being the Word, he fills the festivals with discourse. And some offered calves, or oxen, or sheep, rams, he-goats and she-goats, turtledoves or pigeons; and those who did not have these brought cakes, wafers and fine flour to the sanctuary as a sacrifice. But he himself varied the victims by his teaching, as was fitting. Now, like a young calf putting forth horns and hoofs, he would sacrifice, tossing the Word through theology; now, in place of the pigeon, he would set out the mediating teaching; and in place of the pair of turtledoves he would lay down laws in a spirit of contemplation and chastity. And he himself was the ram for the sacrifice, crowning the righteous with praises, and the he-goats were the sinners coming from error. With these, then, let us too adorn the festival, he himself, who was sacrificed, lending such great things to our tongue, the knife in the sacrifice, for the present matter.

Now this is the leprosy which Moses the lawgiver set forth, bringing out very many of its kinds and explaining the manifold variety of this affliction: not only the leprosy that is in a man, but also that which is in wood and in stones, in the warp too and in the woof, and in skins, in which it can work, and even in a whole house, and likewise in garments that it comes upon. He had kept this in no other illness, so that even the duller might understand that the lawgiver was looking at something more sublime, more divine and better than the outward letter presents. And he also kept discretion for the priest: he does not pass over this, but describes in order the things necessary for it, so as to lay down for the priest the very manner in which he ought to judge these matters, and to keep him, in judgment, free of the suspicion of enmity or favour. For he could easily have fallen under such a suspicion, as though he detained this man out of enmity and released that one from the affliction for favour's sake, giving rise to a suspicion of friendship, unless he had given a plain law about those who ought to be separated from the tabernacle as held by the disease; and about those who, cleansed again from the affliction, should be received; and also those who should not be counted among the lepers at the very beginning, as being under suspicion for nothing, whenever there happened to be doubt about one, the law being laid down for this too. And it is very astonishing how he cast out of the tabernacle the man who has leprosy in part of his body, and subjected him to the penalty, but called clean the man who suffers in his whole body, and commanded him to mix with everyone as if he had suffered nothing at all. He seems in a way even to persuade those who are leprous in part not to pray to be freed from the present affliction, but rather that the affliction should feed on them and break out over the whole body. For the one would cause much dispute and would bind the priest who judges to the strictness of the law, while the other keeps them blameless and makes them blessed … from a multitude of dangers. … from the understanding of the affliction …, and it is time now to go on to the words of the law, for they themselves set out the reasons for us plainly, point by point.

Yet first we solemnly ask our hearers that whoever wishes to learn should not despise the words of the unlearned, as I am. For we do not speak our own things, that we should be accused as deceivers, since little is supplied to us of our own; but it belongs to God, who breathes where he wills, and who often reveals to children, or to dull and very unskilled men, greater things than to the prophets. This is clear from the fact that the people, praising Jesus as he sat upon the ass, uttered a cry which is to be noted above every prophetic voice. And you who serve the mysteries know the law given to the churches in the mystical ministry; for this reason the ears of the profane must not be burdened with words … . In this I too marvel greatly, and I count what happened as a great miracle: that what the prophetic voice, proclaimed many generations before, … hid, an unlearned people showed; and the remaining chapter is itself inspired and entrusted, so that something may be said by us too which may profit the ears of the hearers and has not yet been said by those before us, if God grants that it be willingly received. "For in him we live and move and are," as Paul commanded us too to say; and all the more, since we are very unlearned, we need our tongue to be steered from heaven. The letter of the law of the leper, which was spoken by God himself to Moses, runs thus.

Verses 1–17. "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: A man in whose flesh and skin there arises a different colour, or a pustule, or something like a shining spot, that is, the stroke of leprosy, shall be brought to Aaron the priest, or to any one of his sons. And when he sees the leprosy in the skin, and the hairs changed to a white colour, and the appearance of the leprosy lower than the skin and the rest of the flesh, it is the stroke of leprosy, and at his judgment he shall be separated. But if there is a shining whiteness in the skin, and it is not lower than the rest of the flesh, and the hairs are of their former colour, the priest shall shut him up seven days, and shall look on the seventh day. And if the leprosy has not grown further, nor passed its former bounds in the skin, he shall shut him up again another seven days, and on the seventh day he shall look: if the leprosy is darker and has not grown in the skin, he shall cleanse him, because it is a scab; and the man shall wash his garments and be clean. But if, after he has been seen by the priest and restored to cleanness, the leprosy grows again, he shall be brought to him and condemned as unclean. If the stroke of leprosy is in a man, he shall be brought to the priest, and he shall see him. And when there is a white colour in the skin, and it has changed the look of the hairs, and living flesh itself also appears, it shall be judged a very old leprosy, grown into the skin. The priest shall pronounce him defiled, and shall not shut him up, because the uncleanness is evident. But if the leprosy breaks out, spreading in the skin, and covers all the flesh from the head to the feet, whatever falls under the sight of the eyes, the priest shall consider him and judge that he is held by a most clean leprosy, because all of it has turned to whiteness; and therefore the man shall be clean. But when living flesh appears in it, then he shall be defiled by the priest's judgment and counted among the unclean; for living flesh, if it is sprinkled with leprosy, is unclean. But if it turns again to whiteness and covers the whole man, the priest shall consider him and decree that he is clean."

Likewise according to the text of the Seventy: "And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: A man in the skin of whose body there comes a scar of a mark, telaugēs ('shining') or amaura ('dim'), and there comes in the skin of his body a scar like a spot of leprosy, and he comes to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests; and the priest sees the spot in the skin of the body, and the hair in the spot has changed to white, and the appearance of the spot is lower than the skin of the body: it is a spot of leprosy; and the priest shall see, and shall pronounce him defiled. But if it is shining white in the skin of his body, and its appearance is not lower than the skin, and its hair has not changed to white hair, it is dim; and the priest shall separate the spot seven days. And the priest shall see on the seventh day, and behold, the spot remains before him, the spot has not spread in the skin; and the priest shall separate him a second seven days. And the priest shall see on the seventh day a second time, and behold, the dim spot of leprosy has not spread in the skin; and the priest shall cleanse him, for it is a mark; and having washed his garments he shall be clean. But if the mark, changed, has spread in the skin after the priest has seen him to cleanse him, and he is seen a second time by the priest, and the priest sees, and behold, the mark has spread in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him defiled: it is leprosy. And if a spot of leprosy comes to Aaron the priest, and the priest sees, and behold, a white scar in the skin, and it has changed the hair to white, from the soundness of the living flesh: if it is a scar, it is an old leprosy in the skin of his body. And the priest shall pronounce him defiled and shall separate him, for he is unclean. But if leprosy blossoms out in the skin, and covers all the skin of the spot from head to feet, to the whole sight of the priest, and the priest sees, and behold, the leprosy has covered all the skin of the body: then the priest shall cleanse him of the spot, because it has all changed to white; he is clean. And on whatever day living flesh appears in him, he shall pronounce him defiled. And the priest shall see the sound flesh: he is unclean; it is leprosy. But if the sound flesh is restored and changed to white, and he comes to the priest, and the priest sees him, and behold, his spot has changed to white, the priest shall cleanse the spot, and he shall be clean."

The law is deep, as you see, and stands in need not only of many words but of a careful interpretation altogether. Yet the reading has not brought the whole of it before us; rather, as the hearer receives it, he infers how much they contain and the rest of the truth, and gathers his mind to himself. For these are not small matters to be learned at random, but matters whose knowledge must be awaited from God, who begrudges no one the knowledge of any of them and has no need of what is asked. For James, who was called the brother of the Lord, says that this belongs to him who gives freely. Trusting in him, then, and at the same time in ourselves, for he will give grace in what is to be said, let us begin the interpretation.

For the passage shows that the man leprous in part is the Jewish people, as a transgressor of the law in part, and that is why the priest drives him out as unclean; but the man leprous in his whole body is the Gentile, who transgresses the whole law; and yet the priest judges him clean, because he was not subject to the yoke of the law. But first, I think, we ought to run through the exposition of the letter. For in that way we shall find the spiritual understanding offering itself of its own accord, since the letter fails as to the reasons and cannot set out its sense to the end, as we recognize in the present case.

But first let us attend to who it is that gives the law, and to whom he gives it. "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron." When God speaks, faithful hearing is twofold, as David the prophet says: "God has spoken once; these two things I have heard," namely the letter and the spirit. So he speaks the spirit to Moses, as the higher, and the letter to Aaron, as the subordinate; for Moses was lofty, and therefore worthy of the spirit, while Aaron was subordinate and suited to the hearing of the people, which needed the letter, as God himself says to Moses concerning Aaron: "He shall speak to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be to him in the things that pertain to God." So what was lofty in the law was spoken to Moses, for he had the things that pertain to God, that is, the things of the spirit; and what was subordinate and humbler was spoken to Aaron, for he was Moses' mouth to the people, which received the law according to the letter, which we too promised to expound first.

One kind of leprosy, then, is either very or moderately obscure, somehow shadowed, and meanwhile hidden under the skin, the affliction not yet breaking out, and therefore it needs much deliberation. Another kind of it is very clear and quite evident, so that the recognition of it is simple and open. Of these, the Seventy, according to whom almost the whole sense here is expounded according to the letter, rightly called the first kind a "scar of a mark," that is, a scar signifying the affliction. And they divided it into two parts, that is, the very doubtful and the less doubtful, calling one telaugēs and the other amaura: telaugēs, because it is seen from afar; amaura, because it is very obscure and gives little hint of the affliction. And this doubtful kind needs close examination, as those who examine precious stones … . Therefore he frequently commands the priest to consider, and not to trust the first appearances that present themselves at the first test. And if on consideration the scar does not yet appear lower than the skin, and the hair in the place has not been changed and made white by the affliction, he is nevertheless to be separated seven days for a further consideration, and again another seven days; for perhaps, as the affliction breaks out over time, the disease is made more evident. But if the scar remains dim and no change has taken place in the skin, he called it a "mark" and not manifest leprosy; he did not add "leprosy" to "mark," keeping … for those who receive the law according to the spirit and who can reveal what is less or more hidden and add it to the contemplative interpretations of the spirit. Yet they did not show the mark to be altogether harmless; for how would the priest have been cleansing him, that is, declaring him clean, if he needed nothing of the kind, being wholly free? That is why he called it dim; and again, had it been evil, it would not have been placed among clean things after judgment; it was the mark of some affliction.

"But if the mark, being so, spreads in the skin," that is, if it has spread and advanced wider in the skin than before, and the hair has not changed (for he does not find fault with this here), the priest pronounces him defiled, judging the affliction to be leprosy, though the knowledge of it is doubtful, the scar being dim. But when the scar is white and puts forth hair like the skin, the priest pronounces him defiled at once and commands him to be cast out as unclean, even if part of the scar is sound and has living flesh, that is, not under the affliction of leprosy. And for what reason? "Because," he says, "it is an old leprosy." This is astonishing, and brings upon the legal letter a charge of great unskilfulness, or rather a reproach. For from where he ought to have judged the affliction curable, that is, from the living body and living flesh, from there he rather despairs of it, and God calls it an old leprosy, that is, incurable, long-standing, and as it were grown old in the place of the affliction. On this matter again you will find what follows more obscure: that he wills the priest to judge that the man who is leprous in his whole body, covered with the disease from the feet to the head, is held by a clean leprosy. But if living flesh is ever seen in him, the priest revokes his judgment and pronounces him defiled. And if it has changed again to white, and the whole skin has passed over to the affliction of leprosy, the priest, who is commanded to judge, cleanses him.

And if these things too are rightly said, though no one says so, what answer shall we find to this other objection? The leper is punished not for a voluntary affliction but for one he endures unwillingly; and though he deserved help for his weakness, he lacks it and is subjected to a new penalty. If he had been able to resist, the weakness would never have prevailed over him. And the law blames nature, to which it judges the trouble that befalls to belong, and not the intention of his will. For what could he have done not to fall into this disease? But someone says that this affliction is the vengeance or penalty for sin, and puts forward first Miriam, then Uzziah: she disparaged her brother, and he, though he was a king, presumed to offer incense in the holy place, which was permitted only to the priests; and so, God not delaying their punishment, they were made lepers. Then the law ought to have said this openly, to excuse the lawgiver against those who think he legislates unjustly about lepers; and not only about lepers, but also about those who have injured eyes or hearing or the other senses, and about other sick people and paralytics …. This is clear from the fact that the disciples, seeing the man blind from birth, asked the Lord, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Do not give me back Christ's answer; I know it, but I am asking what many people think about the afflictions that befall us. And the Lord himself, wishing to raise up the paralytic, said, "Your sins are forgiven you." So, as hateful to God, these too ought to have been driven out of the tabernacle; and the injustice would be thought light if others shared the injustice together. And if you say that in these afflictions sins are certainly punished, since he also bars from the tabernacle the man who suffers a flow of seed and the woman who suffers a flow of blood, you speak the truth; but this is not so much an answer as another charge against the writer, who condemns the necessities of nature which he ought to have defended, lest he wrong the Maker by charges about natural things. Therefore we need the contemplation of the law and the spiritual interpretation of its vice, and we must set the eye of the mind before the eye of the flesh, so as to use the one for understanding what is enacted and the other for reading.

Let the letter of the law, then, be set out again. "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: A man in whose flesh and skin there arises a different colour, or a pustule, or something like a shining spot, that is, the stroke of leprosy, shall be brought to Aaron the priest, or to any one of his sons. And when he sees the leprosy in the skin, and the hairs changed to a white colour, and the appearance of the leprosy lower than the skin and the rest of the flesh, it is the stroke of leprosy, and at his judgment he shall be separated." Divine Scripture calls "man," simply or in general, him who keeps the image of God and the dignity of our nature. That is why you hear the Wise Man saying in Proverbs, "Man is a great thing, and a merciful man precious." But the Lord, in the parables, portrays a sinful man as a badly struck coin, saying "a certain man": "The land of a certain rich man brought forth plentiful fruits, and he thought within himself, saying: What shall I do, since I have nowhere to gather my fruits? And he said: This I will do: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will gather all that has grown for me and my goods, and I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods laid up for very many years; rest, eat, drink, be merry." And again: "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who stripped him, inflicted blows, and went away, leaving him half dead." In both he takes on the person of a sinner. What is contained in the story of Job will be no obstacle to us: for when he says, according to the Seventy, "There was a certain man in the land of Ausitis," he added at once, "whose name was Job"; by the addition of the name he did not leave the man described unmarked.

By the name "skin" or "hide" sometimes each man's flesh is meant, and sometimes his kindred. That is why in the book of Job it is said, in the person of the devil, the deceiver, about what then befell that bravest of men, when he destroyed his sons and daughters with the rest of his substance, heaping the house upon them in place of a burial: "Skin for skin, and all that a man has he will give for his life"; that is, he has lost the skin of his kindred through his children, but it is enough for him that the skin of his flesh is safe and in no way corrupted. That is why he added: "But put forth your hand and touch his bones and his flesh, and then you will see whether he does not bless you to your face."

What our edition has, "A man in whose flesh and skin there arises a different colour, or a pustule, or something like a shining spot, that is, the stroke of leprosy," the Seventy translated, "A man in the skin of whose body there comes a scar of a mark, appearing." The scar of a mark signifies sin, making plain from what appears what is hidden and the lurking vice of the soul. And then he called this scar now telaugēs and now amaura: because the very motions of the soul declare that this sin is open, without any judgment needed; while that sin requires … beyond what one sees of the sinner's gain, and the consideration of the judge as to what it is, whether true or false. If, then, as the Seventy cited above give it, a scar of a mark comes upon the sinner in the skin of the body, that is, sin in the flesh, which signifies that the soul too suffers with the body, and this is either telaugēs or amaura, that is, either very manifest or needing the examiner's …, it will be held as a spot of leprosy. And by leprosy we understand the transgression of the law. For just as the leper, though he is all sound, being made leprous in some part, is not helped at all by the health of the body that has not become leprous, but is removed from the tabernacle as unclean, so he who transgresses the precepts of the law in some part is not helped at all by keeping the rest; for "whoever keeps the whole law but sins in one point has become guilty of all." Such a man is brought to Aaron the priest, or to any one of his sons. And the sons of the priest are his sons according to the spirit, from whom they also have the dignity of the priesthood. And these are the ones in whom philosophy is perfected and full, so that they can both learn sublime things and judge the motions of the soul …. But how do they judge? They see the leprosy

in the skin, and its hair, whether it has been changed to white, and the very appearance of the leprosy lower than the skin and the rest of the flesh. By the hairs he signifies the thoughts with which the soul is adorned and the mind is clothed, since it brings forth these thoughts itself; for the head too produces hairs for itself and is adorned and covered by them. That is why the hairs of our head are said to be numbered, that is, the thoughts of the mind; for the mind is called the head, because it is the ruling part of the soul. And why are they numbered? Without doubt he means that through them the judge will judge a man, that is, as they accuse or excuse him, as Paul says: "at the time when the hidden things of men shall be judged." Therefore we understand why iron did not come upon the head of the Nazirite, though it was applied to others without fault: for those who have superfluous hairs, to be shorn not only does no harm but is a gain; but for those who have none superfluous, the removal of the hair is a loss, because it strips them of natural beauty. So those who have superfluous thoughts out of season do well to be shorn of them, in the manner of a tonsure, by a change of counsels or of all the fancies that befall them. But in the Nazirite there are none, for he is wholly holy. That is why iron does not come upon his head, since he uses good counsel and has the necessary hairs of thought and not superfluous ones, of which he cuts off none, since he handles nothing worse and changes nothing.

If, then, the man of whom we are now speaking has changed the hair to white, turning his thought to a shameless state and to the manifest condition of sin, and the very appearance of the leprosy is lower than the flesh and the rest of the skin (for this the priest considers: if he sees that great weakness has appeared and natural strength has failed, which is the appearance of leprosy lower than the skin or the rest of the flesh), the priest rightly separates him and judges him unclean, as one languishing from his own intention and will. For one who changes the hair indicates plainly that he is weak and therefore lower than himself, and so he rightly does not deserve pardon. For to be outdone by Abraham, or by another who is greater, is bearable, whether in the habit of virtue or the power … that is granted, or in the good we have received from God to do; of such habits Paul seems to me to hint when he says, "To each as the Lord has distributed, each as God has called." But when anyone becomes worse than himself, it is unbearable.

"But if there is a shining whiteness in the skin, and it is not lower than the rest of the flesh, and the hair is of its former colour, the priest shall shut him up seven days, and shall see and consider on the seventh day. And if the leprosy has not grown further, nor passed its former bounds in the skin, he shall shut him up again another seven days, and on the seventh day he shall look. If the leprosy is darker and has not grown in the skin, he shall cleanse him, because it is a scab; and the man shall wash his garments and be clean. But if, after he has been seen by the priest and restored to cleanness, the leprosy grows again, he shall be brought to him and condemned as unclean." Behold in this the very great clemency of the lawgiver, worthy of God; for he was the giver of the law who leads the letter to such a contemplation of the law …. But what does this letter mean? If there is a shining whiteness in the skin, and it is not lower than the rest of the flesh, and the hair is of its former colour, the priest judges him clean and free of all suspicion. Although it is clear that sin had come under suspicion, yet the mind that offended, which without doubt is signified by the "appearance" in the tradition of the Seventy, has not become lower than the rest of the flesh, that is, than itself, nor weaker than the habit it had obtained; nor has the sin that came upon it changed the heart and made it given over to the delights of sins. For this is what is meant by the whiteness not seeming lower than the rest of the flesh and the hairs being of their former colour. But if it has a darker appearance, as the Seventy give it, which we said is the mind (for it is still dim and doubtful on account of the offence once committed), he did not command that the man be removed then; but the priest removes him from the tabernacle as one who has sinned, for seven days and as many again, for the sake both of testing and of amendment, and restores him to cleanness. After this, if on looking twice he finds the spot darker and not growing in the skin (for if the sin had grown, it would have passed, increased, into the rest of the flesh, and being spread over the flesh would have shown to be unclean the man who goes from bad to worse), the man has not grown, but the appearance or form has remained the same, darker. For what is darker than iniquity? By it our eyes grow dim, so that we are allowed to look clearly neither at God nor at what is expedient for us. Or, if you call the darker appearance a suspicion of sin that is doubtful and uncertain to some, that is, whether it is sin or not, this too needs the priest, as one who knows how to restore cleanness. And he, declaring it a simpler and slight matter, washes the garments with water, namely of baptism or of repentance; for the tear of repentance is an effective water, which … calls the remnants of baptism. Since this is how matters stand, the Seventy therefore rendered it "a mark of the affliction," because it partly disclosed what is hidden and did not allow it to lie concealed altogether, but appointed the priest in the place of a physician …. … such a sin: do not hide the evil from the true priest, even if it is doubtful and uncertain to others, but show it and disclose it. For for the days during which the priest separates you from the tabernacle of the holy things, he will receive you again, in the proper way, once you have first washed the garments of the flesh, as the lawgiver says. But see that, having received pardon, you keep it and do not defile it after once washing the tunic of the flesh. For if even after this a mark of the affliction falls upon the skin, or, according to our edition, has grown, and he has fallen back again from the better part to sin and been changed, the priest will see, and finding him at once inclining to worse things, will condemn him as unclean. The Seventy follow and say: "for it is leprosy." For the soul of such a man, turning aside to profane pleasures, plainly becomes leprous.

That is why Paul too removed from the tabernacle of the holy things the man who committed sexual immorality at Corinth, because his was a mark of the affliction, for it was manifest and not hidden, and commanded that he be handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. And when he looked at the affliction a second time and saw that it had not grown, but that the man who had suffered it had washed the garment of the flesh with tears of repentance, he ordered him to be received at once. You recognize these things in the apostle's own words; for of the man who committed sexual immorality he wrote to the Corinthians: "It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife." There you have heard the mark: the affliction was manifest, so that it reached Paul's hearing; that is why he commanded him to be cast out of the tabernacle. For so he says that such a one is to be handed over "to Satan for the destruction of the flesh," and again, "Remove the evil from among you." And because he saw the garment of the flesh cleansed by power, he ordered him to be received again. And how is this certain? "I beseech you," he says, "confirm your love toward him, lest perhaps he be swallowed up by excessive sorrow." Because such a man …: it was clear, then, that he had repented, and as one caught in sin was greatly afflicted; and lest meanwhile he suffer something from excessive sorrow, or the sinner fall into despair, Paul anticipated it and commanded that one who had now been restored to cleanness be received.

Why the priest separates the man brought to him from the tabernacle for seven days not once but twice, the studious ought to inquire and know. This was commanded in the law to be done a second time to show that he must be examined not carelessly but carefully, and that, after a double test, judgment should be passed on him more strictly. The sin was clear to the priest; but when he suspected that the mind consented to the affliction, and yet did not know it plainly, he necessarily examined him again. For the mind is invisible and hard to examine. So the Lord asks Peter's mind after the denial not once but three times, not as one who did not know (Peter himself plainly proves this in his answers, which he referred openly to one who knew and was ignorant of nothing), but as searching out the disposition of his mind; for he said, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?" He wished to teach us how to search out and how to judge: namely by frequent inquiry. And he did not set seven days in vain, but honoured the number necessary to the present purpose; for in it every bond and every obligation under the law ceased. For in seven years the servitude of the Hebrews was released; and at the jubilee, which consisted of seven weeks of years, the remission of all debts was granted to the Jews, and all their land, freed from the creditor who held it, returned to its former owner. And we know that the Babylonian captivity of the people was ended, and Jerusalem restored, in the seventieth year. That is why Peter inquires of the Lord, saying, "If my brother sins against me, how often shall I forgive him? Up to seven times?" And he answered, "I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven." Rebuking the smallness of the question, he says, "I do not say to you seven times," and adds, "but up to seventy times seven." So even then he does not depart from the same number, but multiplying it, he multiplies the remission with it.

And if anyone asks again why he set this number in the chapters mentioned, we will indicate a brief reason, for time does not allow delays while we press on to other necessary matters. The number seven is believed to hold the fullness of the whole present life, which revolves within seven days; when it is completed, every bond and every sin of the world rightly ceases, and every servitude. That is why in the divine Scriptures the seventh is called rest, as Paul too says of Moses: "For he has said somewhere of the seventh day: And God rested from all his works"; and a little after he added, "For whoever has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his." And Ecclesiastes says, "Give a portion to seven, and also to eight," commanding that we take forethought for the present age and for the age to come, so that we may live in the present age as those who await the future. And so much for this; but what follows must be discussed with greater care.

Verses 9–11. "If the stroke of leprosy is in a man, he shall be brought to the priest, and he shall see him. And when there is a white colour in the skin, and it has changed the look of the hairs, and living flesh itself also appears, it shall be judged a very old leprosy, grown into the skin. The priest shall therefore pronounce him defiled, and shall not shut him up, because the uncleanness is evident." Do not think that the lawgiver is, as it were, superfluous, repeating the same things in this one book; … the memory, by frequent meditation on the law. For the lawgiver appears to add here again things about which he has already explained plainly and sufficiently above; but it is not so, for though it is close in words, it has a very different and distinct intention. For here he speaks not simply of any sin whatever, but of manifest transgression of the legal letter; that is why he called the affliction itself the "stroke of leprosy." We are not unaware that we said leprosy is the transgression of the law, because it does harm even when it is partial, like leprosy, though it seize only a small part of the body. And which law did he consider his own? Not that about envy and adultery, rapacity and avarice, and honouring parents, for the Gentiles had a like law; but that which enacted about sacrifices and purifications, "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle," and that which commands the flesh to be circumcised. For these were its own, having no fellowship with the Gentiles. If, then, the stroke of this leprosy has arisen in a man, and the priest seeing him perceives a white colour in the skin, that is, a manifest and open transgression of that letter, committed willingly and of purpose (for we said above that this is what it means for the look of the hairs to be changed to white, namely for the mind to pass openly into some transgression); and the appearance itself has living flesh, that is, a man who, though he transgresses in one thing, defends the law in others. He would call it sound flesh in vain, were it not that blessed Paul too seems to have called it so; for he says: "ordinances of the flesh imposed until the time of reformation." "It shall be judged a very old leprosy": for he grows old in sin and is corrupted, because he has a continual battle and quarrel within himself, despising the law in some things and defending it in others. That is why the priest pronounces him defiled and does not shut him up, or, as the Seventy have it, separates him, "because the uncleanness is evident." For how is he not abominable and unclean who dishonours the law which he himself, by keeping it in part, confirms to be necessary to him? But since these things become plainer and very evident in what follows, let us go on to that now, as the order compels.

Verses 12–17. "But if the leprosy breaks out, spreading in the skin, and covers all the skin from the head to the feet, and whatever falls under the sight of the eyes, the priest shall consider him and judge that he is held by a most clean leprosy, because all of it has turned to whiteness; and therefore the man shall be clean. But when living flesh appears in him, then he shall be defiled by the priest's judgment and counted among the unclean; for living flesh, if it is sprinkled with leprosy, is unclean. But if it turns again to whiteness and covers the whole man, the priest shall consider him and decree that he is clean." … exposition: what follows and what goes before run together for the interpretation. That is why James said: "No prophecy of Scripture comes by private interpretation"; for each is best explained from what follows. We have learned that leprosy in the skin is the transgression of the legal letter. And he said well "in the skin," because the transgression of the circumcision of the Sabbaths, or of the purifications enacted by the law, does not bring injury to the soul; for the letter of the law restrains the outward man. If, then, this leprosy covers all the skin, from the head to the feet, and whatever falls under the sight of the priest's eyes, he decrees him clean. For if anyone departs from the whole keeping of the letter of the law, and practises the works neither of circumcision nor of the distinction of foods, nor the keeping of Sabbaths, nor of pollutions, or sacrifices, or any other such things, but departs from all the legal elements, and from the head to the feet, that is, from the first to the last of these commandments, has run to better and more perfect things, and has done this in the sight of the priest, that is, of Christ, so that he, seeing the transgression of imperfect things, receives him, he will judge him to be held by a most clean leprosy, because all of it has turned to whiteness; that is, this man has transferred himself to brightness, to the gospel way of life, as you have just heard: "Let your light shine before men," and again, "Let us walk honestly as in the day." That is why they are named sons of light, not of night or of darkness.

"But if living flesh appears in it": that is, a Jewish commandment; for those sayings are thought "living" not for the sake of those who received them but of those who gave them, and yet rather for the sake of those who received them too, if what was given is kept in that manner. It is necessary that one who practises neither these things nor those from which he has departed be defiled. But let us bring proof of both. That the legal commandments of the Jews are called living, let us hear Stephen saying to the Jews of Moses: "This is he who was in the church in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, who received living words to give to us." See, he called the ordinances of the law "living words." And what did he add? "To whom our fathers would not be obedient." And indeed they obeyed as far as the face of the visible letter goes; but he said they did not obey: they did not obey the mind and intention of the lawgiver, but only the letters. And that one who has departed from the servitude of the law and afterwards does something of the law is subject to the priest's reproof and counted among the unclean, Paul teaches, instructing the Galatians: "Behold, I Paul say to you: If you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing"; and again, "You observe days and months and years; I fear lest perhaps …"; "you who are justified by the law have fallen from grace." Of the Jewish traditions too he says: "For if I build again the things I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor." "But if the colour … recedes and is changed to white" (for this is what is "living," and it is called sound according to the opinion of the Jews and the legal understanding, not according to …), that is, into the church's way of life, he will come to the priest, Christ, and he decrees him clean, granting pardon for the first … in the same way as the man wholly leprous is made clean according to the law out of what is thought a multitude of uncleanness. So also the people from the Gentiles, in the multitude and completeness of its transgression of the legal letter, is made clean through the law itself, which seeks not the letter but the spiritual understanding of the commandment.

Verses 18–23. "Flesh and skin in which an ulcer has arisen and been healed, and in the place of the ulcer a white or reddish scar has appeared: the man shall be brought to the priest. And when he sees the place of the leprosy lower than the rest of the flesh, and the hairs turned to whiteness, he shall pronounce him defiled; for the stroke of leprosy has arisen in the ulcer. But if the hair is of its former colour, and the scar somewhat dark, and the neighbouring flesh is not lower, he shall shut him up seven days; and if it has grown, he shall judge him leprous. But if it has stood in its place, it is the scar of an ulcer, and the man shall be clean."

Blessed is continual meditation on the law and converse with it, and to have always in hand the treasure from which the riches of the knowledge of God come forth. So let us too search out with all diligence the things that now lie hidden in the letter. The ulcer that has arisen and been healed is sin cured by repentance. For what so wounds the soul and fills it with stains as sin? Hence David also said: "My scars have festered and grown worse because of my foolishness." And what in turn cures the wound of the soul? Repentance carried through in the right way. The place of this wound is the act and the design around which the sin was committed: as for David the place of the ulcer was the desire of the body, for through it he committed both adultery with Bathsheba and the crime of murder against Uriah; for Ahab, covetousness, through which he fell into love of Naboth's vineyard; for Judas, avarice, for this gave the design of the betrayal; for Paul, zeal through ignorance, overcome by which he persecuted Jesus. "In the place of the ulcer a white scar": that is, shining and so manifest that it is seen even from afar, that is, the presumption of sinning that comes from sin, according to which one, because he once committed adultery, is called an adulterer, another a persecutor because of persecution, another a robber because of robbery, even if he has already withdrawn from such deeds. Do we not, after many generations, call Rahab by the name of harlot, and her who brought ointment to the Lord, though both had held back from sexual immorality? But why, when he had called it an ulcer, did he nevertheless say that it becomes white or red? Because he called white what comes from the wound of the transgression of the law, calling the law white; for it had not been warmed by the Sun of righteousness, and therefore it was not red. So what comes from the transgression of the gospel is more plainly called red. Yet both are in Christ, of whom it is said by the church in the Song of Songs, "My kinsman is white and ruddy." He himself was first circumcised according to the law, and offered for the cleansing …; for he himself is the law, he himself the Gospel; he himself, bearing …, later living in the gospel way, did away with the baptisms of the Jews, the keeping of the Sabbath, and the temporal purifications.

"But what," you say, "is the transgression of the law?" One that pertains to Christ himself and his mystery, that is, the eating of what is sacrificed to idols, of all blood, and of what is strangled. For though these are legal precepts, the apostles nevertheless commanded the church to keep them, as James shows when he says: "It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these, to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is strangled, and from sexual immorality." And the gospel one is that which, though it was not according to the law, says: "Whoever says to his brother, Fool, shall be liable to judgment," and, "Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." If, then, when the white has been healed and the sin cured by repentance, a white or red ulcer is seen in the place of the ulcer, that is, in the region of the sin, and some following of the aforesaid sin, of the gospel or of the law, has been found in the sinner, he necessarily comes to this judgment of the priest. "And if he sees the place of the leprosy lower than the rest of the flesh": that is, the mind made lower than itself and the disposition plainly changed toward wickedness (for this is what it means for the hairs to turn to whiteness), the priest shall pronounce him defiled. For he has once come into the habit of sin, and the soul's evil feeding has settled on him through the ulcer; hence the lawgiver called it leprosy from a wound, and the affliction blossoming. "But if the hair is of its former colour, and the scar somewhat dark": that is, the look of a penitent. Then he commanded him to be shut up seven days; because he had come altogether under such a suspicion, he wished to set a time for the suspicion. "And if it has grown," and the evil boasting has multiplied, "he shall judge him leprous." By leprosy he means the uncleanness of the soul, which has grown or blossomed, multiplied by later actions. "But if" it has not multiplied "but has stood in its place" (for he is found to have sinned in nothing more than this one sin which all knew, and of which he did penance), the priest judges him clean. For the scar shows that he suffered the wound, not that he still suffers it.

But let us use these examples for a precise proof of what has been said. Pilate sinned against the Lord, finding in him no cause of death and yet condemning him; but the ulcer of this sin was healed when he washed his hands and said, "I am clean of the blood of this righteous man." But he did not persevere, since he afterwards scourged Christ; and so afterwards he had a greater and worse scar of sin. And rightly the priest, namely Christ, pronounced him defiled when he said to him, "Therefore he who delivered me to you has the greater sin." For in calling Judas more cruel, he did not leave Pilate either free from sin. Paul too sinned; but when the ulcer had been healed through his calling, he so healed the scar of sin that he himself called himself a persecutor; for he says, "I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God"; and it did not spread afterwards. Therefore the heavenly priest, seeing him, judges him clean, when Ananias hesitated and was unwilling to go to him, as to a persecutor and unclean man, and he said: "Go, for he is a chosen vessel to me, to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel."

Verses 24–28. "Flesh and skin which fire has burned, and which, when healed, has a white or reddish scar: the priest shall consider it. And behold, if it has turned to whiteness, and its place is lower than the rest of the skin, he shall pronounce him defiled, because the stroke of leprosy has arisen in the scar. But if the colour of the hairs has not been changed, and the stroke is not lower than the rest of the flesh, and the appearance of the leprosy itself is somewhat dark, he shall shut him up seven days, and on the seventh day he shall look. If the leprosy has grown in the skin, he shall pronounce him defiled; but if the whiteness has stood in its place, not very bright, it is the stroke of a burn; and therefore he shall be cleansed, because it is the scar of a burn."

To some the lawgiver seems to speak of the same things, but it is not so; for in one respect he says the same things, and in another he differs: he sets forth a different affliction, yet adds the same judgment of the affliction. Above he spoke of some ulcer that comes upon one, which is produced and advances from sickness of the body; for Holy Scripture is accustomed to call these ulcers. But those from iron or stones or some other blow it calls strokes and wounds. That is why it says of Lazarus, "The dogs came and licked his ulcers"; for those wounds were of clean flesh, corrupted by hunger and disease. But of the man who went down to Jericho and fell among robbers it says, "Inflicting strokes on him, they went away"; then a little later it commanded the Samaritan to bind up these strokes as wounds. The divine Spirit himself shows through the Scriptures the plain difference between an ulcer and a wound or stroke. What, then, truly is the ulcer of our neglected flesh, if not the pleasure of bodies, drunkenness and gluttony, which arise when the body runs riot and leaps up in itself? And the fire is greater envy, a hidden fire, consuming little by little the one who has it. That is why Isaiah says, "Zeal will seize an untaught people, and now fire will consume the adversaries." By "the zeal of the unskilled" he meant envy that is jealous, not so as to imitate virtues but so as to hinder them and destroy the one who practises them. If, then, a burning befalls some man, that is, a sinner, from envy, and he has been healed by repentance, the priest examines the scar, lest perhaps after repentance he fall back into the affliction. And if he finds that he has returned, he pronounces him defiled, rightly judging him unclean. For "the earth that drinks the rain that often comes upon it, and brings forth herbs useful to those by whom it is tilled, receives a blessing from the Lord; but that which bears thorns and thistles is rejected and near to a curse, whose end is in burning," as Paul says. But if envy is not found to have returned to its wickedness, and he does not have, from later action, a hidden ulcer spread through the former sin, the priest judges him clean, as one once cleansed through repentance. And he discerns this by attending to the hair, whether it has changed to white, and whether the place is lower than the skin. All of this we have interpreted most fully above; so brevity must be used here, that we may run on to other things.

Verses 29–34. "A man or a woman on whose head or beard leprosy has sprung up: the priest shall see them; and if the place is lower than the rest of the flesh, and the hair yellow and thinner than usual, he shall pronounce them defiled, because it is leprosy of the head and beard. But if he sees the place of the spot like the neighbouring flesh, and the hair black, he shall shut him up seven days, and on the seventh day he shall look. If the spot has not grown, and the hair is of its own colour, and the place of the stroke equal to the rest of the flesh, the man shall be shaved, except the place of the spot, and shall be shut up another seven days. If on the seventh day the stroke is seen to have stood in its place, and not lower than the rest of the flesh, he shall cleanse him; and when his garments are washed he shall be clean."

The law gave this commandment not about any matters at random but about necessary ones. For it pertained not only to actions but also to the divine doctrines to come. So it speaks altogether fittingly, taking diligent care first of strictness of life, and then of the things that pertain to doctrine. And it lays down the law no longer for some man in particular; but what does it say? "A man or a woman," distinguishing more plainly what "man" ought to be understood to mean. And why did it need this explanation here? So that a woman who sins in doctrine should not be pardoned because she is thought weak. It calls this sin leprosy in the head and in the beard because these are the more precious parts of our body; and by this it shows that impiety in doctrines arises not about any matters whatever but about very necessary ones, without which a man cannot subsist, as he cannot without a head. That is why David too, wishing to show that brotherly love is the highest of all the commandments, compared it to ointment running down from the head onto the beard; for he says: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity: like the ointment on the head, which runs down onto the beard, the beard of Aaron." When, then, it happens that anyone errs about the Godhead, he has a spot of leprosy in the beard and in the head. Let the priest examine him, and if he sees the place lower than the rest of the flesh, and a more wretched presumption arising from blasphemy … . And how is this? "If the hair is yellow and thinner than usual": that is, if, though not greatly, he has yet bent his mind a little toward blasphemy; for this is what it shows for the hair to be thin, and not to blossom but to yellow. "The priest shall pronounce them defiled." Why? "Because it is leprosy of the head and beard," or, as the Seventy give it, a wound. For, wounded and bruised by the devil, he has come to such impiety, since it often happens that someone speaks impious things against his will. "If he sees the place of the spot equal to the neighbouring flesh, and the hair black": so that the wound inflicted on the soul by the devil's working, that is, the impiety of doctrines, does not spread. "The priest shall shut them up seven days": not so much as a penalty as for the sake of a strict testing; for time must be considered in all, but more strictly in those whose tongue is free about the Godhead.

Then how does he judge after the shutting up? Admirable is the strictness he keeps against those who act impiously in doctrines. "If the spot," namely the impiety, "has not grown, and the hair is of its own colour," that is, there is no yellow hair in it, since the thought cannot be known for its dealings, whether he acted impiously willingly or unwillingly, then he commands the man to be shaved except the place of the spot. Plainly, then, he commanded such words to be shaved and corrected, if perhaps it could be grasped from them whether he spoke impious things about God by surprise, as often happens, or with ill will. But he did not command the old wound to be shaved, because the word in which one offends need no longer be judged once he who sinned has denied it. For who [would hold] guilty of sin one who denies that he uttered willingly what he confessed with his tongue? And when, judging him in this way, he has not found that the spot has grown, nor seen impiety spread in him, since by blaspheming he has altogether defiled the robe of baptism, he rightly commanded him to wash his garments by repentance, and then he will be clean; for all impiety is cleansed by clean repentance. Yet if this man, cleansed in the way described, speaks impious things again, the priest will not examine the yellow hair; it is not asked, he says, in what spirit he spoke impious things, but because he has fallen back into things he repented of, he rightly judges him unclean. "If the hair is not black": that is, if he does not appear to be mourning his impiety, and mourning not only in dress but in mind and thoughts; for to remain black is the mark of mourners. And since it is the inner man of the sinner, which the thoughts cover, that must mourn, he rightly signified his repentance by the black hair. That is why the church of God, loving service, is adorned in the mourning robe of repentance, and therefore says that she is beautiful because she is black, as it is written: "I am black but beautiful, daughter of Jerusalem"; that is, because in repenting I have put on the robe of mourning. So the priest cleanses one who does penance as often as he sees this happen to him. Having spoken sufficiently of impieties committed against God, whether from will or from ignorance, he turns his discourse to other, more moderate wounds.

Verses 38–39. "A man and a woman in whose skin whiteness appears: the priest shall look at them; if he finds a somewhat dark whiteness shining in the skin, let him know that it is not leprosy but a spot of white colour, and the man is clean."

Now let us too, like David, eager in the knowledge of the law, say with him: "He has not dealt so with every nation, and he has not shown them his judgments." Having used the greatest strictness above about the divine doctrines and those who transgress them, now, since he has finished speaking of them, he rightly lays aside the austerity of his strictness and speaks of the doctrines that are according to the Jewish law, and he said that the faults in it are a somewhat dark and shining whiteness. As, then, we said that the white scar is the transgression of the legal letter, so let us understand that ignorance of it is called a somewhat dark and shining whiteness. Not, however, ignorance of everything it says, nor of the things it has in common with the natural law or the gospel precepts; for ignorance of "You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal" is pardoned to no one; but ignorance of certain particular and small commandments, such as when a menstruating woman must be cleansed, when an offering must be made for one who bears a male, and when for one who bears a female. That is why he called them a somewhat dark whiteness, as small scars, the man now having a small ignorance of the precepts. One who is such does not need to be cleansed; for these were given not for the justification of the Jews but so that their yoke might be made heavier. That is why God also said through the prophet: "I gave them precepts that were not good, and judgments by which they shall not live."

Verses 40–44. "A man from whose head the hairs fall out is bald and clean. And if the hairs fall from the forehead, he is bald in front and clean. But if in the baldness, or in the front baldness, a white or red colour has arisen, and the priest sees it, he shall pronounce him defiled: without doubt it is leprosy that has arisen in it." We must remember that we have understood the hairs as thoughts: for they adorn the head and

cover it, as the thoughts do the mind. But let us not bring disordered thoughts into the discussion, since disorder of the hair too shows ugliness instead of adornment. Moreover, just as some hairs fall out and others grow again and never cease to grow, so too with the thoughts that are in these: as some fall away, others grow again. Here, then, he calls "bald" the simple man, not one who is wholly foolish or irrational; for what man is there who has no hairs on his head, even a few? So he describes the man who, from simplicity, has few thoughts, and rightly commands that he be clean; for so it has been given him by the lot of nature, which is why the Lord compares him to the dove. But why did the lawgiver bring this man's person into doubt at all? Because it is better to have prudence along with innocence, as is clear from what the Lord said: "Be wise as serpents and simple as doves." But though that is praiseworthy, this is not to be blamed. For as he judges clean the man who is wholly simple, so too the man who is so in part, especially the one who is so from simplicity; for this is to be understood by the hairs falling out, that is, thinning on the forehead, the man he called "bald in front." This man is worse than the former; for it is better to hide one's virtues; yet if someone discloses their glory, it is a tolerable affliction and close to pardon. That is why he will be clean, because divine Scripture says that virtues are disclosed to the face and that we are adorned by them before men. Notice Paul saying: "Look at the things that are before your face. If anyone thinks himself to be Christ's, let him consider this again within himself, that as he is Christ's, so are we." This he says provided no sin is committed out of the simplicity of the simple man.

"But if a white or reddish spot has appeared in his baldness or in his front baldness, it is leprosy." Why? Because no one is so simple as not to know that he must not put his hand in the fire, nor throw himself from the height of a precipice, nor misuse a sword on the vital parts. And if he knows these things, how much more will he know that to kill is evil, that to slander is very bad, that to eat things sacrificed to idols is impious, and to desire another man's wife is wicked? If, then, the priest finds him having a white or red spot in his baldness or in his front baldness, that is, finds that in his simplicity, whole or partial, he has sinned and transgressed the gospel rule or the legal rule, he will condemn him, or pronounce him defiled. Why? "Because without doubt leprosy has arisen in the baldness"; or, as the Seventy have it, "because his spot is on his head," that is, because he has sinned in strong and necessary matters, in which no one who sins deserves pardon. For the natural law, toward which the necessary parts of the law tend, and much more the gospel precepts, are not foreign even to simple souls.

Verses 45–46. "Whoever, then, has been stained with leprosy and separated at the priest's judgment shall have his garments rent, his head bare, his mouth covered with a garment, defiled and filthy; he shall cry out all the time that he is leprous; and being unclean he shall dwell alone outside the camp."

The interpretation of the letter at face value seems altogether ridiculous to many. For what good is it to rend the garments, or to have the head bare and the mouth covered? For not even the man who is leprous in body breathes out an odour of shame, so that he should rightly cover his mouth for this reason. But because the lawgiver understood the leper to be the man who is unclean through the sins described above, he necessarily commanded that his garments be rent, so that by this it might be known that he has the virtues and strength of the soul loosened, which could have guarded it from the … and frost of sin. And he commanded him to have his head bare, as one not having the helmet of salvation, which Paul commanded to be taken up among the spiritual arms. And he did not command the mouth to be covered in vain, but because sin has an evil smell and gives off every vile exhalation, yet much more that which comes through the tongue; at the same time also he bars such a man from the dignity of a teacher. For how can one who is himself guilty restrain the fall into fault? How can one who steals command others not to steal? One who commits adultery bid them not commit adultery? Hence David too said: "But to the sinner God said: Why do you declare my righteous deeds, and take my covenant in your mouth? You have hated instruction and cast my words behind you." And not indeed always, but "all the time that he is leprous," that is, all the days in which the spot is in him. What, then, does he signify by this? That even if he has sinned once, and even if he has not gone on to sin further, he is nevertheless called unclean until he repents; for without repentance the leprosy of sin is not cleansed at all, and so the spot of spiritual leprosy remains in him. Therefore the true leper, that is, the sinner, dwells alone and separated, both that he may be put to shame and that no one may be harmed by the contagion of his company. Hence the Lord said to Peter, of the one who had sinned and refused to obey the church so as to turn and amend: "Let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector." For "he shall dwell outside the camp." For the commandments of the law, according to the spirit, are in close harmony with those of the gospel. Hence John, separating the spiritual leper from the spiritual tabernacle, writes in the catholic epistles: "Whoever comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into the house, and do not say Hail to him."

Verses 47–59. "A garment of wool or linen that has leprosy in the warp or the woof, or a skin, or whatever is made of skin, if there is a white or reddish spot, it shall be counted infected with leprosy and shown to the priest. He, considering it, shall shut it up seven days, and on the seventh day, looking again, if he finds the leprosy has grown, it is a persistent leprosy; he shall judge the garment polluted, and everything in which it is found, and therefore it shall be burned with fire. But if he sees that it has not grown, he shall give command, and they shall wash that in which the leprosy is. And shutting it up another seven days, when he sees that the former look has not returned, though the leprosy has not grown, he shall judge it unclean and burn it with fire, because the leprosy has been poured into the surface of the garment, or through the whole of it. But if the place of the leprosy is darker after the garment has been washed, he shall tear it off and cut it away from the whole. And if there appears further, in the places that were before unstained, a flying and wandering leprosy, it must be burned with fire. If it has ceased, he shall wash a second time what is pure, and it shall be clean. This is the law of the leprosy of a garment of wool and linen, of warp and woof, and of every article of skin, how they must be cleansed or pronounced defiled."

Some perhaps judge the lawgiver unseemly and very abject because he speaks of warp and woof, which is commonly called the weft, leaving aside whatever could dispose the souls of those who hear the law to better things. "For what harm," they say, "will a soiled warp, or a woof or weft made leprous, or a vessel of skin with a spot, do to our life?" Hence we must attend not to the letter alone, but to the fruit of the spirit, which is kept under the letter of the law as the fruit of the vine is kept under the leaf. For the lawgiver takes such care of us that he makes us wary not only of that leprosy which comes from the sins already mentioned, but also of that which often comes about concerning the virtues when someone uses them badly. So there are some garments of the soul and others of the body; and these, whether soiled or stripped off, do not grieve us; for so Joseph was to be stripped of his garments when the Egyptian woman laid hold of them, and so John the Baptist was clothed in camel's hair. But those of the soul ought to be brighter, of which Solomon said: "Let your garments always be white." So David says: "All the glory of the king's daughter is within, in golden fringes, clothed about with variety," declaring the glory within to be the beauty of the soul, in golden fringes, which are the virtues. But of these garments some are woollen, some linen: woollen, precious and great and warming the soul much; linen, cheap and warming it little. The woollen garment of the soul is virginity; the linen, conjugal chastity. The woollen, continence from gain or from possessing; the linen, generosity with what one has. The woollen, the philosophy of the desert; the linen, honour or modesty in the city. The woollen, to strive for the truth even to death; the linen, not to speak falsehoods. Hence Solomon too, declaring figuratively that the church is clothed in double garments, said: "She sought wool and flax, and worked with the skill of her hands"; and again: "She made herself a covering garment; fine linen and purple are her clothing." For the church has woollen and linen garments, fine linen and purple: those who are seemly in marriage and in virginity, and all the other things which we have just said are signified, on the two sides, by woollen and linen garments.

But since the lawgiver mentioned the warp and woof from which garments are woven together, let us now unfold that very subtlety; for he wishes to search out not only the virtues but also the things of which they consist. Two things, then, procure true virtue for us: our intention, and the divine assent, or grace. The woof indicates our intention, and the warp God's assent, and rightly, because the warp is the firmer part of the garment; just as God's assent, or grace, stands in us unbreakable and unchangeable, supporting the woof of our intention, so that the garment of good action may be completed. The skins, from which something can be made: he calls skins the temptations for piety or faith and the tribulations for virtue. Why? Because as a skin is dead, and a vessel can be made from it, yet from it perhaps a wineskin, or a jar, or …, or the hide of a tent, or something else useful is made; so too tribulations and temptations put a man to death in the world, for they humble him and show him reduced to nothing. Yet a good and useful vessel is made from them, patience and proven character, which in every way obtains a crown from the Lord. For James says: "Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been proved he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him." And Paul says: "Tribulation works patience, and patience proven character, and proven character hope, and hope does not put to shame." You see how many useful vessels are made from the skin of tribulations and temptations. And that it is not unfitting to call tribulations and temptations skins, hear Job saying of his tribulations and temptations: "My skin, my flesh being consumed, has clung to my bone, and only my lips are left about my teeth. Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you, my friends, for the hand of the Lord has touched me."

He forbids, then, that in perfect virtue, which is the garment, whether it be great or moderate (for this we said is the difference between woollen and linen), a white or reddish spot be found; or, as the Seventy have it, greenish or fiery. By the greenish he means pride, by the fiery kenodoxia, vainglory; for this was the transgression of the angels; for everywhere Christ commanded that virtues be free from vainglory, and bids us neither fast nor show mercy to please men; for he affirmed that those who do so lose their reward. For those who wish to be praised by men, how will they then expect to be praised by the Lord? And pride is understood as greenish because it flourishes for a little, like green things, so that David said: "I saw the wicked man highly exalted and lifted up above the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and behold, he was not"; and again of the same: "Like grass they shall wither, and like the green herbs they shall soon fall." And the people of the Moabites too, which was subject to such pride that, when Israel … all the other nations, it would by no means grant a passage, but used arms and hired Balaam with a fee to curse, was itself also called a green field by Balaam, though he did not know what he was saying; for he said to the elders of Midian: "So this people will destroy all who dwell in our borders, as the ox is wont to crop the grass to the root." So it is plainly proved that he forbids pride, or vainglory, to cling to virtue. Nor does he wish the leprosy mentioned to come upon the warp or the woof, that is, that we ourselves aim at the virtues with pride or vainglory, or pray that such grace concur with us from God. Nor does the lawgiver wish us to endure temptations with any of these. And if perhaps such a thing should happen, as to men, he wishes the priest to examine them, and neither to reject the virtue, nor the intention of virtue, nor the patience of temptations, nor at once to declare them unclean from a suspicion of pride or vainglory, nor again to receive them as clean, but to separate them for seven days and discern the affliction by time. And if it has grown, all the things mentioned in which this has occurred are unclean, because it is a persistent leprosy, and that is why he commands them to be burned with fire. So he signifies the flame of Gehenna and makes mention of the time to come; for he did not say "it is burned in the fire" but "it shall be burned in the fire."

"But if after the shutting up he sees that it has not grown, he shall give command, and they shall wash that in which the leprosy is": that is, he commanded him to wash those things away by repentance. Then after the delay he commands it to be shut up again seven days, so that he may know whether he finds the spot of pride or vainglory remaining; though it has not grown, yet if it is unchanged, because it does not pass over to repentance, it is unclean and shall be burned with fire. For the affliction has been strengthened, and therefore the man neither wishes to correct the evil through virtue nor attends to it. "But if the place of the leprosy is darker," that is, the leprosy uncertain and doubtful, after the garment has been washed through repentance, he commanded the affliction to be cut off from the garment of virtue and of the other things mentioned. How, then, does one tear off pride? By humbling oneself greatly; and likewise by removing vainglory from oneself in every way, that is, by taking delight or joy neither in honours, by which the affliction of pride is nourished, nor in praises, by which vainglory grows; and by so living that he does not even fall under suspicion of either of these. And then he will be able to be clean. "But if it appears further in the places that were before unstained," that is, in the garment, or the woof, or the warp, or the skin, that is, in virtue or in the temptations themselves, he still bears the same affliction for which he was washed or repented, and remains in it, he is counted unclean in this way, and the fire of Gehenna receives him. "Because the leprosy is flying and wandering": that is, because what had once been … of the spot, that is, once he has been cleansed of the suspicion, he wishes it washed again, so that it may then be called clean. Hence the lawgiver hints most plainly that you should understand this, since he wishes one to repent of the same sin with frequent tears. For frequent remembrance allows neither the wound itself nor another to prevail. Since, then, the lawgiver commanded purifications for the spots that come upon virtues too, now learn by what means he cleanses the leper. Attending to this, you will find that the lawgiver's care was for that leprosy which is inflicted on our souls by offences.

Verses 1–9. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: This is the rite of the leper when he is to be cleansed: he is brought to the priest; and the priest, going out of the camp, when he finds that the leprosy has been cleansed, shall command him who is being purified to offer for himself two living sparrows, which it is lawful to eat, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. And he shall command one of the sparrows to be sacrificed in an earthen vessel over living water; and the other, living, he shall dip, with the cedar wood and the scarlet and the hyssop, in the blood of the sparrow that was sacrificed. And he shall sprinkle him who is to be cleansed seven times, that he may be rightly purged; and he shall let the living sparrow go, to fly away into the field. And when the man has washed his garments, he shall shave all the hairs of his body and be washed with water. And being purified he enters the camp, yet so that he remains outside his own tent seven days; and on the seventh day he shall shave the hairs of his head and his beard and his eyebrows and the hairs of his whole body, his garments and body being washed again."

Since we must not think that the lawgiver says anything carelessly, you ought above all to note this, that now, when he enacts concerning cleansings, he speaks to Moses alone, and not also to Aaron as above; for Moses especially bears the image of Christ, in none of the ways that have been mentioned. And the cleansing of leprosy in general belongs to Christ alone. That is why he does not speak of leprosy of one kind, for example that which arises in a wound or a burn or otherwise, but says, "This is the rite of the leper," wishing by this to embrace every kind of leprosy, because Christ too cleansed every kind of sin. So the present matter is very like his mystery, as we learn from this: that he commanded not that the leper go to the priest, but that the priest go to him, and that he who is to be cleansed be brought. Just so Christ came to us, and to those who needed to be cleansed and washed by him. And he commanded the priest to go out of the camp to look at him who was to be cleansed: as Christ visited us outside the camp, through the passion of the cross and the dispensation that was then accomplished. But he did not do this before he saw that the spot of leprosy was being healed by him, that is, before he had seen that we were free of error. When, then, not only those of the Jewish people believed in him, but Gentiles too came up and desired to see him, and the disciples reported this, he said: "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." When he saw that the human race was prepared for deliverance and salvation through the cross (for this he also called his glory), what then did he take? "Two living sparrows, which it is lawful to eat." For Christ had these two, namely divinity and humanity, because the humanity of Christ too is clean and living: clean, as having no sin of its own; living, as not begotten of the uncleanness of a man, and therefore not subject to the curse of death.

"Let him take," he says, "cedar wood too": that is, the cross. It is signified by the cedar because the cedar is strong among woods; and the ark too is said to have been made of cedar wood, since Moses mentioned incorruptible wood in its construction. "Let him take scarlet too," which the Seventy give as "twisted scarlet," that is, the passion; for it is called scarlet because of its blood colour. Hence the soldiers put a scarlet cloak on him when he was being led to his passion. And why did they say it was twisted? Because of passibility and impassibility joined together, for which reason the passion is in him in a certain manner. And the sweet-smelling hyssop is the grace of the Spirit, which works together in our cleansing; hence David says, "You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed." Of the sparrows, then, which we said are Christ, he commanded this one to be sacrificed or killed, that is, what was passible and could be killed, and to be killed in an earthen vessel over living [waters], in us, that is, for us, since we are an earthen vessel, made of clay. The Only-begotten according to the flesh is killed over living waters, that is, of baptism. For his death figures our baptism, as Paul shows, saying: "All of us who have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into his death." In this the living sparrow is dipped, and the cedar wood, and the twisted scarlet, and the hyssop; for all these are comprised in the power of baptism, which we said is the figure and sign of the Lord's passion. But the living sparrow, which we take as the divinity of the Only-begotten, is dipped here in the blood of the sparrow that was killed, and in water, that is, in the grace of baptism, because we are baptized not in the passion of a man but in the passion of God and man. Then after this the living sparrow is let go to fly into the field. So the divinity was impassible and also inseparable from the flesh which suffered; hence, though separable, it is baptized in the blood, so that, impassible and living, it may fly into the field: it is sent out into the breadth of contemplation, our understanding letting it go; for it is held under the contemplation of this, held back only of its own will, since it can be held back by nothing else.

Moreover, he who has been cleansed washes his garments, namely his actions, and any virtues he had, because he defiled these too by sin; and he washes them by repentance. And he shaves the hair, that is, he lays aside every thought, because he had them all unclean. And washed with the water of repentance or of baptism, he will then necessarily be cleansed. For though he called him clean above (for he says, "When he has been seen to be cleansed, he shall offer two sparrows"), he was speaking of him who was fit for cleansing; for how does one who is already clean still need to be cleansed? Then he will enter the camp, to take part in our assembly and, as a partner in spiritual contracts and in that other communion which is held with the faithful, to gain its fruits. That sinners not yet cleansed are barred from this, hear the apostle saying: "If one who is called a brother is an adulterer, or covetous, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or rapacious, with such a one do not even eat." Yet he remains outside his tent seven days, still separated from the communion of the holy things, for the sake of a more careful guarding and of gradual progress to better things. For each one's tent is the attainment of the mysteries, covering us from frost and heat, the tent in which he sups with God, as sons with a father, or a bride with the bridegroom, or whatever else is said that pertains more closely to kinship.

"And on the seventh day he shall shave the hairs of his head and his beard and his eyebrows and the hairs of his whole body." Here he commanded not only the head but also the beard and the eyebrows and simply every hair in the whole body, and so also that of the hidden parts. He wishes, then, no old thought to remain in him: not only those which show forth the adornment of man as rational and discussing many divine matters (for these he signifies by the head, because of its adornment and their multitude), but not those either which make a man contemplative, thinking about sublime and more divine things. For this is designated by the eyebrows, which are set in the higher parts and stay about the organs of the contemplative senses. Nor those which, containing discernment, are rightly signified by the beard, because the beard above all distinguishes the male sex from the female. He commanded this not as wishing him to be without thought, but wishing him to become new and as it were newborn, and to strip off the old man so as to put on the new. For as in one who has shaved the old hair another new and fresh hair grows, so in this man, when the old thoughts are gone, others, new, sprout toward better things. And he is to wash his garments again, that is, to make his actions clean. "And he shall wash his body again with water": washing it a second time, though for us there is no second baptism, for "one Lord, one faith, one baptism." And how will he be washed a second time, unless simply by tears? For this may be done not once, nor twice, but three times and often; for David too said, "My tears have been my bread day and night." These things suffice to satisfy one who attends, that the law commanded spiritual things to the spiritual, and truly wishes us to fear leprosy, that is, sin. That is why it commanded so many cleansings of it, though it had commanded none for any of the other things that concern the body. A more precise proof of these will come from what follows.

Verses 10–20. "He shall take two lambs without blemish, and a ewe of a year old without blemish, and three tenths of fine flour for a sacrifice, mixed with oil, and separately a sextarius of oil. And when the priest who purifies the man has set him and all these things before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of witness, he shall take a lamb and offer it for trespass, and the sextarius of oil. And when all have been offered before the Lord, he shall sacrifice the lamb where the victim for sin and the burnt offering are usually sacrificed, that is, in the holy place. For as for sin, so for trespass the victim belongs to the priest: it is holy of holies. And the priest, taking of the blood of the victim sacrificed for trespass, shall put it on the tip of the right ear of him who is being cleansed, and on the thumb of the right hand and of the foot. And of the sextarius of oil he shall pour into his left hand, and dip his right finger in it, and sprinkle seven times before the Lord. And what is left of the oil in his left hand he shall pour on the tip of the right ear of him who is being cleansed, and on the thumb of the right hand and of the right foot, and upon the blood that was poured out for trespass, and upon his head. And he shall pray for him before the Lord, and make the sacrifice for sin. Then he shall sacrifice the burnt offering and place it on the altar with its libations, and the man shall be duly cleansed."

We know that the law is spiritual; Paul says this so that, judging spiritually, we may not be robbed of the fruits of the law that are hidden in the letter. For after he commanded sacrifice to be made for the cleansing of the leper on the first day, on which the priest goes out of the camp, see, now again on the eighth day other sacrifices are ordered to be made for him. The eighth day, then, has the same force as the first, because all the present time is divided into weeks; after them comes the eighth, renewing it altogether. And this is the day on which the Saviour rose, on which we shall enter the camp. For after seven days he commanded the leper who had been cleansed to enter the camp on the eighth day. But what camp? Surely that which the patriarch Jacob saw when, with angels meeting him, he called the place "the camp of God." To this the cleansed leper comes, as one long since justified, at the time of the resurrection; as a figure of it, as we said, the lawgiver took the eighth day. And the things commanded to be done on the eighth day bear the image of the mystery that concerns us. For he commanded two lambs without blemish of a year old to be taken, and one ewe of a year old without blemish, one of which he commanded to be sacrificed for sin and another for a burnt offering. All these bear the figure of the Saviour's sacrifice; for he himself, for our sins and trespasses, was himself the victim for a burnt offering. And he commanded a sacrifice of both sexes to be offered to show that Christ, slain for us, will save male and female alike. And not in vain did he command a yearling in both cases; by this he figured the perfect sacrifice, of which, as has been said, these bear the figure; for among the animals mentioned, the yearling animals are full-grown, so as to be fit even for begetting young.

But since he who is being cleansed must be sealed, upon the sacrifice of the Only-begotten, also with faith in the whole Trinity, there are three tenths of fine flour, that is, the Trinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, having in each person perfection; for ten is the perfect number. That is why the Lord too said: "The kingdom of heaven is like a woman who took leaven and hid it in three measures of flour, until the whole was leavened." He commands these to be taken mixed with oil for a sacrifice: and he means the sacrifice of the Only-begotten, which is mixed with oil because it was done out of compassion for us. But how do we say that three tenths of fine flour are offered in it? Because, although by the passion of the Only-begotten, yet what was done by that sacrifice was a mystery of the whole Trinity. For baptism too is performed in the name of the Father and of the only-begotten Son himself and of the Holy Spirit, in which we are baptized into the death of Christ, and the whole mystery itself is sanctified in it. And he commanded a sextarius of oil to be taken, because each of the things mentioned is understood and done by faith. It is rightly named a sextarius because, as a sextarius is a measure (or if we say kotylē, according to the Seventy), the same measure of each holds neither less nor more; what is more is poured out, and it does not take less, because what is lessened can no longer be called a sextarius or a kotylē. So too faith is given according to the measure of our mind, which holds neither more nor less than has been … to each by God …; … tends to unbelief. But why did he say a sextarius or kotylē of oil? Because God, he says, having pity on the human race when he saw it weakened for fulfilling the works of the law, wished to save man no longer by works but through grace. And grace is shown from mercy and compassion and is grasped by faith alone, not by works, as Paul says: "For otherwise grace would no longer be grace."

Having received these, then, he who has been cleansed is brought to the door of the tabernacle of witness, that is, to the entrance of the knowledge of God. And the priest, taking one lamb, sacrifices it for trespass. Yet if this enactment were about a bodily affliction, as it seems to some, what need was there to sacrifice a lamb for sin? But because, on account of the weakness of the Jews, it overshadows the mysteries and hides the spiritual understanding in the letter, it thus also gives certain occasions of contemplation through the letter, and words that signify the understanding of the spirit. Hence now too, when he had commanded one lamb to be sacrificed for sin, he does not say of what kind, because without doubt he himself is [the victim] both for trespass and for him whose ears were held by leprosy. … Why, then, does he do so, unless perhaps to fortify the hearing and make it wary? Because he himself, seduced by the serpent, … sin as he seduced. And by the hand he signifies actions, and by the foot he wished to embrace and forestall all our motions and ways. For when these are guarded by the blood of the spiritual lamb and the faith in him that has been given us through his mercy and compassion, spiritual leprosy will in no way be able to penetrate a man. And he wishes the priest to put the oil of the sextarius or kotylē, which we say is faith, into his hand, so that the faith of the priest, through which we too make progress, may be shown in works. For it does not put forth its power otherwise than when the hand has been taken up, that is, when it is confirmed by action and sealed by works. And he puts the oil into the left hand, and dips the right finger in the oil, as Paul says, "by the weapons of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, … through glory and dishonour, through ill report and good report," and the things like these. "Then he shall sprinkle seven times before the Lord." For such a priest has confidence before God when he is able to cleanse those who suffer need and to forgive them their sins. That is why he sprinkles seven times, because this number has been shown to be the remission of sins. But after he has smeared it on the tips of the right ears and on the thumbs of the right hand and of the right foot, as we said above, he pours the rest of the oil on the head of him who has been called to be cleansed: through the head [giving] sanctification to the whole former body, and by this anointing making him who has been cleansed an anointed one of the Lord. "Then," he says, "the sacrifice for sin is offered." But how, he does not say; for from what has been said about trespasses, the things that concern sin can also be inferred, since they are near to each other and common, being of common matter. After this he sacrifices the burnt offering and places it on the altar, both for the order of the sacrifices and for the progress of the law that came about little by little. For he placed first the sacrifice of sin and trespass, and then the burnt offering. So first the sacrifice of Christ cleanses us from trespasses and sins, and then our burnt offering is completed. And therefore, speaking first of trespass, he then added these, because he was speaking of Christ in both, and to one sacrifice, which from the victim affords us sanctification, which makes us go up to the altar. For when, by the spiritual cleansing of the Spirit sanctifying our whole body and soul, we have become spiritual, and worthy

to go up to the altar, then we receive the fullest cleansing, after which we need no other. For you have now heard the progress of the cleansings: one of them frees us from the pollution of leprosy, another brings us into the camp of God, and this one can lead us to the altar itself, as those most fully cleansed, and raise us up. And since we are called to what follows, we must pass on to it with all diligence.

Verses 21–32. "But if he is poor, and his hand cannot find the things mentioned, he shall take a lamb for trespass as an offering, that the priest may pray for him, and a tenth part of fine flour mixed with oil for a sacrifice, and a sextarius of oil, and two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one of which is for sin and the other for a burnt offering; and he shall offer them on the eighth day of his purification to the priest at the door of the tabernacle of witness before the Lord. And he, receiving the lamb for trespass and the sextarius of oil, shall lift them up together; and when the lamb has been sacrificed, he shall put some of its blood on the tip of the right ear of him who is being cleansed, and on the thumbs of his right hand and foot. And part of the oil he shall pour into his left hand, and dipping the finger of his right hand in it, he shall sprinkle seven times before the Lord. And he shall touch the tip of the right ear of him who is being cleansed, and the thumbs of the right hand and foot, in the place of the blood that was poured out for trespass. And the rest of the oil that is in his left hand he shall put on the head of the one purified, that he may appease the Lord for him. And he offers a turtledove or a young pigeon, one for trespass and the other for a burnt offering, with their libations. This is the sacrifice of the leper who cannot have everything for his cleansing."

The lawgiver uses an admirable condescension toward those who receive the law. For see, he grants indulgence to poverty and commands that the poor man's sacrifices be moderate, lest perhaps he be dismayed when greater things are commanded him than his strength allows. But since we do not easily find any of the things mentioned in the earnings of the poor (for one who has no bread, where will he get a lamb? and one who lacks money, where will he buy a pigeon or a turtledove?), it is clear that he intends some contemplation, and leads to the hidden things of the spirit him who wishes to enter the hidden treasures of knowledge. For though he could have reduced the number of sacrifices because of the poverty of the one offering, he omits this and seeks for him certain cheap things of no great price; he does this both to spare poverty and, for the profit of the sacrifices, wishing to give us to understand … that leprosy signifies wickedness, and then that its cleansing is repentance. But it … necessary works, which by virtues and zeal in action can blot out sins; that is why John the Baptist said to the people of the Jews, "Bear fruit worthy of repentance." For, as a subtle lawgiver, he considered those who cannot show forth all the things that belong to the strict discipline of repentance. For repentance needs earnest prayer, almsgiving, vigils, sackcloth, fasting, and finally also the things David speaks of: "My tears have been my bread day and night," and, "Every night I will wash my bed; I will water my couch with my tears," and, "I ate ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping." For there are some who perhaps cannot do all these things because of old age, or because of great bodily weakness, or some other necessity, as we have interpreted in another matter in the present book. He pardons them, because they are willing, but their hand does not find; for they cannot. And as one granting indulgence, he seeks for them another way of repentance, other kinds of sacrifices; and before all he names a lamb. For everyone doing penance must above all pass over to kindness and pursue it, because this is easy for anyone to attain once he has abstained from evils. "A tenth part of fine flour mixed with oil": that is, to attain the theology of Christ, who by oil, or mercy, endured to be tempered to our flesh. "And a sextarius," or, according to the Seventy, one kotylē of oil: and we showed most plainly earlier that this is faith.

But what did the lawgiver command to be offered with these? Two turtledoves or two young pigeons. These are easily found by anyone: that is, continual meditation on the law, which is accomplished not only by reading (lest perhaps you say that this too is difficult for some) but also by contemplation, which is in the soul and mind. Both of these serve in place of sackcloth and fasting and tears and ashes for food and the like, if we practise them for the humbling of the flesh and the restraining of the soul from earthly works. And meditation on the law does this too, and this continual study and the careful contemplation and searching out of the divine commandments and benefits; … he introduced these sacrifices in place of those, which David too sets out, saying: "Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of pestilence." This shows …, signifying innocence. "But his will was in the law of the Lord": namely of him who has clean knowledge, through the contemplation of innocent thoughts, such as Paul says of some, "not having the law, … the work of the law written in their hearts," showing it through disciplined and chaste thoughts, of which kind in a way is the offering of the turtledove. Hence the very Spirit of God testified through the prophet Jeremiah that knowledge is in the animal: "The turtledove and the swallow and the stork have kept the time of their coming; but my people has not known the judgment of the Lord." But what did David add to the words above? "And his will was in the law of the Lord, and on his law he will meditate day and night." To this we compare the pigeon, which the prophet Isaiah says has as it were the power of meditating; for he says: "Like a young swallow, so will I cry; I will meditate like a dove." So the lawgiver found a way by which the weak too may cleanse himself and have what he can offer to God. And therefore he did not change what follows in this law, showing that even if someone's hand does not find what the purpose of repentance requires according to the first reckoning, he is indeed pardoned, as one suffering from weakness; yet he commanded things that could accomplish for him the same cleansing and the same offering to God. After this he passes to another dispensation connected with the same matter.

Verses 33–47. "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: When you have entered the land of Canaan, which I will give you for a possession, if there is a stroke of leprosy in the houses, he whose house it is shall go and tell the priest, and say: There seems to me to be as it were a stroke of leprosy in my house. And he shall command that they carry everything out of the house before he enters it to see whether it is leprosy, lest everything in the house become unclean. And afterwards he shall go in to consider the leprosy of the house. And when he sees in its walls as it were hollows, disfigured with paleness or redness, and lower than the rest of the surface, he shall go out of the door of the house and at once shut it up seven days. And returning on the seventh day he shall consider it: if he finds that the leprosy has grown, he shall command the stones in which the leprosy is to be taken out and thrown outside the city in an unclean place, and the house itself to be scraped within round about, and the dust of the scraping to be scattered outside the city in an unclean place, and other stones to be put in place of those taken away, and the house to be plastered with other clay. But if, after the stones have been taken out and the dust carried away and other earth plastered on, the priest goes in and sees that the leprosy has returned and the walls are sprinkled with spots, it is a persistent leprosy, and the house is unclean; they shall at once pull it down, and throw its stones and timber and all the dust outside the town in an unclean place. Whoever enters the house while it is shut up shall be unclean until evening. And whoever sleeps in it, or eats anything, shall wash his garments."

… ought not to meditate …, the things which he most needs to look into carefully, on which enemies and the unlearned stumble. For see, some find fault with the law just read because, according to what the Seventy say, Moses introduced God saying: "I will put a spot of leprosy in your houses, in the land of your promise." "Do you think," they say, "that God brings evils?" To them we answer: Yes; but those things which afflict for instruction, or a penalty appointed for help, are neither shameful nor evil, such as famine, earthquake, the opening of the earth, a storm at sea, war and the like, as he himself also says through the prophet: "I am the Lord, and there is no other, forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evils." And another prophet says things like these: "Because evils have come down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem, tumult, a chariot of astonishment, to the inhabitant of Lachish." And the prophet Amos says: "Is there evil in a city which the Lord has not done?" God brings these things not to harm but to help man greatly; for the afflicted man is humbled, and being humbled runs to him who can raise him up, and says with David, "It is good for me that you humbled me, that I might learn your righteous ordinances"; and he hastens to the physician, who may free him from the wound. So much for this.

But let us return to the contemplation that lies before us, lest perhaps some of those who err about outward wisdom try to find fault with the lawgiver as legislating about wood and stones and senseless walls; by them, because they are evil, even good things are judged evil. For the lawgiver's intention now is to legislate about true houses, that is, which afflictions in them are curable or easy to cleanse, and which are incurable and bring about the fullest destruction. But we shall learn the manner of these when we come to what has been said. The land of our possession is the one we possess, the inheritance of the Gentiles. For it is our possession, even if it was then our enemies'; for in it God acquired us, and those who once were not a people he now has as the people of God; that is why it will rightly be called a possession. Of this land the Lord said, "But he who was sown on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it." For our houses are the churches, of which Paul said: "If I delay, that you may know how you ought to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God." In these, according to the Seventy, God promises to put a spot of leprosy. The lawgiver's very words show this; for when he had said, "And I will put a spot of leprosy in the houses of the land of your possession, and he whose house it is shall come," he at once added, "telling the priest, and he shall say: There seems to me to be as it were a spot of leprosy in my house." And to perceive the affliction is a gift, not of just any house, and such as befits God to bestow. For if it befits a physician not to allow a sick man to do certain deadly things, it befits God too not to allow the sinner to be held longer by the disease of insensibility, lest by sinning he fall for ever into the depth of hell; which David asked in prayer, saying: "Do not turn your face from me, or I shall be like those who go down into the pit." This gift of perception is given to the church, but not to the synagogue of the Jews, as is clear from what God himself says through the prophet Hosea: "Because they consorted with harlots and sacrificed with the effeminate, and a people that does not understand shall be beaten"; and again: "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear." We have heard another prophet too saying: "They have closed their eyes, that they should not see, and made their ears heavy, that they should not hear," as being punished by the just Judge for their own sin. But not so the church: as often as she sins, God makes her perceive the sin. Hence Paul handed over to Satan the man who committed sexual immorality at Corinth, so that, afflicted by him, he might perceive his sin, saying, "I have delivered such a one to the angel of Satan for the destruction of the flesh," words like the present words of the lawgiver. And here, according to the Seventy, he says, "I will put a spot of leprosy," not as though God brings leprosy, but as one who exercises and convicts. And Paul says, "I have delivered such a one to the angel of Satan"; and yet Satan had received him long before through unlawful sexual immorality, but [Paul handed him over] so that, chastised by him with greater power (for he says, "for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved"), he might perceive the sense of his sin and be amended, and at the same time that it might be made manifest to others, so that they should not imitate him. But this house is of the land of possession, that is,

the churches of the inheritance of the Gentiles. "When you have entered," Moses and Aaron, "into the land of the Canaanites." Which is this? "Which I will give you for a possession." For seven nations, namely the Canaanites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, Jebusites, Hittites and Hivites, possessed the land promised to Abraham. And these seven bore the image of the wicked spirits of which the Lord says in the Gospels: "When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he will take seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and dwells in the man, whose last state is worse than the first." And these spirits possessed the true promised land of Abraham himself, that is, the inheritance of the Gentiles; for it was said to him, "I have made you the father of many nations." When Moses and Aaron, that is, the law and the prophets (for these bear their figure, since Aaron was called the prophet of Moses, who bears the figure of the law), have entered among the Gentiles, then through them God drives out the spiritual Canaanites mentioned, the spirits that held tyranny among the Gentiles; and he grants the Gentiles to be the possession of the law and the prophets and of those who preach them, he who [acquired] them with his own blood, both through the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly, freeing us from those whom we formerly served, so that those who are of the nations too can say the song of Isaiah: "O Lord our God, other lords besides you have possessed us; let us remember your name only in you." And whatever is his possession is without doubt also that of his servants and ministers. So when the prophets and the law have entered into the inheritance of the Gentiles, ministering to the gospel preaching, then the things that have now been said about the spiritual houses could appear.

"He whose house it is shall go and tell the priest, and say: There seems to me to be as it were a stroke of leprosy in my house." For there are domestic churches, so that he therefore says, "He whose house it is shall go." Let us hear Paul saying: "Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the church in their house." He, then, who presides over this, if he perceives spiritual leprosy, that is, if he has detected anyone's sense of evil and impious doctrine, fearing lest what he pursued for righteousness become a judgment to him, let him come to the priest, who can discern; for he himself is not simply a priest. This is clear from what Paul wrote again to the Colossians: "Greet Nympha and the church in her house." For many, out of zeal and piety, set up house churches and received in them teachers and ministers of divine things, and also those who gathered for communion and their rejoicing. Such a one, then, will go to him who bears the figure of the true priesthood, such as were Peter or Paul or Timothy, and the others who kept their teaching and virtues, remaining blameless. "For a bishop must be blameless," so that he may for that reason be able to judge the sins of others. "And he shall say: There seems to me to be as it were a stroke of leprosy in the house": that is, the sense of impious doctrine appears in my house church.

"And he shall command that they carry everything out of the house"; or, as the Seventy give it, "And the priest shall command them to uncover the house, and it shall not spread into the whole house": that is, he will command all the people gathered in it to withdraw. This is the roof of the house, or its structure, as we have often shown. And he commanded them to depart, that is, to show by deed that they are strangers to the evil that has appeared in the church, and do not share the penalty that must be inflicted on the impious. That is why Moses too, when he was about to bring Dathan and Abiram to punishment and discernment, commanded the rest of the multitude to withdraw so that they should not be made partakers of the penalty; for this is what he says: "lest everything in the house become unclean." "And afterwards the same priest shall go in to consider the leprosy of the house. And when he sees in its walls as it were hollows, disfigured with paleness or redness": the walls of the house are rightly said to be those who hold it together, that is, the orders, [of which] the church truly consists, and not, as some think, of wood and stones. Hence Moses too, when he was commanded to gather the church, called together not wood and stones and the like, but the people, the elders, and the Levites. By the same reasoning James and Cephas and John were called pillars of the church. So the walls are rightly the ministers of holy things and the teachers, since they themselves prop up the stability of the church and in a way gather the people within themselves. And what and of what kind the pale (or, as the Seventy have it, greenish) and red spot is, the interpretation of the preceding enactment showed sufficiently; for it showed that it is vainglory and pride. From these above all the walls of the church and the body of those who minister holy things and of the teachers break out into evil, wicked and impious doctrines.

If, then, he sees the appearance of the walls having hollows or pits, that is, if he perceives the opinion of those who minister holy things or of the teachers lower and in a way growing pale from the sin that has seized them, "he shall go out of the door of the house and at once shut it up seven days," bringing upon the church a moderate rebuke, by which, through repentance, it obtains pardon and is absolved. So the number seven signifies the pardon of sin. "And returning on the seventh day he shall consider it: if he finds that the leprosy has grown, he shall command the stones in which the leprosy is to be taken out and thrown outside the city in an unclean place." And this, because he did not find the spot spread nor the impiety abounding: that is, he pardons those who have sinned, as penitents and as sinning from weakness. But the doctrines and writings in which there is spiritual leprosy, namely the spot of impiety, these they rightly throw not only outside the house but outside the city, casting them out not only from one church but from the universal church. For the universal church is Jerusalem, the city of the living God, which contains the church of the firstborn enrolled in heaven. And therefore they also throw them into an unclean place, namely among the conventicles of the heretics; for this is an unclean place, because it receives all doctrines of impiety.

And what after this? "And the house itself to be scraped within round about, and the dust of the scraping to be scattered outside the city in an unclean place." They scrape the house who are eager to understand and discern the church's books carefully, so that they themselves, searching out all wickedness diligently and … the teachers sitting in perverse books, shaking them out with the scraper of judgment, may allow no remnants of impiety to remain in it; and what they have scraped off they rightly carry to the unclean place mentioned, as unclean and found among the unclean. "And other stones to be put in place of those taken away, and the house to be plastered with other clay." That the stones must be understood as the doctrines and writings of those who expound the divine law, … it is said: "Holy stones are rolled upon the earth"; and again: "Whoever builds upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones." And the dust, the interpretation and teaching that is shared, Moses the lawgiver himself signifies, according to the Seventy. For when he delivered Deuteronomy to the sons of Israel, he said this to us: "And it shall be, on whatever day you have crossed the Jordan into the land which the Lord your God will give you, you shall set up great stones, and plaster them with dust, and write upon the stones all the words of this law." Then, handing on the force of the stones, he added more plainly: "And you shall write upon the stones all this law very clearly." But a stone does not explain the law; what explains it is the doctrines and writings of those who expound it, and the shared interpretation; the one he signified by the stones and the other by the dust. Hence the Lord too commanded the apostles to shake off even the dust of their feet against those who did not receive their word and teaching: "Whoever does not receive you or hear you, when you go out from there shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them." Mark relates the Lord commanding this in these words. For divine Scripture understands by feet the gospel books, because in them the teachers make their journey; hence it says, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of peace." It rightly took the dust under their feet, namely the interpretation of the gospel books, because of its great fineness. So when he says that the stones are scraped out and other dust brought in, [he means] that doctrines purged of every evil, and teaching, are brought in place of those evil ones, and the church is plastered without any doubt; for the consideration of the law shows us this plainly.

Did not Paul too, seeing the leprosy of doctrines in the teachers at Antioch, report it to James as to a great priest? Because, when the known doctrines of the perverse teachers had been scraped away, removing the stones, he anointed the church by adding in their place the most correct letter of the church of Jerusalem, and the dust, namely his own teaching, and cured what had happened. Yet he did not enact, in what follows, that it should be left even so without examination; for wickedness quickly returns to those who are affected by the disease of perverse doctrines. And therefore he says: "But if, after the stones have been taken out and the dust carried away and other earth plastered on, the priest goes in and sees that the leprosy has returned and the walls are sprinkled with spots, it is a persistent leprosy, and the house is unclean." For if, after the evil doctrines have been cast out and others of sound teaching brought in, the very teaching of impiety is found sprinkled again, that is, spread or abounding, then the priest knows, not from hearsay at a distance but by his own inspection, that the affliction of impiety is lasting, and that church of ministers and teachers in which impiety has been sprinkled or spread is rightly discerned unclean, as what follows will show. For he says: "They shall at once pull it down, and throw its stones and timber and all the dust outside the town into an unclean place." That is, they now condemn not only the doctrines but the very men in whom they were found, and those by whose impious speech the church had been formed, and they pull down the whole church itself. "For I have hated," he says, "the assembly of the wicked, and I will not sit with the impious," as David said. So it is shut out also from the city established in heaven, the living and true one, and is counted with the unclean heretics.

"Whoever enters this house while it is shut up": that is, while it is subject to a penalty. Whoever has entered, sharing with it in any conventicle, "shall be unclean" until he repents. And much more "he who sleeps in it"; for he is not received otherwise than if he has washed the spiritual robe with tears. And by sleeping in it we understand one who rests in its words and does not turn aside in its counsels for the sake of some custom. "And he who eats in it": namely the mystical food like that of the law, and it has obtained … the same right …: because he presumed to partake of the mysteries of that church which the priest pulled down, finding it acting impiously and having evil doctrines, that is, wood, hay and stubble. Hence he threw out not only its stones, for they were not precious, but also its timber, as joined with hay and stubble.

Verses 48–53. "But if the priest goes into the house and sees that the leprosy has [not] grown after it has been plastered again, he shall purify it, its soundness being restored. And for its purification he takes two sparrows, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. And when one sparrow has been sacrificed in an earthen vessel over living water, he takes the cedar wood and the hyssop and the scarlet and the living sparrow, and dips them all in the blood of the sacrificed sparrow and in the living water, and sprinkles the house seven times; and he shall purify it both with the blood of the sparrow and with the living water, and with the living sparrow and the cedar wood and the hyssop and the scarlet. And when he has let the sparrow fly away freely into the field, he shall pray for the house, and it shall be duly cleansed."

Of what these sacrifices of which the lawgiver speaks bear the image, we shall expound in detail in what follows, since he commanded them to be taken in the case of each leper too. This is said of necessity, because it plainly appears that the lawgiver rather rebukes that wickedness of those who teach the church which is in doctrine, and in the dispensation of him who

To what end those who devote themselves to meditation on the law come, how high they ascend, and what blessedness

[The conclusion of Book 4, chapter 14, printed here by the scan text:] … who became incarnate for us, is entrusted. And therefore he commands the same sacrifices to be taken for the house that is to be cleansed, which figure his mystery and passion, since through them, through the theology concerning these things, it can sufficiently heal the tongues of those who sin and cleanse all their sins.

Verses 54–57. "This is the whole law of leprosy, and of the stroke of leprosy, of garments and of houses, of the scar, of pustules breaking out, of the shining spot, and of the colours changed into various kinds, so that it may be known at what time a thing is clean or unclean."

"This is the whole law of leprosy." Because he set out the enactment about leprosy at length, he judged it necessary to repeat its heads: first comprehensively the genus, and after this he sets out the species part by part. For when he said, "This is the whole law of leprosy," he showed the genus comprehensively. And the species are most plainly those he added in what follows, rightly putting first the "stroke," which is not just any sin; for we said that this is the worst of all. It is impiety of doctrines, which befalls some of the people, of whom the lawgiver also said, "A man or a woman in whom there is the stroke of leprosy." For if he had made mention only of the priests, he would not have named a woman. After this he placed the leprosy that is in the virtues; for these are the garments of the soul, that is, those which are in the teachers and priests of the churches; for these were shown to be the houses and walls of the land of possession. Then he makes mention of the scar and of the pustules breaking out, describing true leprosy, that which is in sins, whether doubtful or proven; to all these he added: "so that it may be known at what time a thing is clean or unclean," showing that the offender is unclean when he has sinned knowingly; but when in ignorance, he deserves pardon because of ignorance, as a blind man who stumbles does; so that the Lord said of the Jews, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, We see; your sin remains." But let us use the eyes of knowledge for what is expedient, so that through them we may avoid sins and seek cleanness. Let us know the day on which we shall be cleansed, and knowing it, let us meet it, and keep the whole law of leprosy. For being clean in this way we shall dwell in the Lord's tabernacles, in Christ Jesus, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father with the Holy Spirit for ages of ages. Amen.

[The preface to Book 5 continues:] … they bear [from the fruits] of the spirit, David the prophet plainly sets out. For of him who has his will in the law of the Lord and meditates in it day and night, he says: "Like [a tree] which will give its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not fall." And what do we believe must be done so that one may be found a tree of life? Nothing but what the Lord said: "Search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness of me." And, in that passage of prophetic psalmody: "Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach out of your law, to give him rest from evil days." For we know that the teaching of the holy Scriptures provides us both with deliverance from sins and with relief from the things that terrify us in the evil day. And we gather from it no small progress of the soul; that is why Paul too writes to Timothy: "Meditate on these things, that your progress may be manifest to all. Attend to yourself and to the teaching; continue in them; for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you." With all the things mentioned, let us gain both our own salvation and the zeal of others who are skilled; and therefore no labour or sweat should keep either those who expound them or unlearned readers from searching the holy Scriptures, especially since there is great profit under the spirit of this law; and those who work them with frequent meditation and dig them out take pearls from them. But let us follow in order what comes next in this book of Leviticus, building upon the foundation which Christ, like a wise master builder, has already laid through our tongue; as a wise builder, through a cheap instrument, polishes the cornerstone, to show the greatness of the house and to accomplish great things with cheap instruments.

Verses 1–3. "And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: A man who suffers a flow of seed shall be unclean; and he shall then be judged subject to this defect when the foul humour has clung to his flesh moment by moment and grown thick."

Every prophet of God is indeed admirable, as one to whom spiritual things have been entrusted. But Moses is more admirable, as one to whom greater things were entrusted, … the height of such great wisdom. For because the people who received the law from him was weak and could not hear the more perfect doctrines, wishing both to condescend to the weakness of the people and not to wrong the dignity of the law, he found a way by which he might both conceal the sublime things and yet [convey them], since he could not have set them out directly because of the weakness of his hearers. For see, even now, having set out many kinds of sins through the law of the leper, he added the man who suffers a flow of seed. By this he again sets out another kind of sin: the man who suffers an outflow of teaching, from which his own body subsists, that is, …, who pours out teaching not chastely but against nature, that is, against its rights and law, in a disordered and corrupt way, so as to corrupt the morals of the peoples by it too. This we come to know part by part, discussing the sequence of the text.

"And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them." Rightly he spoke to Moses and Aaron, but commands the commandment to be handed on to the sons of Israel, that is, to the whole people; because whatever is enacted or written through divine teaching first needs the leaders of the people, since the divine teaching is entrusted above all to them, and it is shown to them how in a way it should be pursued by the ministers or by those to whom it is wholly entrusted. And since the people looks to the one chosen as he hears it, see that his commandment is handed on in the second rank to the sons of Israel; this the lawgiver kept well and fittingly. And after this he said: "A man who suffers a flow of seed shall be unclean." But the Seventy say: "To a man, a man, to whom there has come …," etc. For whenever he doubles the word with which the commandment is given, according to the Seventy, he wishes to show the intention of the law and how great is the lawgiver's care that nothing of it should be lost at all; as when he says: "A man, a man of the sons of Israel, or of the strangers and those joined to them, who makes a burnt offering or a sacrifice and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of witness to do this to the Lord, that man shall be cut off from his people"; and other things like these, for whose keeping the lawgiver took the greatest care. But here, according to the meditation described, he did not say "a human being, a human being" but "to a man, a man," doubling it as where … the person. He is so called by the giver of the law because of strength, because this word is wont to suggest a double meaning; which Solomon shows, saying, "But a faithful man who will find?", and Paul too: "until we all attain to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." So the doubling of the name made clear how much belongs to him from the commandment. And by saying "to a man" and not simply "to a human being," he showed that he was hinting at the person of a teacher; for in this he necessarily shows the form of the perfect.

"But if a flow of seed has come upon him, he shall be unclean." And in what way, hear what follows: "And then he shall be judged subject to this uncleanness": that is, this is the proof of his uncleanness; and by the judgment of his uncleanness he meant in this place the law that proves his uncleanness. And who is this who suffers a flow of seed? Seed is understood as teaching; Paul says: "If we have sown spiritual things for you." And the Lord says: "Whenever anyone hears the word and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart." And because the Seventy say, "To a man … his body consists," … is to be separated, he hands on here a double body, that is, one from which the seed flows, and another which subsists through the flow of seed. Since, then, from seed proceeding in a disordered way some body was to be begotten and could subsist, the first body, from which the flow comes, is in every way understood to be that of the man who suffers the flow of seed. And the other, he says, "consists through the flow," that is, that which ought to have been begotten from it and to subsist, though it is not begotten; that is why he is unclean. And he calls that second one too "his body," because what is begotten of him who begets is truly his body. This is the mark of the law at the beginning: that as the commandment of the letter understood the body of him who pours out the seed, and therefore says, "seed flowing from his body," and secondly that which is begotten from it, rightly adding "from the flow by which his body consists," so the spiritual contemplation reasonably understood the body of the teacher as the very word entrusted to him and the dignity of teaching. For Paul calls the word of teaching the body of Christ, speaking thus of those who pluck away at the word of teaching: "But the body is Christ's. Let no one beguile you, delighting in humility and the worship of angels, walking in what he has not seen, vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh, and not holding the head, from which the whole body, supplied and knit together through joints and ligaments, grows with the increase of God." He plainly declares the word of teaching to be the body of the Lord; and it is rightly called the body of the teachers, since the priests and teachers are in the place of Christ in the churches. Hence again by their second body, which consists from their flow, we understand the people that hears, which is begotten from his teaching; [the teacher] lets flow the divine teaching he received by corrupting or transgressing it, of whom Paul said, "If we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than that which you received, let him be anathema." Rightly is he unclean who suffers this from a filthy way of life and an unchaste life, or from ambition for the first place, and therefore seeks out a wicked teaching that may delight those whom Paul called itching in their ears, and who do not endure sound teaching. Or he himself, being unchaste, lets teaching flow according to his own passions or desires: for example, being a lover of adultery, he rejects the commandment about chastity; or, being a reveller and a drunkard, the law of fasting. This man, then, because he is reckoned by the name of master and does not teach soundly but corrupts the teaching he brings forth, cannot beget sons for God; that is why he is said to suffer a flow of seed.

Very reasonably, then, he added: "All the days of the flow of his body, in which his body consists in the flow, are his uncleanness." For as long as he teaches thus and corrupts the [dignity] of teaching …, he has uncleanness in himself, as he says, namely the speech he brings forth, filthy, unchaste and …. That is why what follows also suits him very well.

Verses 4–5. "Every bed on which he has slept shall be unclean, and wherever he has sat. If any man touches his bed, he shall wash his garments, and being himself washed with water he shall be unclean until evening."

There are many kinds of those who teach strange things. For some, as Paul says, [preach] through envy, some through strife, some through ignorance, some from rash talkativeness (of which that Wise Man said, "In much speaking you will not escape sin"); and some turn the word of teaching because they delight in some corruption of desires. Rightly the lawgiver, having signified some of these in the enactment about leprosy and others in the distinction of foods, now again sets out through this commandment, which concerns the man who suffers a flow of seed, another kind: those who teach other things out of unchastity and lust, as we also established above. But now the lawgiver says that the bed on which he sleeps and where he sits is unclean. Let Paul, then, and Luke teach us what we should think of these. That the vessel and the bed signify not any sick persons whatever, but those who are very lofty in teaching and in a way desired the whole of it, so that the teacher sat in them and was carried by them, Luke plainly taught when God said to Ananias of Paul: "Go, for this man will be a chosen vessel to me, to carry my name among the Gentiles and kings." Paul received the teaching of Christ as a vessel, so as to imitate him in deed and word and sufferings. That is why he now said, "Do you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me?"; now, "Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ"; and now again, "I fill up what is lacking of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh." And the master's bed, since it is the property of a bed that its owner rests in it, by this is in every way understood that disciple in whom, because of his great obedience, the master himself and his spirit rest. Paul shows this from what he wrote to the Corinthians, praising them because they showed themselves obedient to Titus: "And we rejoiced the more abundantly at the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you all." Of those, then, who teach unchaste things, oppose the begetting of children, and reject lawful marriage so as to bring in sexual immorality by this means (that is why they are said to suffer a flow of seed, as corrupting the generative seed and the law of marriage), of whom Paul said, "That in the last times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared, forbidding to marry and [commanding] to abstain from foods which God created to be received," the bed and the vessel flow in the manner described. These are so unclean that the lawgiver did not command their cleansing; for he knows them to be so affected by the disease that they can by no means do penance; for they are infected in such teaching not from ignorance but by a perverse habit, corrupted or dissolute in unchaste words; hence they cling to it so willingly.

"But if anyone touches his bed": that is, if he has become a partaker and has taken of his teaching, and has not settled in the doctrines of him who teaches perverse and filthy things, he becomes a disciple of his wicked words …; but of his disciples, since they are his vessels and his bed, whoever hears them is also himself unclean. Yet he washes his garments by repentance, as we have often said, "and being himself washed with water," of tears or of baptism, "he shall be unclean until evening," until he completes the time of repentance. For evening bears its figure in many places, and especially because at the consummation of the ages, that is, at the setting of the present age, Christ preached repentance to us.

Verses 7–8. "Whoever touches his flesh shall wash his garments, and being himself washed with water he shall be unclean until evening. If such a man spits upon one who is clean, he shall wash his garments, and being washed with water he shall be unclean until evening."

That is, he who becomes a partaker of the teaching of one who teaches profane things is unclean until he washes himself through the repentance which the lawgiver commanded; whether someone becomes a partaker of perverse teaching of his own accord (for this is to touch the flesh of the man who suffers a flow of seed), or the teacher, by his work, in a way initiates him and brings in the word of his teaching (for this is to spit), which is why Aquila has "if he spits upon."

Verse 9. "The saddle on which he has sat shall be unclean until evening."

As the bed on which the man who suffers a flow of seed rests, and the vessel on which he sits, are those who cling to him very much, that is, disciplines … which can hardly be changed or softened, so here too by the saddle, or as the Seventy rendered it, the ass's saddle, [he means] a more careless disciple, but one more softly

having a heart to change himself; for the lawgiver understood the ass's saddles as soft. And he too, because he can be shaken out by good masters, or washed, and reject the evil discipleship (for such is what the Seventy call epiagma, that is, … ), is himself unclean, until he turns to repentance.

Verse 10. "And everyone who touches anything that was under him shall be unclean until evening. And whoever carries any of these shall wash his garments, and being himself washed with water he shall be unclean until evening."

In general …, those who have been made subject to those who teach profane things, who have in a way submitted themselves, spreading their souls under words and unfitting doctrines like vessels into which the poison of impiety may drip. "And has touched anything, he shall be unclean," whether he has taken it upon himself by his own sin, or has laid it on, as some are accustomed to do, who pretend to say or do right things themselves but confirm the attempts of those who teach or do perverse things, and so are convicted of how they stand toward perverse things. Nevertheless they too, in the manner described, need repentance.

Verse 11. "Everyone whom such a one touches without having first washed his hands shall wash his garments, and being washed with water he shall be unclean until evening."

The lawgiver necessarily used the present words, so that we should not despair altogether over union with one who teaches perversely, but only over that union which lasts until he looks to repentance. And therefore those are unclean whom the man who suffers a flow of seed touches, that is, with whom he has mingled, "without having washed his hands with water," that is, before he has washed his life through repentance; for to wash the hands shows the laying aside of some filth and stain. That is why David said, "I will wash my hands among the innocent, and I will go round your altar, O Lord." For he is in filth who teaches shameful and perverse things; for he comes to such teaching from the deceit of life and a filthy conscience. This man, then, who has mixed himself with some people in teaching evil things, not yet looking to repentance, and this one too is unclean and needs repentance. Let him wash his garments, then, that is, his actions, which clothe us like a robe with differing opinions and sects. Those, then, who patiently bear with evil men, and by union with those who teach such things are turned to evil actions, let them for this reason also wash their body with water, so as to purify their own temple too from sympathy with those words; and then it will be certain that they will be cleansed. For though he who teaches profane things has been unclean until evening, that is, until the time of repentance, as was said before, he will without doubt be clean after repentance.

Verse 12. "And whatever earthen vessel the man who suffers a flow of seed touches shall be broken; but a wooden vessel shall be washed with water and shall be clean."

In the earlier parts of this law, in which he spoke of the man who suffers a flow of seed, we said that the men whom he touches are those with whom he, teaching perverse things, has mingled himself and whom he has taken into some fellowship with himself; for this is plainly "to touch"; hence Paul too, about the fellowship with women that must be guarded against, says: "It is good for a man not to touch a woman. But because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife and each woman her own husband." These, then, have become his vessels, who have received teaching from him, however little; for he did not sit upon them, that is, he did not empty all his teaching into them, but he touched them, handing on some part. So they remain earthen, that is, fragile and earthy, intent on their clay and the corruption of clay; because they are corrupted even by a few words, they are necessarily broken. But if they are of wood, since wooden vessels are stronger than clay and earthen vessels and last longer, they are cleansed by being washed with water. For he did not sit upon them, nor did they receive, as we said, all his evil teaching; therefore they are not so weakened that they cannot be healed through repentance. So the lawgiver's intention is to show who do penance, and that salvation is offered to those who do penance, [and not to those who do not].

Verse 13. "If he who bears such an affliction is healed, he shall count seven days for his cleansing, and when his garments and his whole body have been washed in living water, he shall be clean."

The cleansing of the man who suffers a flow of seed is no longer to endure the same corruption of seed. If, then, someone who taught filthy, perverse and wicked things has ceased, he is rightly called clean, as one who has ceased from such unchastity. But for the filthy words he poured out before, he needs to count seven days for a complete cleansing, which is accomplished through the coming and supply of the Spirit, whose sevenfold gift Isaiah set out for us when he said: "the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and piety, the spirit of the fear of the Lord." All of these are needed by those who wish a perfect cleansing to be procured for them from the wickedness that is in speech or in works; and they also wash their garments and body with living water. What the force of the garments and body is has been shown sufficiently above. And they wash with living water, namely that of which the Spirit said: "He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water"; and again: "Whoever drinks of the water that I give him, it will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life." So the cleansing of one who taught perversely comes through good and lawful teaching; for this is living water, because it gives life to him who comes to it.

Verses 14–15. "And on the eighth day he shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, and shall come before the Lord to the door of the tabernacle of witness, and give them to the priest, who shall offer one for sin and the other for a burnt offering, and shall pray for him before the Lord, that he may be cleansed from the flow of his seed."

He who will count seven days for himself, that is, the workings of the Spirit, is commanded to offer sacrifice on the eighth day, that is, in the grace of Christ, who shone forth or became glorious on the eighth day of the resurrection. And what is this sacrifice? That is, two turtledoves or two young pigeons. This sacrifice is worthy of teachers, for these animals are of the birds. And the turtledove is as it were a meditative animal; and the pigeon, because of the frequency of its breeding and because of its simplicity, designates the image of the Holy Spirit; for the teacher must devote himself to spiritual meditation. That is why he commanded him, as priest and master, to take this sacrifice for himself, which is nowhere found said in another sacrifice unless it was again that of some priest and master. And he is to bring the victim itself "to the door of the tabernacle of witness," namely to the teachings of the apostles; for we showed above, in the sacrifices, that these are the entrance, or the true tabernacle of witness, that is, the dwelling and way of life of Christ, so that he may in future bring his tongue to perfection according to the apostolic intention. And as one who has sinned, and has weakened in himself the habit of the priesthood and made it ineffective, he is commanded to give it to the priest and to yield the ministry of the priesthood to another. But taking the two turtledoves or two young pigeons, what does the priest do? He offers one for sin and one for a burnt offering, so that the one sacrifice may profit the washing of the things in which he sinned in teaching contrary to the law, and the other may profit wise living in future; for of this the burnt offering is the sign. "And so the priest shall pray for him before the Lord, that he may be cleansed from the flow of his seed." For no one can make a cleansing before the Lord, that is, according to the will and law of God, otherwise than by repenting of the things in which he sinned, making satisfaction through the sacrifices of prayers, and afterwards living rightly and being perfectly wise. So he who carries out the cleansing of his sins in another way is not prayed for before the Lord; for God does not accept his cleansing, nor those who offer prayers for him. Therefore, whether someone has flowed off into unfitting teaching, or into an evil life, or both, let him hasten to pour out prayers, as has been said, before the Lord, who has power to forgive sins.

Verses 16–18. "A man from whom the seed of intercourse goes out shall wash his whole body with water, and shall be unclean until evening. The garment and skin that he has, he shall wash with water, and it shall be unclean until evening. The woman with whom he has lain shall be washed with water, and shall be unclean until evening."

The Lord himself showed that the human race needs the regeneration of baptism, saying: "Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven." The filth of this has been poured into us from Adam's disobedience; hence David too declared that he was born in iniquities and conceived in sins, not accusing his mother but hinting at the sin that runs down through the race. And now the lawgiver commanded the man from whom the seed of intercourse goes out, that is, the man who has poured out seed for the begetting of children, and also the woman who received it, to wash the body, because she received the seed through which this whole temple of ours, that is, the whole man of soul and body, is described. For as divine Scripture is accustomed to call the man who consists of soul and body a soul, as when it says, "Jacob went down into Egypt with seventy-five souls," so again it is accustomed to call the whole man a body. The book of Genesis shows this when it says that Joseph supplied corn to his brothers by "bodies." And because Adam, made filthy by disobedience, made his seed filthy too, the body is necessarily filthy, since it comes from seed in which it is unclean until evening, that is, the end of the age; because Christ, coming at the end of the ages, showed the water by which our race should be cleansed. And that we remained unclean until then is proved by the fact that even those who have not yet sinned, that is, those still in the weak age, need the seal of baptism, lest perhaps death overtake them and they pass away filthy, having in themselves the filth that came down from Adam, and so not … to enter the kingdom of heaven.

He commanded the garment and the skin which they have when they come together to be unclean and to need washing for two reasons. For he extends the law and makes plain how filthy the human body has been made by one disobedience, so that even insensible things are polluted by them. Then by these he makes plain the women who, for the sake of lust, are joined with men for a certain temporary use, such as garments are wont to provide for men, and like the misuse of skins, which are usually thrown away when they have grown old. For the company of these women too is rejected when the friendship grows old, and changed like garments or skins; for they do not live with them openly, those with whom they lie in a disorderly way. Understanding the words of the Mosaic law in this way, we take the greatest help from them and rest from the question about the law. Nor can we find fault with it as punishing superfluously and exacting a penalty for things that are not in our will; for the flow of seed does not come from our will but happens from weakness; and again, the natural partnership compels the man to be joined to the woman and the woman to the man, and the decree of God which says: "A man shall leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh." For though these are Adam's words, he spoke them from the divine Spirit. Hence Christ too, when he said to the Pharisee that wives must not be put away, recalling the words we have just mentioned, referred them to God as spoken by him; for he says: "He who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said: For this reason a man shall leave father and mother and cleave to his wife." So he does not exact a penalty for things that happen against the will, nor [treat] as filthy those who are joined according to his law; but in those who suffer a flow of seed [he signifies] corrupt teachers, who are ungrateful for the begetting of children; and here Adam's disobedience, as the human race was made filthy by it, …, in the seed from which the race is …. And it is not surprising if we have said that the lawgiver means by the garment and the skin women who live with men not for the sake of children but for the shamefulness of use; for you find the use of a garment taken in divine Scripture also in something evil and against the law, as David says, "And he clothed himself with cursing like a garment"; and again, "Let those who slander me be clothed with shame." But when the skin signifies something good, then the lawgiver speaks not simply of the skin itself but of skin fit for work, and by it shows the work made from it or to be made from it. But now, because he did not say this, and the skin was not taken in a sacrifice, as when the flayed burnt offering …, it is set in an unfitting union. So he did not say that by the bed of seed, that is, by lawful intercourse, from which seed is produced, the skin is polluted or soaked; necessarily, then, he understood by the skin the woman whom someone misuses. Yet you keep this everywhere: that the lawgiver, drawing the race of the Jews to sanctification and chastity (for some of them were greatly given to luxury), [enacted] these things against those who pour out seed in any way whatever and against those who touch these things, as to cleansing, commanding it so that at least in this way they might become chaste and abstain from luxurious unions, from weariness of the labour of frequent purifications. For the law has this intention according to the letter in what follows too, though it signifies something else according to the spirit, as I myself am about to set out, since I do not pass over the spiritual understanding that is here either.

As, then, we understood the man who suffers a flow of seed as the one who corrupts teaching, so by him from whom the seed of intercourse goes out we understand the one who follows the teaching that belongs to the Jews. For as one who pours out natural and sound seed is nevertheless unclean because of Adam's filth, so too their sound teaching, on account of the law, which is thought to be teaching, is under fault and blameworthy, because it teaches the letter, which brings a curse on its disciples; for it is not possible for anyone to be perfectly corrected by it. Hence he subjects his disciples to the Mosaic curse, and the Jews themselves, who are taken in the figure of the women who come together, as those who always cling to the teachers of their institutions and rest in them. And they do this very thing to those in the foreskin too, when they receive the seed of their teaching; these we say are the garment and the skin, as receiving their teachings temporarily and transiently, not so that they too may beget any legal righteousness (for how is this possible for those who remain in the foreskin?) but so that through their words they too may be taken to be polluted by the curse of the law.

Verses 19–23. "A woman who, as the month returns, suffers a flow of blood shall be separated seven days.

Everyone who touches her shall be unclean until evening. … in the time of her separation is polluted. Whoever touches her bed shall wash his garments, and being himself washed with water he shall be polluted until evening. Whoever touches any vessel on which she has sat shall wash his garments, and being washed with water he shall be polluted until evening."

The lawgiver's intention is to draw man away from lust for women, and at the same time to restrain men and women from coming together for the sake of shameful intercourse; for the present words above all affirm that this is not done for the begetting of children. For he found a way to separate men from going in to women at various times and very many intervals; for every month they suffer a flow of blood. And he commanded that they be unclean seven days, and that those who touch them by a simple touch be unclean until evening; but those who sleep with them he says are unclean not for one day but for seven. So by the continence of many days both women are necessarily restrained from men and men from women. By these things the Jew of the senses, the Israelite according to the flesh, could be helped through the letter; but the truest help is that of the spiritual consideration which is shut up within. For the flow of the blood of the soul (whose person, as effeminate and betraying the strength of piety, the lawgiver has now suggested in the woman) is idolatry. "Its flow is in her body," according to what the Seventy give; for the shedding of idolatrous blood is the corruption or ruin of the human race. That is why he did not say "from her body"; for idolatry was not invented by us but by the demons: it was inflicted on our race "in the body," and the corruption of human nature was brought about. And he also declares the times in which idolatry prevailed, of which Paul said: "And the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent." Why did he say, "She shall be separated seven days"? Others have, "She shall be in her purging"; other interpreters, "in the separation of her iniquity"; others rendered "wretched": so that by the number of seven days he might signify the times …, which last until the completion of the times, at which completion the gospel preaching came. In these, men separated from God through idolatry were necessarily in the separation of iniquity and wretched, until we were joined to God through the gospel way of life, which is taken as the eighth day; because it is the sign and beginning and in a way the … of the age to come; that is why the resurrection of the Saviour also came forth on the eighth day. And not only the soul that serves them, but he too who touches it, that is, who becomes a partaker of it, and much more he who [touches that] on which it sleeps or sits, as a partaker of its teaching and tradition, or he who lies with her, will be unclean and needs cleansing; … as we said in what went before: one must earnestly abstain from all the wickedness of idolatry, and touch neither those who serve idols nor those whom they use as organs, or as beds or vessels; that is, have no communion with them in anything, so that Paul forbade even to recline in an idol's temple, and much more to eat what is sacrificed to idols. But these do little harm and have no [lasting] pollution; the lawgiver says that such a one is unclean for that day.

Verse 24. "But if anyone lies with her in the time of the menstrual blood, he shall be unclean seven days." That is, if anyone shares in the evil and the action of a soul that serves idols, perhaps sacrificing to idols himself, or willingly, or doing something close to the service of idols (for this is to sleep with her who suffers a flow of blood), he is polluted by sin in many ways. That is why he commanded him to be unclean seven days instead of one, as one who has made his whole life and all his conduct filthy by serving idols.

Verses 25–27. "A woman who suffers a flow of blood for many days, not in the menstrual time, or who does not cease to flow after the menstrual blood, as long as she is subject to this affliction shall be unclean, as if she were in the menstrual time. Every bed on which she sleeps and vessel on which she sits shall be polluted. Whoever touches them shall wash his garments, and being himself washed with water he shall be unclean until evening."

How greatly the Spirit of God claims the contemplation of the law, and not the reading of the letter, he shows by the things enacted part by part. For we said earlier that the man who suffers a flow of seed is he who has an obscene and corrupt teaching in the law, and he from whom the seed of intercourse goes out is the one who uses the Jewish teaching. There remained those who teach the teaching of the pagans: see, now he fittingly brings in these too. So we said that the flow of blood is the seduction and error of idols, since the race of demons delights in blood, and commands the sacrifices not only of cattle and other irrational animals but also of men, so that in many places among them such mysteries were celebrated, as those of Dionysus and of Diana and of other demons; so far had the flow of blood grown among them. But now note what words the lawgiver used: "A woman who suffers a flow of blood for many days, not in the menstrual time." The Seventy rendered this: "A woman, if she flows with a flow of blood many days." He did not say "if she flows with blood," which is to serve idols or to sacrifice, but "if she flows with a flow of blood," that is, if she lets flow the stain and error of idolatry; and she does this "not in the menstrual time," that is, not in the times in which the service of idols prevailed; that these are the menstrual times was shown in the words in which we spoke of her. … the teaching …, the light of piety has shone forth; yet he flows with unclean things and teaches certain things close to the error of idols, he is unclean, like those of those times in which the madness of idols prevailed, teaching whatever belonged to their error; for they were unclean then too, but now much more, because their uncleanness has now been laid bare and their error convicted. Because they would not offer their eyes to the light of the true …, therefore he said: "Who suffers a flow of blood not in the menstrual time, or who does not cease to flow after the menstrual blood, as long as she is subject to this affliction, shall be unclean." For even if he does not teach whole idolatry, but yet auguries and divinations, or purifications, or the arts of sorcerers, nevertheless this man too is unclean, like those who fully handed on and taught idolatry in the times in which it flourished. And whoever prove themselves their disciples by deed are also understood in the person of these. "The bed on which she sleeps and the vessel on which she sits": that is, those who eagerly receive these teachings, as the preceding discourse showed, will be unclean, like those who teach them. For the lawgiver, showing this, said of the bed and the vessel, according to the Seventy, "it shall be unclean according to the days of her flow," wishing those who learn such things by deed to be compared with those who teach them. And these things are so true, and the law of God so calls unclean him who touches even a few of these, because they speak or do things belonging to idols, that it removes from fellowship as truly unclean even him who eats with them or shares their table and the drink of their mysteries. Hence Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?" And again: "I do not want you to be partners with demons."

And why he brought in the person of a woman we know well. For we said that because those who fell into the error of idolatry betrayed the manliness of thoughts and the strength of divine knowledge and made their souls effeminate, he rightly suggested the figure of a woman in those who do and teach whatever is devoted to the worship of idols. For we understand that she bears her image who in the Gospels suffers a flow of blood, who spent all her substance, or living, on physicians, on the philosophers who were among them. Yet she was not healed by them so as to depart from the Egypt of her error, because, "professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." For while they seemed estranged from the worship and madness of images, they measured the earth, the air and the heaven, whose beginnings and bounds it belongs to God alone to know. She, then, touching from behind the fringe of Jesus, was freed from her flow. And we have said that his fringe is faith in him; for why Moses commanded fringes to be made on garments … in what went before; by "behind" we understand the humanity, and we say that the nations which were set in the flow of the blood of idols touched this. And if we have explained as the flow of blood not only those who devote themselves to shedding the blood of idolatry but also those who teach things that belong to the teaching of the pagans, it is not surprising; for it is the custom among outsiders to call flowing eloquence, pouring itself out most abundantly and easily into teaching, a "flow," or rhetoric.

Verses 28–31. "If the blood stops and ceases to flow, she shall count seven days of her purification, and on the eighth day she shall bring for herself to the priest two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the door of the tabernacle of witness. He shall offer one for sin and the other for a burnt offering, and shall pray for her before the Lord, and for the flow of her uncleanness. You shall teach the sons of Israel, then, to beware of uncleanness, and not to die in their filth when they have polluted my tabernacle which is among them."

What the force of this sacrifice is, and of what kind in those who suffer a flow of seed, we have said as far as was necessary; for the law commanded similar things there too. For as there the lawgiver commanded the man who suffers a flow of seed to take turtledoves or pigeons for himself for a sacrifice, because he held the place and person of a master, so now too this woman who flows with a flow of blood; for we said that she figures those who teach the things that belong to the error of idolatry. Therefore one who teaches eloquence, and one who shares in eloquence, can take for himself the things that profit for purification; for outward wisdom is very easily subjected to inner wisdom and takes from it things useful and profitable to itself. For the woman who suffered a flow of blood, whom we showed to bear the figure of her who is sprinkled with the blood of idolatry, took medicine for herself by touching the fringe of the Lord's garment, and before she stretched out her hand she merited to be freed from her affliction. What is still lacking for the interpretation we shall say in order in what follows.

Verse 31. "You shall teach the sons of Israel, then, to beware of uncleanness, and not to die in their filth when they have polluted my tabernacle which is among them." Although every sin is an uncleanness of the soul, yet idolatry above all, and the things that belong to it. The lawgiver wishes the sons of Israel to hold these things and to be God-fearing in them, so that they may not die the most cruel death of impiety; for the impious pollute the tabernacle of God which is in them, and yet it is the body that is defiled by the flow of blood or seed. But because the word hints at impiety, which is wont to pollute the whole man, therefore he says, "You shall make the sons of Israel cautious," or, as the Seventy have it, "God-fearing, away from their uncleanness," which he enacted neither for lepers nor for those who touched dead things. And [he speaks] also of the tabernacle of God, which is our whole man, in which God is believed to dwell: first through the image which he gave us, then through the firstfruits which he took from us. For the Word became flesh, which through that … is said to dwell in other men too, as John proves, saying: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

Verses 32–33. "This is the law of him who suffers a flow of seed, and of him who is polluted by intercourse, and of her who is separated in her menstrual times or who flows with blood continually, and of the man who sleeps with her."

Whatever things of the same enactment cohere with one another, and whose usefulness in effect tends to one intention, the lawgiver is accustomed to connect with one another, so as to show him who devotes himself to meditation on the law how they ought to be understood, and which have kinship with which according to the likeness of the sense. For it has been proved that the man who suffers a flow of seed is one who corrupts the seed of teachers and admonishes to shameful and corrupting things; and "he from whom the seed of intercourse goes out, so as to be polluted" is the one who teaches the Jewish precepts, by which he himself is polluted, teaching evil as good and transgressing the intention of the law, when he brings forth out of season the things that belong to the letter and in a way uses clean things as unclean, of which it was said, "To the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure, but both their mind and conscience are defiled." And those who suffer a flow of blood in their menstruation were shown to be those who [teach] things that tend to impiety, at that time of teaching in which the human race, held in the worship of idols, was in its menstruation, in the separation of wickedness, for they were not separated from evil; so as to show that he speaks the same things of those who teach perverse things. According to the Seventy he added: "for the one who suffers a flow of seed, male and female." Yet in the preceding enactment he speaks only of the male who suffers a flow of seed, and according to the letter he made no mention at all of a female who suffers a flow of seed; but by the woman who flows with a flow of blood he understood him who pours out the teaching of idolatry. Therefore he has now called her one who suffers a flow of seed, so that we might learn that the law reckons him who corrupts good teaching, setting it forth shamefully and evilly, to be such as he who teaches impiety; for the words of both are full of corruption. With these he joined the man who sleeps with a menstruous woman. He means the one from the faithful people who has mixed with idolatry, as we said above. Hence he did not say it simply but used the more perfect word "male," as one possessing the name of the faithful. If he has become a transgressor, he denies this name and shows that it is false in him; for, having obtained the service of God, he has given himself up to idols, sleeping and mingling himself with error, first as filth, then as one who has it in him to sit and live far from God. And his penalty is manifest. It is manifest also how, being cleansed, they can be freed from penalties. But, building further upon these, the lawgiver placed next, as harmonious with them, the enactment that follows.

Verse 1. "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: After the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they were slain offering strange fire."

See, now too the Spirit of God makes the law one body, and gathers into one the things that cohere with one another. Having already made plain the things that belong to teaching that is against the law, and having set out its many and differing ways, he now refutes it by one law, and in a way adds a common precept against it, and makes plain the cause of the disease itself, that is, whence it happens and whence it comes upon one. For you heard, when we were inquiring into the death of the sons of Aaron who were consumed by the divine fire, that, making our discourse there on the legal tradition and the history, we called the strange fire a teaching foreign to God, and therefore said that those who offered that fire were consumed by the divine fire, namely the Spirit; because those who teach evil and wicked things plainly contradict the divine fire and act against the Holy Spirit. Whether, then, someone hands on things that cohere with idolatry, or corrupts the divine commandments in expounding them, bringing wicked words into them, or so uses the Jewish teaching as to be polluted by it, bringing forth the letter of the law itself against the time and intention of the law, he offers strange fire to God; and therefore they are said to die, having from the law a swift penalty for their transgression. But when these have died, that is, when they have been scattered and in a way have failed, then the enactment that follows will prevail. And therefore God is said to have spoken what follows to Moses after the death of the sons of Aaron who offered strange fire.

Verse 2. "And he commanded him, saying: Speak to Aaron your brother, that he not enter at all times into the sanctuary which is within the veil, before the propitiatory with which the ark is covered, lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud above the oracle."

How much God spares our salvation can be considered and learned from many things said in the law; neglecting none of them, let us direct the eyes of the mind to each one. "For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" Since, then, the sum or head of our salvation is the teaching of the Word, it is wont to point out good ways to us with its finger if it is good, and evil ways if it is evil. Rightly the lawgiver shows the greatest care that they should fall into impiety not only through shameful words, or Jewish fables, or some phantasm of idolatry, [but also] in the manner usual with heretics: for, discussing the substance of God, they introduce a difference both of the Father in relation to the Son and of the Son in relation to the Holy Spirit, and other like hidden things which exceed our knowledge; and wishing to search out what is too lofty and sublime for us, not from the divine doctrines but from their own thoughts, they have been cut off from the body of the church's moderation. So that we may not suffer this, the law forewarns us in the present words; for it speaks thus: "And the Lord said to Moses: Speak to Aaron your brother": that is, that the priests should command these things to one another, and each of the teachers should enact for his neighbour such things as God now commanded Moses to speak to Aaron. And what are these? "That he not enter at all times into the sanctuary which is within the veil before the propitiatory, with which the ark is covered." He set forth here a commandment common to all and a common law: first suited to the priests, then to everyone who wishes to discuss the divine mysteries. Therefore, according to the Seventy, he commanded it impersonally, saying, "Let them not enter at all times into the holy place within the veil." He did not add [who], plainly wishing to bar all from this, because the veil is understood as the body of the Saviour, as Paul plainly says: "Having confidence in the entrance into the holy places, which he inaugurated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is, through his flesh." For he himself is the true and spiritual propitiatory, as one who himself gives us propitiation for sins; for the same Paul says: "All have sinned and lack the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiator through his blood."

And where we have "before the propitiatory," the Seventy rendered "before the face of the propitiatory." The face of this propitiatory was his divinity. That is why, when Moses, desiring to see God, said, "If I have found favour in your sight, show me yourself," he answered: "You cannot see my face; no man has seen my face and lived"; he said this because no one can comprehend the substance of God. And what of him can be seen, he plainly added, saying: "Behold, there is a place with me; you shall stand upon the rock," that is, the church and the confession that is in it, saying it with faith; "and my glory shall pass by there," signifying Christ's passage to men; "and I will put you in a cleft of the rock," that is, in the law, through which, as through a narrow cleft, we pass to the confession of Christ and faith; hence the law is said through Paul to be our tutor to Christ. "And I will put my hand over you," namely with the signs and miracles which he did with them, "until I pass by; and I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back parts." … [when they had received] Moses as the ruler of the people, God took away his protecting hand and stripped him of his power, so far that they paid tribute to the Romans and lived under their laws and rulers; then they saw the back parts of God, that is, the incarnation of God. His "back parts," because he became incarnate in the last times. "But my face you shall not see," he says, namely the substance of the Godhead. Plainly, then, he forbade the teachers, and barred the priests, and whoever it is lawful to speak about God, to search out the substance of God and to discuss the divinity of Christ and to enter within the spiritual veil. For Christ has the flesh as a veil, the covering of his divinity, as that sensible veil too was the covering of the holy of holies. And he called the flesh of the Lord not only the veil but also the ark of witness, necessarily calling it by many names, because many were the workings from it; for of this David prophesied in the Psalms: "Arise, O Lord, into your rest, you and the ark of your sanctification." This is called the ark of spiritual witness, as containing the saving composition, of which Paul said: "I testify before God and Christ Jesus, who bore witness before Pontius Pilate to the good confession." Again we say that the Gospel is the witness, both because it coheres with the spiritual ark, that is, the flesh of Christ, and because from it we have the witness of the passion. Of it Paul also wrote to Timothy: "The witness in its own times, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle." This ark, then, is the propitiatory, because in his flesh Christ gave us propitiation. He commands the teachers not to enter it at all times, so that they may not inquire curiously how the Word became flesh; how he who was in the form of God became in the form of a servant; how he emptied himself and remained in heaven. For faith in these things brings salvation; inquiry brings danger. He who believes this, then, will not die.

"For in the cloud," he says, "I will appear above the oracle," or the propitiatory. He calls the cloud again the Lord's flesh and the gospel Word. For he calls the same things by many names, and it is not tautology; he imposes and distributes names suited to the workings of the things signified. For sometimes he calls the flesh a veil, signifying that it is the covering of Christ's divinity; sometimes the ark, namely the man, which the Lord himself explained to the Jews when he said: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." When the Jews did not understand and said, "Forty-six years this temple was being built, and will you raise it up in three days?", the evangelist explained, saying, "But he spoke of the temple of his body." And sometimes the cloud, because a cloud is a body, but clean and subsisting [also] from the Holy Spirit; for clouds subsist from breaths, that is, winds. That is why Isaiah, showing its cleanness by its fineness and lightness together, said: "Behold, the Lord rides upon a light cloud, and will enter Egypt, and the idols of Egypt will be shaken." Likewise we not unfittingly call the gospel word a cloud, because it is the custom of divine Scripture to call the teaching of the Holy Spirit a cloud. Hence, removing the vineyard of the Jews as unfruitful, he said: "I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon it." Then, explaining what the vineyard is, he adds: "For the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah a new … offence." In this cloud, then, God is suggested both in the Lord's flesh and in the gospel preaching; and let us who wish to search out anything about God seek nothing more, but as much as the gospel word hands on to us, as much as we receive from the Lord's flesh. For not in vain did the lawgiver signify by one name the flesh of the Lord and the Gospel, but because to the Gospel the Lord's flesh is the occasion and the substance. Yet that repetition now also confirms this: that divine Scripture not only signifies this same thing by different names, so as to mark different workings, but also shows a difference in the names, often even a contrary one. For sometimes it calls the wicked and fiery arrows, which are the instruments and workings of lusts or of other wickedness, fire, likening the devil to fire because he corrupts those who join themselves to him and in a way throw themselves into him. And sometimes it suggests God in the form of fire, both elsewhere and in the bush, because he is light to those who come to him at every time, vital warmth and purification. So do not think that superfluous or novel things are brought in by the exposition when it uses the same names in different causes, or takes different names in the same things. But attend only to this: whether the interpreter has not taken the meanings of the names properly and according to the occasion in the matters adjoining the exposition.

But now let us see what follows. "But let Aaron enter the sanctuary thus":

Verses 3–4. "He shall offer a calf for sin and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall be clothed with a linen tunic, and shall cover his shame with linen breeches. He shall be girded with a linen girdle; he shall put a linen mitre on his head. For these are holy garments, all of which he shall put on when he has been washed."

With admirable order now too the lawgiver attends to the things that can help and be useful to those who read the law and search out the treasure hidden in it. For having said that it is not lawful to enter the holy of holies at every hour, that is, not continually, without interruption, lest perhaps we presume or approach divine things without fear and circumspection, he does not forbid deeper inquiry altogether; but when and how … we have prepared or perfected ourselves, he now hands on: that is, let not Aaron enter the holy place unless he has done these things. Here he shows that he did not command us not to enter the higher divine contemplation at all, but only not frequently; and he called it the sanctuary, as being about God, who is the Holy of holies and sanctifies him who uses it well. But he who is Aaron, that is, who has another way of life and has so advanced, ascending to God's sanctification, that he can answer like a divine ark (for this is what "Aaron" is interpreted to mean), he, entering, "shall offer a calf for sin," namely he enters in the sacrifice of Christ. And because he was sacrificed not only for our sins but also gives us perfect life, and the sacrifice of God procures and supplies for us both absolution from sins and the perfection of the virtues, the lawgiver added, "and a ram for a burnt offering." But the Seventy rendered "from the calf": he was made according to the flesh from those oxen, the workers of righteousness, for example Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David; for the law knows as oxen those who work righteousness, as Paul handed on to us, interpreting that commandment, "You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain"; then he added: "Is it for oxen that God cares? Or does he not say it altogether for our sakes: that he who ploughs ought to plough in hope, and he who threshes in hope of receiving the fruit?" And that he is rightly called a calf too, because of the sacrifice and the virtue, the gospel parable explains, in which the father, giving the prodigal son on his return the first robe, of baptism, and the ring, that is, the seal of the Spirit, sacrificed the calf for him, the sacrifice of the Only-begotten. He is also the ram for a burnt offering. For the story of Isaac explained this, when, in place of [Isaac], Abraham, seeing a ram, according to the Seventy, in the thicket of Sabek, that is, in the thicket of pardon (by which we understand simply the cross, on which the pardon of our sins was accomplished), caught by its horns, sacrificed it and fulfilled the image of the sacrifice of Christ. Hence the Lord said of him: "Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad." Since, then, the ram is of the race of sheep, yet is pre-eminent and the leader of the flock, it rightly signifies Christ, who is of our lump but pre-eminent and excelling us, and the leader and king of the human race. In him, that is, in Christ, he wishes us to enter the holy things; for the beginning of speaking about God is Christ and his passion. If it had not been accomplished and freed us both from the error of the pagans and from the shadow and darkness of the law, we could not have spoken of the divinity of the Father: "No one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him."

But since he who is going to speak about God, and wishes to behold God as far as is possible for men, must be armed with all the virtues (for the general virtues are four: justice, chastity, fortitude, wisdom), therefore he says: "He shall be clothed with a linen tunic": that is, justice; for this is properly the garment of man, the tunic, which the Seventy render "sanctified," because it is sanctified by God, who loves justice and is principally clothed with it. Hence David said of him: "The Lord is just, and has loved justice." By the breeches chastity is signified, as is clear from the fact that they do not allow the less seemly parts of our flesh to be seen. Since, then, chastity is the whole beauty of the body, necessarily

the lawgiver says: "He shall cover his shame with linen breeches." And yet breeches are only over the thighs and about the members next to them. But he wishes to show that he signifies here the seminal …, which guards the whole body of our flesh. By the girdle he understands fortitude; hence God, raising up Job when he was oppressed by sufferings and dangers, said: "Gird up your loins like a man." By the mitre, because it is the covering of the head, wisdom is in every way understood; for we are not unaware that the organ of wisdom is in the head, which is also called the brain, and that is why the head is more honourable than the whole body. And he commanded these to be of linen to show the ease of the virtues and their swift acquisition, or that they are handy and pleasing to one who obtains them, as linen things are to the body on which they are, unless a stain has been made on them; and also because, though they are lofty, their conversation can be on earth. Each of these comes from flax, which has a tall stalk but rises much from the earth, and can easily be obtained by the poor, and is welcome and pleasing to him who puts it on, as we said above. It also cools one who is hot, and warms one in frost, which is the property of virtue: it cools in the heat of lusts and warms in the cold of temptations, and raises to zeal for heaven, and does not allow persecutors to be felt.

But so that you may not lose the head of salvation, which is baptism, nor think that the virtues suffice you without the gift of baptism, he added: "For these are holy garments, all of which he shall put on when he has been washed." The whole body is washed by the water of baptism, because it washes our whole [being] and renews the man. So one must first be baptized and be regenerated of water and the Spirit, and so be clothed with the aforesaid virtues, and through them with Christ. For this too the very context of the legal words signifies. For after the lawgiver said that he should not enter the sanctuary at all times unless he had first done these things, "a calf for sin," he added: "and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall be clothed with a linen tunic," and the rest. … understanding Christ as the spiritual ram and the true …: for him he called the perfect man and the measure of the stature, wishing us to receive and put him on; that is why he also brought in the grace of baptism, because through it above all we put on Christ. And when we have obtained these things, we shall enter the holy of holies, not searching out or discussing the substance of God (for this is forbidden), but devoting zeal to the doctrines of wisdom about the dispensation of Christ and his sacrifice for us, and about the goods we enjoy through them; for what follows makes this especially plain.

Verses 5–6. "He shall receive from the whole multitude of the sons of Israel two he-goats for sin and one ram for a burnt offering. And when he has offered the calf and prayed for himself and for his house."

Much attention is needed here, both of the speaker and of the hearer, so that they may not depart from what is right; for the mysteries which the law now sets out are very great, and some stumble at them, not knowing the force of these words. But the things at which they stumble will be discussed more precisely in what follows. That the things of which the lawgiver has spoken in the present passage are plainly referred to Christ himself is shown by the kinds of sacrifices and their effects, and also by those from whom the sacrifices are received. For he commanded the sacrifices to be received from the synagogue, or the whole multitude of the sons of Israel, because Christ, who was sacrificed for us, was of the sons of Israel according to the flesh, so that Paul said: "Of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God blessed for ever. Amen." Then he commands some of the sacrifices to be offered for sins and others for a burnt offering, figuring, as was fitting, the power of the sacrifice of Christ, who is offered for our sins. Hear, then, Paul saying: "Christ, once offered to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time without sin to those who await him." And that the sacrifice of the Only-begotten was made for a burnt offering, that is, for perfection and for progress in life and virtues, how can one doubt, when Paul says plainly: "So, brothers, you too have been put to death to the law through the body of Christ, that you may belong to another, who rose from the dead, that we may bear fruit for God"? And again he said of him: "Hence he is able to save for ever those who draw near to God through him." So the Son became, through his sacrifice, our perfection and our salvation in every way.

The lawgiver took the things that were sacrificed properly according to the effects of the sacrifices. For when he said that he-goats are offered for sin, because divine Scripture is accustomed to take this animal for the class of sinners (not forgetful at all that, when these sacrifices signified the reckoning of repentance, we set it out, taking the occasion from this legal book), we showed that the kid, which in Greek … , is rightly sacrificed by him who does penance, as being set in storm and wave until the sacrifice of his repentance is accepted. And the ram, as giving leadership to the flock, is rightly assigned to the burnt offering, that is, taken for virtue and perfection of life; for whose part is it to teach perfect things, if not that of those set over others? This being so, you say anyhow: "Why, if the law commanded he-goats to be offered for sin, has it now also commanded a calf to be offered?" It can be resolved and explained by one short reason: that the sacrifice of the Only-begotten is not of one kind, but is of sinners and of the righteous alike. And therefore the he-goats are commanded to be offered for the class of sinners, as it were, and the calf for the righteous, because the ox, being an animal fit for work, is taken in the person of the righteous man according to the law. Hence he says: "And with the calf he shall pray for himself and for his house," calling the righteous the house of God; for he dwells in them and walks among them. He is their God, and they are his people. "And he shall pray for himself," that is, for the house of his own flesh; for though he did no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth, yet he put on Adam, who needed propitiation because of the curse once brought upon the human race. Hear, then, Paul writing such things to the Hebrews about Christ: "Who has no need daily, as the priests, to offer victims first for his own offences and then for the people's; for this he did once for all by offering himself."

Verses 6–10. "And when he has offered the calf and prayed for himself and for his house, he shall make the two he-goats stand before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of witness, and he shall cast lots upon both, one for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. The one on which the lot of the Lord falls he shall offer for sin; but the one whose lot is for the scapegoat he shall set alive before the Lord, that he may pour out prayers over it and send it into the wilderness. When these things have been duly performed, he shall offer the calf, praying for himself and for his house."

The blind are wont to stumble in the light, and unbelievers to be scandalized in the law of God. Peter, knowing this, said both of the epistles of Paul, the vessel of election, and of all divine Scripture: "In which are some things hard to understand, which the unlearned and unstable twist, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." Those suffer this now too who understand the law of God according to their own will and not according to its true intention, and vainly think to establish from what the lawgiver said the worship of idols, harmful and pestilent to the soul. For they say: "The law commanded lots to be cast over two he-goats, and one to be separated for the Lord and the other for sending away." And they call the scapegoat the devil, so as to give from this an occasion for worshipping the evil one, so far do they stop their ears and are blind in mind. How, then, does it make sense? It is not credible that God himself should command a sacrifice to be offered to the devil, he who through Moses himself commanded that a brother and a son and a wife, and a whole city, that turned to idols should be destroyed, and who cries out: "You shall have no other gods besides me"; and who says through David: "There shall be no new god in you, nor shall you worship a foreign god." Would he, then, who commanded these things, command this, as though they were going to make equal and share with him his glory and priesthood and worship: that, two he-goats being offered, he should take one to be devoted to himself and the other to his adversary, who they think is called the scapegoat? But they have not known nor understood; they walk in darkness. For the lawgiver called "the one sent away" the he-goat that is sent into the desert.

But let us show from what belongs to the tradition of the legal letter how it would not be likely that the lawgiver commanded this, and then let us exercise the intention of the enactment by the consideration of the spirit. He commanded, then, that the two he-goats be set before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of witness, not that they were to be taken away from God (for this is "before the Lord"), nor that what was being sent to the devil [be brought] to God's door; and he commanded lots to be cast, one for the Lord and one for purification. But if he had taken the scapegoat as the person of some evil one, the lot would never have been cast for it along with that which was God's; for you will not find in the divine Scriptures that any good thing shares a lot with any evil thing. But whenever a lot was cast, they cast lots equals with equals, as the tribes of Israel divided [the land]; for when they needed to choose another for the apostleship in place of Judas, lots were cast over two men equal in virtues and teaching, namely Matthias and Joseph the Just, so that Peter, addressing the assembly, said: "You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two you have chosen to take the place of this ministry and apostleship." And not only before the lot was cast on the two he-goats did he command that they be set before the Lord, but he also commanded that the one on which the lot of sending away fell, after the same lot had fallen on it and it had been made manifest, be set before the Lord and that prayers be poured out over it. How, then, is that which has been set before the face of God and in a way consecrated to him sent again to the devil himself? Or how does the sacrifice that is sent to the wicked one accomplish the propitiation of sins? For if his intention is to make even the righteous sinners, how could he procure propitiation for sinners? And how can that very sinner, of whom David says, "Set a sinner over him, and let the devil stand at his right hand," procure propitiation for sins? For this belongs to God alone, to whom David said, "And be propitious to my sin, for it is great."

This being so, and this understanding having been shown on every side to be unfitting, let us not be unaware that the lawgiver without doubt said these things above all of the sacrifice of Christ. Hence I think that, envying [it], they [sow] the tares of evil understanding, seeing its clear testimony from the law. For since Christ Jesus, who became incarnate for us, was God and man, keeping the divinity impassible, he offered only the humanity to sufferings; but the effect of his passion, that is, our propitiation, belonged not only to the flesh that suffered but much more to the impassible divinity. Paul testifies to this, saying: "Who, being the radiance of the glory and the image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power." And showing that all these things are said of the divinity of the Only-begotten, he added: "having made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high," joining to God the Word himself also the things that properly belonged to his flesh. If, then, these things have been aptly said, therefore two he-goats are taken and set before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of witness, that these things might be done in them after the image of Christ. For he himself is the true door, which leads to the door of the tabernacle of witness that is in heaven. And Aaron cast a lot upon each he-goat, one [for each], so that by the force and signification of the lots we may understand the division in the dispensation between the divinity and the humanity of Christ. And distinct things are proper to the one and to the other: that this one should suffer, and that one should strengthen the sufferer, and through the sufferings that were at work in it both moderate the sufferings that are contrary to us and manifest its own impassibility. Then, he says, "one lot for the Lord, and another for the scapegoat," for none other than Christ, as we said above. If the lot or the he-goat were given to some enemy and evil one, it would not share a lot with God, nor be led to the door of the tabernacle of witness, nor would prayers be poured over it, nor propitiation be made in it. So it is called the goat "sent away," as being sent away and not sacrificed. And for what reason … is sacrificed, which Aquila rendered "assigned to the Strong One"? And who is the strong or mighty one, hear Job saying: "I know that you are mighty, and no thought is hidden from you." Hear David too: "The Lord is a firmament to those who fear him." So one lot is for the sacrificed flesh of Christ, which, being united to God the Word, is rightly named Lord; that is why Paul says, "For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory." And by "the Strong One" the Godhead is understood. "He shall subject it to the lot": this lot is taken for it; for it, holding all things, rightly strengthened even its own flesh by the passion.

Therefore Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the Lord has fallen, and shall offer it for sin. For the spiritual Aaron is he who presides over our priesthood, of whom Paul says: "As Aaron, so also Christ did not glorify himself to become a priest." He offers his own flesh to the Father, and in it he offers for sin, of which Paul wrote to the Hebrews: "This man, having offered one victim for sin, sat down for ever at the right hand of God." … "He shall set it alive before the Lord, that he may pour out prayers over it." For since we said that the lot of the scapegoat is referred figuratively to the divinity of Christ, he sets it alive, keeping it impassible, so that through it he may make supplication. For no one can forgive sins but God alone. And he sends it away into the wilderness, and, as the Seventy say, "the goat shall bear upon itself their names into a solitary land," or a pathless one. Let us by no means think that the desert and solitary or pathless land must now be taken for any evil thing, nor let those who drag the law to impiety disturb the ears of the pious by this. For he calls it deserted by evil, and solitary or pathless, which cannot be walked by the spiritual enemies, in which God dwells and appears, as David shows, saying: "O God, my God,

I watch for you at dawn; my soul has thirsted for you, how manifoldly my flesh for you, in a desert land, pathless and waterless; so in the holy place I have appeared before you, to see your power and your glory." So the desert and the pathless place is holy, the dwelling of the Holy of holies, where the divinity is said to have gone away into heaven at the time of the passion: not passing from place to place, but withholding its own power from the humanity, to give room to the passion, while remaining in a place worthy of itself, namely in the bosom of the Father. No one approaches it except he himself and the Holy Spirit, because he himself is in the Father, and the Holy Spirit too, as we have learned from the gospel writings. So understand "going away" as "withholding." For God, who is present everywhere, is said to go away when he withholds his working. And it also bears our iniquities, because it is the property of fire to consume hay, and of the divinity to destroy sin; hence God is also called a consuming fire.

Verses 11–13. "And Aaron shall offer the calf for sin, and praying for himself and for his house, he shall sacrifice it. And taking the censer, which he has filled with coals from the altar, and drawing with his hand compounded incense for burning, he shall enter beyond the veil into the holy place, so that, when the spices have been placed on the fire, their cloud and vapour may cover the oracle which is over the testimony, and he may not die."

Because we have said that many things were done through the sacrifice of the Saviour, many distinctions were necessarily sought out in it in the law. Principally, then, through it absolution was won for Israel itself; that is why he said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But not only the deliverance of Israel, but also the correction of the Gentiles was in the sacrifice of Christ. Paul set this out plainly, writing to the Ephesians: "That he might create the two in himself into one new man, making peace, and reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, having slain the enmity in himself; and coming, he preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near." He calls the Gentiles "far off" because they were far from all divine knowledge, but Israel near, whom the prophets and the law made near. Then, connecting, Paul said: "For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father." The spiritual Aaron, then, sacrifices the calf, that is, his own flesh; and when its sacrifice is taken for the deliverance of the Jewish people, the sacrifice of the calf is necessarily assumed; for he himself had the legal justification, especially so as to proclaim openly, "I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it." And Paul said of him: "God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law." This calf is fittingly understood because of the yoke of the commandments. "Praying for himself": that is, for the humanity, for he bore its figure in himself. "And for his house": properly he came to deliver the people that lived under the law, which was his house because of kinship. That is why Cleopas said, "But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel." "And he shall sacrifice it": for he himself sacrificed his own flesh; he himself became the high priest of his own sacrifice in Sion when he gave the cup of the blood of the new covenant.

"And taking the censer, which he has filled with coals from the altar": here he calls the Lord's tongue the censer, for the Spirit was in it. He takes the censer full of coals, then, because to his sacrifice he at once added the words of teaching, which were divine and heavenly, of which David said, "Coals were kindled by him." John wrote this in what was done at the supper after Judas had gone out, in which he sets out how the Father is in him, and how he, being in the Father, sends the gift of the Spirit; how the Father is the husbandman, he the vine, and the apostles the branches; how the ruler of this world is judged; and other wonders, which are coals of fire, as warming us to piety, since they are spiritual in general. And the altar, which according to the Seventy is "before the Lord": we showed at the very beginning of this book that this is the Cherubim. For the prophet Ezekiel showed that the coals of the spiritual fire are set here; for he presents the Lord himself, who was clothed in a long robe and had his loins girded, saying: "Go in between the wheels under the Cherubim, and fill your hands from among the Cherubim." And that the spiritual altar, on which the coals of fire are, must be understood as the seat of the Cherubim, hear Isaiah saying: "And one of the Seraphim came to me, and in his hand a coal, which he had taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth." What other altar, then, is in heaven than the Cherubim? But for him, as being both high priest and king, the same thing is both throne and altar. Paul, signifying this to the Hebrews, said: "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one tempted in all things according to likeness, yet without sin. Let us then draw near with confidence to the throne of his glory." He called this the spiritual altar, as what follows shows; for he says, "that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help." For without any doubt we receive both of these from the altar.

But what did the lawgiver add in what follows? "And drawing with his hand compounded incense for burning, he shall enter beyond the veil into the holy place"; or, as the Seventy have it, "And he shall fill his hands with incense of fine compounding, and offer it within, inside the veil." He means prayer, of which David said, "Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight." So when we pray for worldly things, it is in a way coarse and not fine; but when we ask for spiritual things, that is, divine knowledge, the kingdom of heaven, the remission of sins, it is fine, as being spiritual and intellectual, and the spiritual priest offers it for us. This is clear from the fact that Christ, praying for his disciples, asked for them sanctification and unity with himself, freedom in the world, and other such things. "He shall enter into the holy place," or, according to the Seventy, "and he shall offer within the veil," namely of his flesh. And to whom will he offer it? To the Father, namely; because the flesh was shown manifest to the sight of all, but he himself was invisible. "And when the spices have been placed on the fire, their cloud and vapour shall cover the oracle which is over the testimony, and he shall not die." Understand what is said here in two ways. Since Aaron bears the figure of Christ himself because of the dignity of the priesthood, he bears also the figure of the body of priests. Christ places spices on the fire, that is, prayer on teaching, and their vapour, the cloud, that is, the power of prayer, covers "the oracle which is over the testimony," that is, his flesh, from which propitiation for sins was procured for us, and which is in the saving passion. And we showed a little above that this is the testimony. "And he shall not die" the death of corruption; for his flesh did not see corruption, because it was covered by the vapour of the spices, that is, by the power of that prayer of which David speaks, Christ entreating the Father: "For you will not leave my soul in hell, nor give your holy one to see corruption." And each priest, speaking of Christ, places spices on the fire, the prayer of spiritual teaching, and the power of prayer covers the oracle which is over the testimony. It does not allow him to seek, concerning the sufferings of the Lord's flesh, things that are beyond the power of the seeker; and they will not die the death that has been fixed for immoderate inquirers, who seek what it is not permitted to men to seek.

Verse 14. "He shall also take of the blood of the calf and sprinkle it with his finger seven times toward the propitiatory, to the east." Or, as the Seventy have it, "he shall sprinkle with his finger upon the propitiatory to the east; before the face of the propitiatory he shall sprinkle seven times with his finger." That the sacrifice of the Only-begotten is indeed of his flesh, yet is accomplished again by the power of his divinity and the good pleasure of the Father, for the remission and rescue of our sins, and at the same time for the gift of the supply of the Spirit, is plainly shown by what the lawgiver now says. For the finger signifies the power of the divinity; hence David said: "For I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have founded." We take both, then, of the power of the divinity, and the blood of the calf itself is sprinkled upon the propitiatory toward the east. For the saving passion was accomplished for our propitiation and at the same time our illumination; hence the passion itself is called the propitiatory, as we have often shown. And it is also called the East; for the prophet Zechariah says of him: "Behold a man, the East is his name, and he shall rise up from under him." And Zechariah the priest, the father of John, says: "In which the East from on high has visited us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death." And over against the propitiatory, that is, in the sight of the Father, he will sprinkle seven times, so that the human race might receive from the Lord's blood both the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the number seven signifies both: because there are seven gifts of the Spirit, and the same number signifies the remission of sins. For when Peter asked Christ, "If my brother sins against me, how often shall I forgive him? Up to seven times?", Christ said, "I do not say seven times, but up to seventy times seven," multiplying the number seven.

Verse 15. "And when he has slain the he-goat for the sin of the people, he shall bring its blood within the veil, as was commanded concerning the blood of the calf, to sprinkle it over against the oracle; and he shall expiate the sanctuary from the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel, and from their transgressions, and all their sins."

The lawgiver is admirable, sufficient for the figure of the mystery, and by no means to be blamed for necessarily dividing a manifold prefiguration into many forms. For since Christ arose according to the flesh from the Jews, who lived under the yoke of the law, it is rightly called the sacrifice of a calf; for the calf, accustomed to draw the yoke and so to work the earth, is compared to the legal yoke and to the work and righteousness that belong to it. And since, inasmuch as he was incarnate, he was made of the common lump of men, therefore he is again called a he-goat. This rough animal, then, bears the garment of the pious; and the whole race of the living is rough, as filled with sin, for nothing is rougher than sin. Hence the lawgiver, wishing to establish this openly, says: "And when he has slain the he-goat for the sin of the people," understanding here the whole human race, which once was not a people but now is a people, since Jesus took the firstfruits from us. So, to show that Christ is akin principally to the Jews, because of Abraham, but yet bears the firstfruits of all our nature, which is in sin (that is why he was called Adam), the law took the calf and the he-goat together for the figure of his sacrifice. And since the sacrifice is one, whether it is named calf or he-goat, and the effect in both is one (for the absolution of sins is won by it), the things done with the he-goat and the calf are necessarily common. For you see that he slays the he-goat before the Lord, namely the Father, and brings its blood within the veil, that is, to the Father. Again, then, you understand this as within the spiritual veil, namely the visible flesh of the Lord, as bringing his invisible blood within the veil, as was commanded. "And of the blood of the calf he shall sprinkle with his finger seven times toward the propitiatory, to the east," or, as the Seventy have it, "upon the propitiatory, before the face of the propitiatory." Then what follows?

Verse 16. "And he shall expiate the sanctuary from the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel, and from their transgressions, and all their sins."

He seems to speak of the tabernacle, but he does not speak of the one that is subject to the senses. For what expiation or propitiation could wood accomplish? or skins, or the other things of which the tabernacle of the Jews, which was subject to the senses, was made? But he means the generality, or the whole human species. For our lump was holy from the beginning, so that the Spirit of God dwelt in it. This is shown by the fact that God in anger threatened to take him away when those who descended from Seth, though they were righteous and were called sons of God, desiring the women who were born from [Cain] and his descendants by succession, who were called daughters of men, became of one race with the evil and wicked. For he spoke thus: "The sons of God, seeing that the daughters of men were beautiful, took wives for themselves of all whom they chose; and the Lord God said: My Spirit shall not remain in man for ever, because he is flesh." So if the Spirit of God dwelt in man before all began to follow the passions of the flesh, the lump of men was rightly holy; for the Holy of holies would not have taken firstfruits from it. But because it was soiled, he expiated it from the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel. First, the sensible law was given to them; because they transgressed, it made them guilty under the curse and death, so that they therefore needed expiation; and the sacrifice of the Only-begotten is sacrificed principally for them; but it is also sacrificed for all men, so that Caiaphas said: "It is expedient that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish." And the evangelist John, confirming and at the same time correcting what had been said, added: "Now this he did not say of himself, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but that he might gather into one the children of God who were scattered," namely the Gentiles; for of them the Lord said: "For I have other sheep which are not of this fold, and I must gather them too." Plainly the children of God are much more the Israelites, because Israel is interpreted "seeing God"; and according to reason Jesus was sacrificed for the sensible Israel, that is, the sacrifice, and he offered it for the whole human race, for the expiation of our uncleannesses. Of which uncleannesses? That is, "from their transgressions," he says, "and all their sins." For the uncleanness of the soul is not the pollution of a corpse, not swine's food, nor anything else of the kind,

but to harm one's neighbour and to sin against God or the commandments of God.

"According to this rite he makes the tabernacle of witness, which is fixed among them, in the midst of … of their dwelling. Let no man be in the tabernacle when the high priest enters the sanctuary to pray for himself and for his house and for the whole assembly of Israel." What the law called "the holy place" above, see, it now calls the tabernacle of witness, "which is fixed among them, in the midst of … of their dwelling"; or, according to the Seventy, "built among them, in the midst of their uncleannesses." For by the same reason our lump can both be holy and be called the tabernacle of witness. For if we said that heaven is the tabernacle of witness, our heavenly man is rightly named holy, of whom Paul says: "As we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly"; and again: "If our earthly house of this dwelling is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Rightly, then, it is named holy, because it was built in us. For first the Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth, and then breathed into his face the breath of life. This, then, is our heavenly man, who is in the midst of our uncleannesses, who is also assailed by the passions of the flesh, as Paul said: "For I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and leading me captive to the law of sin which is in my members." That is why the law very consistently added:

Verse 17. "Let no man be in the tabernacle of witness when the high priest goes in to pray for himself and for his house and for the whole assembly of Israel."

For when Christ entered the holy place, that is, when he became incarnate and took the heavenly man and firstfruits from us, no one was in the spiritual tabernacle of witness, neither Gentile nor circumcised, neither Levite nor priest, because "all have turned aside, together they have become unprofitable; there is none who does good." No one then followed the heavenly way of life, nor a wisdom worthy of the heavenly man, until he prayed in the holy place of his own flesh through the cross, and went out of it by the common law of death, sending forth his spirit and leaving the flesh in the tomb, which is plainly named its …. But the sacrifice now set forth did not profit the generality of all men. "Let no man be in the tabernacle," he says, "when the high priest enters the sanctuary to pray." And yet in the sacrifice according to the letter only the people of the Jews would be present; nor would every man be excluded from the tabernacle at the time of the sacrifice now spoken of; but it signifies that the whole human race now minds earthly things and is in sins, and therefore is rightly not found in the spiritual tabernacle of witness.

Verses 18–19. "And when he has gone out to the altar which is before the Lord, let him pray for himself, and taking the blood of the calf and of the he-goat, let him pour it upon its horns round about, and sprinkling it with his finger seven times, let him expiate and sanctify it from the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel."

What the calf and the he-goat were has been explained sufficiently in what has been said. For taking the blood of both together, and showing it to be one by the joining, he places or pours it upon the horns of the altar. But what does he do? Whatever the order of the mystery requires and the figure wishes in sequence, which the lawgiver wrote with all precision: afterwards our going out to the altar which is before the Lord. He means that of the incense, which we showed is the seat of the Cherubim; ascending with the flesh, he also lifted up our captivity in him, raising us up together and making us sit at the right hand in the heavenly places. "And taking the blood, he pours it upon its horns round about, and sprinkling it with his finger seven times, let him expiate and sanctify it from the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel." For by his own passion he sanctified not only the horns of the altar that is in heaven, namely the chief and general virtues, wisdom, fortitude, justice, chastity; these are rightly the horns of the Cherubim, for this heavenly living creature has their figures, and bears them in the person of the man and the lion and the calf and the eagle: of wisdom in the person of the lion, of justice in the person of the calf, of chastity in the person of the eagle; of these we set out more fully some time ago in the interpretation of the prophet Ezekiel. "Let him expiate and sanctify it from the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel." For even heavenly things are expiated by the sacrifice of Christ, so that Paul, wishing to show the difference between the legal sacrifices and that of the Only-begotten, said: "It was necessary, then, that the copies of the heavenly things be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these." And for what reason the heavenly things needed expiation, the lawgiver showed, saying: "… from the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel." As far as the powers of heaven are concerned, no expiation of any kind was needed, because they live in continual sanctification; but because the smoke of our sins frequently goes up to heaven, of which David said, "Smoke went up in his anger, and fire blazes from his face," so that God said to Jonah, "Go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach in it the preaching which I speak to you, for its wickedness has come up before me," and again to Abraham of Sodom, "I will go down and see whether they have done according to the cry that has come to me, or not," rightly he sanctifies and expiates the choirs above us from our uncleannesses, so as to remove from them the abominable odour surrounding them, and the false boasting which we laid down against them. That is why he does not simply sprinkle, but seven times, so that you may understand the pardon of our sins, for the number seven figures this. The heavenly places are cleansed of the abominable odour and of the boasting which we laid down; for because of this, enmity first arose on our part against the things in heaven.

Verse 20. "After he has cleansed the sanctuary and the tabernacle and the altar." Or, as the Seventy have it, "And he shall finish expiating the holy place and the tabernacle of witness and the altar, and he purged for the priests." According to their edition, the law rightly made special mention of the priests, so that the figure of the sacrifice of the Only-begotten might be preserved in all things. For the choir of the apostles obtained the priesthood from Christ; it was part of the human race for which the Lord offered himself, yet he called it special, like an ointment, and the Lord's chief sacrifice. The Lord shows this when he says to the Father: "I sanctify myself, that they too may be sanctified in truth"; and again to them: "Greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends; you are my friends if you do what I command you." And see the order of the legal figure, how it leads to the truth itself; for according to the Seventy he says, "He shall finish expiating the holy place and the tabernacle of witness and the altar"; that is, he will finish and bring to an end the supplication made through the cross for the whole race of men, and that which was at the spiritual altar, after he had been taken up into heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father. And yet he does not expiate for the priests: for he sends them cleansing through the spiritual fire and through the fiery tongues of the Spirit; that is why he said to them, "But you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence."

Verse 21. "Then he offers the living he-goat, and placing both hands on its head, let him confess all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, and all their offences and sins; and laying them on its head, … And when the he-goat has carried all their iniquities into a solitary land and been let go in the desert."

We need now too to repeat the same things, because of those who stumble in the light. For it is proved that the things now enacted concerning this living he-goat are done not for any wicked or evil one, but for God himself. First, because the priest lays both hands on the head of the he-goat. The laying on of hands in sacrifice ministered blessing, or the remission of sins, or the coming of the Holy Spirit, or spiritual expiations. How, then, was the priest going to do the things mentioned on this one, on which, as those of that party say, the lot of the enemy fell, of him who fights against God? Or how did he redeem in it the iniquities, injustices and sins of the sons of Israel? For the enemy does not allow sins to be confessed, but rather suggests that we hide the wounds of the soul, so that we may not find the physician who could apply the medicine and give health. That is why, as soon as David was rebuked by Nathan, he cried out, "I have sinned against the Lord"; and the prophet at once added: "And the Lord has taken away your sin; you shall not die; yet because you have made the enemies of the Lord blaspheme …." Hence the lawgiver also said that the he-goat is sent into the wilderness by a ready man; "ready," that is, one who comes or approaches. And he does not say his rank, whether he who did this was a Levite or a priest or one of the people. So the he-goat signifies that Christ is present with all. For as he was sacrificed first through the flesh, so now he is called living because of the divinity. But because the one and the same is both impassible and passible, the priest necessarily lays his hands on the living one too, so that by the laying on of hands it may be shown that the living Word of God, impassible and immortal, taking this upon himself for us in the flesh, undertook the sacrifice. Rightly, then, the priest will pronounce upon him the iniquities, injustices and sins. This is he of whom the prophet Isaiah said: "Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?", calling the Son, consubstantial with the Father, the arm of the Lord; of whom he also added what follows: "He took our infirmities and bore our sorrows. He was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our crimes. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripe we have been healed." So plainly he bore upon himself our sins and injustices and iniquities. And therefore, according to the Seventy, he says, "He shall put them on the head of the living kid"; for of this the figure is that Christ allowed a crown of thorns to be put on his head, because sins are wont to be taken as thorns. That is why the earth is commanded to bring forth thorns for Adam, since he himself brought forth sins from disobedience. And Solomon says: "Thorns grow in the hand of the drunkard," signifying that his actions are full of sins.

Taking the words of the law in this way, then, do not be ignorant of its intention and force; but … the ready man, by whose hand the living [goat] is sent into the desert. For Christ himself became the whole of his own sacrifice: priest and sacrifice and knife and altar. He himself is also the ready man, ready for us for the passion, so that he says through Isaiah: "But I will not gainsay; I have not gone back. I gave my body to the smiters and my cheeks to those who plucked them; I did not turn away my face from those who reviled and spat upon it." To him David too says, signifying the mystery of his incarnation, through which he obtained our kingdom: "The Lord has reigned; he has put on beauty; the Lord has put on strength and girded himself. For he has made firm the world, which shall not be moved. Your throne is ready from of old." Christ, then, the spiritual Aaron, now too … himself, he himself through the ready man, …, that is, through his own … through the kid … or in the hand of the man … power; for he himself, being … and man, was shown ready. And he sends the living he-goat into the wilderness, or into the pathless and desert land, … his own immortal and impassible divinity, into places pathless for us and deserted by all wickedness, as John says: "Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come forth from God and was going to God."

Verse 32. "For the priest who has been anointed, and whose hands have been consecrated to exercise the priesthood in his father's place, shall expiate." Or, as the Seventy have it: "The priest whom they anoint, and whosever hands they consecrate to be priest in his father's place, shall make supplication." So as to show Christ without any doubt: for Christ had as fathers according to the flesh the chief priests of the Jews, for they too were sons of Abraham, as Christ was. The law shows that, since the priests of the Jews could not, as Paul says, make perfect those who draw near (for it was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins), rightly Christ himself, anointed to the priesthood and consecrating his hands through the cross, expiates us. Of whom in another place the law rightly says: "The priest whom they anoint and whose hands they consecrate to minister in the priesthood after his father." For first the Father anointed him, as David says: "Therefore God, your God, has anointed you." And he anointed him, saying, "You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek." Afterwards he was anointed by the men who ministered to his passion and sacrifice; for the sacrifice of the cross showed him to be our lamb and priest and deliverer. That is why, for a fuller demonstration of it and a more precise manifestation of the figure:

Verse 34. "Once," he says, "in the year he shall do this." Wishing to show that the sacrifice of the Only-begotten was done once, as it was said, "Christ, once offered to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time without sin to those who await him for salvation," … through faith, with which he who meditates on the law finds the Gospel to match this, and most truthful what Christ, that is, the truth, said to the Jews: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me also; for he wrote of me." And what or where he did not add, because whatever is mystical, whatever …, whatever is divine, was spoken by Moses of Christ in shadow and figure and images.

Verses 1–7. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons and all the sons of Israel, and say to them: This is the word which the Lord has commanded, saying: Any man of the house of Israel who kills an ox or a goat in the camp or outside the camp, and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle as an offering to the Lord, shall be guilty of blood; as if he had shed blood, so shall he perish from the midst of his people. Therefore the sons of Israel ought to bring to the priest the victims which they kill in the field, that they may be sanctified to the Lord before the door of the tabernacle of witness, and they shall sacrifice them as peace offerings to the Lord. And the priest shall pour the blood under the altar of the Lord and at the door of the tabernacle of witness, and shall burn the fat for a sweet odour to the Lord. And they shall no more sacrifice their victims to demons, with whom they have committed fornication. It shall be a perpetual ordinance for them and their posterity."

… mattered little to the lawgiver about the figures; but what he thought of them, more for the sake of the truth prefigured in them, which, dispensed in later times, he wishes to make them cease, he plainly shows beforehand. He commanded these things not simply through Moses to Aaron and his sons and to all the sons of Israel, but openly making plain that he wishes none, neither great nor more perfect nor imperfect, to be ignorant of what it is expedient for them to know: namely, that the law of the letter is temporary, so that when the time is fulfilled we should no longer busy ourselves with it in vain and to no purpose. And what is the end of its times? The complete destruction of the very place in which he commanded sacrifices to be offered; for he commanded with a threat that whoever completes a sacrifice there, within or outside [the camp] yet outside the tabernacle of witness, should perish from the people. So that, when the tabernacle of witness and the temple made after its image had been destroyed, they might know that all the things which the law commanded to be done there have an end, and that these too do not please God; for otherwise he would not have destroyed the place in which, according to the law, they ought by all means to have been performed. Hence righteous actions, that is, not to kill, not to commit adultery, not to steal, not to bear false witness, to honour father and mother, to love one's neighbours, and the rest, he does not confine to a place on this account, because they are always useful, common with the gospel way of life. But these things, which in themselves are superfluous but were devised for the sake of some reason, he shuts up in a place, so that they may know that they are temporary; for all things that serve a place are also ordained to serve a time. To the place, then, are assigned the sacrifices, the cleansings from the dead, and of those who suffer a flow of seed, and of lepers, and of menstruous women, because these too have their effect through sacrifices; likewise the unleavened bread, the figurative Passover, Tabernacles, Pentecost, and also the new moons and the sabbaths; for in these sacrifices had by all means to be offered. And that these held figures of the mysteries to be fulfilled by the Lord, we have shown sufficiently above.

Since, then, the people that received the law was a child, gaping after imperfect things, because it would cling to shadows and be attached to places, as a child delights in certain places, the lawgiver found a way by which he might of necessity remove them from the figures when the time of their withdrawal came: shutting up in a place the things he was going to destroy, and commanding that none of the things mentioned be done outside this place, but that whoever attempted it should be as one who sheds blood. So whoever even now tries to perform the figures of the destroyed place shed blood, that is, they pollute the common way of life and sin against the community, as those who shed blood do; and likewise they shed the blood of him who is sent into error by them, for they become the cause of his perdition. And since it was possible for them to ask, or to think, for what reason these things were enacted, if they are local, we say, for a time, because they could not know openly the reason for the figures, nor did they wish to learn it when revealed, because the things enacted held the images of other things, therefore the lawgiver himself wrote for them another reason, truer than this: "And they shall no more sacrifice their victims to demons, with whom they have committed fornication"; or, as the Seventy have it, "And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to vain things." When it had been commanded them, "You shall not make yourself an idol, nor any likeness of the things that are in heaven above and on the earth beneath and whatever is in the waters under the earth," they made a molten calf and offered sacrifice to the calf, wishing to take sacrifices for the sake of gluttony. The law, their tutor, commanded them to offer sacrifices so that, occupied in these, they might keep themselves from every sacrifice of idolatry; and it enacted these things, which, while forbidding them the sacrifices of idols, could at the same time also teach the figures of the mysteries to come. And he well called the service of idols fornication, plainly teaching them that God betrothed our souls to himself for salvation, and that therefore departure from him is called fornication. Moreover he frightens those who commit fornication in the flesh, … the worship of idols, so that the flight to demons should be named fornication.

Verses 8–9. "And you shall say to them: The man of the sons of Israel, and of the strangers who sojourn among you, who offers a burnt offering or a victim, and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of witness to be offered to the Lord, shall perish from his people."

Even if the lawgiver seems to say the same things, yet he makes the people on whom he lays the law wary; for by saying the same things often he shows that this commandment is necessary and very useful. Yet he does not say the same thing again in vain. Above he subjected to the penalty one who only kills, in order to make some sacrifice, but not one who in every way performs the rest of the sacrifice; for he says: "Who kills an ox or a sheep, in the camp or outside the camp, and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle as an offering to the Lord." There he is understood to be forbidden from what he attempted; but here it is not so, but: "Who offers a burnt offering or a victim, and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of witness to be offered to the Lord," speaking of a sacrifice completed or perfect, so far that it became a burnt offering; yet he commanded the same penalty for this. For he who made a beginning of handling this and was forbidden differs nothing from him who completed it. And the penalty of both is destruction from the people, so that he can no longer live among the people, nor boast of circumcision, nor adorn himself with the race of Abraham, nor be called an Israelite, but is set among those who have the foreskin and the foreigners; this is for someone to be destroyed from his people. So whoever now transgresses the commandments or bounds of the law, doing outside the temple whatever the law does not wish done when the temple is destroyed, are no longer Israelites, nor do they rightly claim for themselves the name of Jews. But this too must be noted above all, that he commanded these things to be kept not only by those who are of the sons of Israel but, with them, also by the proselytes or strangers who sojourn among them, that is, the Gentiles; for these are not joined to them but are among them, because we are among them, as having their law and prophets and the inheritance promised to them. But we cleave not to them but to God. Moreover, according to the Seventy, he said "man, man," when he could simply have said "man"; yet he doubles it to show that both he who is in circumcision and he who is in the foreskin, cleaving to God, ought to keep this commandment.

Verses 10–12. "Any man of the house of Israel, and of the strangers who sojourn among them, if he eats blood, I will set my face against that soul and destroy it from its people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you, that on the altar you may make atonement with it for your souls, and the blood may be an expiation for the soul. Therefore I have said to the sons of Israel: No soul of you shall eat blood, nor of the strangers who sojourn among you."

The Seventy here give "man, man." How this ought to be understood we said above. So the letter of this commandment must be kept, and blood must by no means be eaten. For you will find that the apostles too commanded this, when, a dispute having arisen in the church of Antioch about certain Jewish observances, the question was referred to them; they laid down the law, resolving and settling this question: "It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is strangled, and from sexual immorality." Therefore by blood let us understand properly murder, and by all blood all hatred of a brother, because "whoever hates his brother is a murderer," as John wrote. So by all blood he means the injustice of the deceitful; for "the Lord will abhor the man of blood and the deceitful"; and whoever harm the life of their neighbours by any snares whatever, so that they are compared to the murder of blood. And therefore we must abstain from all blood, knowing that against the soul that eats such blood (of such David said, "who devour my people as they eat bread") God, namely Christ, sets his face. For he is the image of the Father, because he who has seen the Son has seen the Father also. He is also the judge, and is necessarily set forth to threaten destruction to those who are workers of evil, as David shows, saying: "But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to destroy their memory from the earth." He destroys the soul that eats blood from its people, namely from the common race of men; for, separating it as merciless and impious, he condemns it with the evil demons and sends it into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. Then, suggesting how much we ought to be compassionate and merciful, loving one another, because of him who showed such great kindness toward us as to shed his own blood for our propitiation and give it for our souls, he says: "For the life of all flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you, that on the altar you may make atonement with it for your souls," signifying the mystical blood of Christ. So his blood will be an expiation for the soul. The blood upon the altar for the expiation of our souls, expiating for the soul, is that which he shed for us when crucified, and he gave expiation or propitiation to the human race, offering the firstfruits; that is why he rightly says: "And the blood shall be an expiation for the soul." For it is his soul: first because it was fashioned by him, then because, when he became incarnate, he took it consubstantial with our soul, so that he himself might pay for us the death which we owe. And when he says, "The life of all flesh is in its blood," he does not wish us to understand blood as the hidden substance of the soul, but that it has fellowship with the flesh through the blood, and when this is emptied out or grows cold, then it is dissolved from the flesh, the Creator so disposing our nature. Since, then, Christ gave his blood for the expiation of our souls, [it is] so that we may abstain from all murder and from every other iniquity that is close to murder. For it is a common law and extends against all.

Verses 13–14. "Any man of the sons of Israel, and of the strangers who sojourn among you, who by hunting or fowling catches a beast or a bird which it is lawful to eat, shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth; for the life of all flesh is in the blood. Hence I have said to the sons of Israel: You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, because the life of the flesh is in the blood; and whoever eats it shall perish."

God takes great care that we do not harm one another at all. That is why Jesus commanded us to yield to him who strikes the cheek and not to contend with him in court, and likewise concerning him who takes our cloak: so that we may not be provoked even by strife to harm our neighbour, but rather may correct by our patience him who acts unjustly against us. Nothing, then, narrows our life more than injustice and avarice and mutual hatred. With this in view the lawgiver did not recapitulate the commandment about blood in vain; but because he saw that some are wont to harm their fellow-countrymen by certain frauds and machinations and various deceits, as if unknowingly, he [wished] to destroy such contrivances too. For see what he adds: "If by hunting or fowling he catches a beast or a bird which it is lawful to eat, let him pour out its blood and cover it with earth." That hunting is wont to be taken by divine Scripture above all for injustice, and not just any injustice but that which tends to blood and in a way harms the very life of him who suffers the injustice through guile and fraud, hear David saying: "They will hunt after the soul of the righteous and condemn innocent blood"; and again: "Our soul has been delivered like a sparrow from the snare of the hunters." If, then, anyone has caught [something] in hunting, that is, has seen sinning someone who was exposed to the hunt through weakness or simplicity, him we call the beast that is caught. That is why he said, "a beast or a bird which it is lawful to eat": by the beast signifying someone of the common people, only carnal and given over to his passions, and without experience of the entanglement of affairs; by the bird, one who removes himself from earthly things. For such men are consumed by the violent and avaricious in worldly causes, that is, by that unfitting and wicked feasting which Paul forbade, saying, "If you devour one another, see that you are not consumed by one another." Or those who were before righteous are rightly named among the things which it is lawful to eat, that is, among clean things.

Yet if anyone pours out the blood of the sinner, lying as it were beneath and buried in repentance, that is, the sin which he sinned (and he pours it out by coming to the work and to confession, as David says, "I will pour out my prayer in his sight"), let the earth cover it. For the earth covers the sins of those who confess, as remaining beneath and put to death by repentance; and their cry is forbidden to go up to heaven, as the cry of Sodom went up; for they would not do penance, so that God said of them to Abraham, "I will go down and see whether they have done according to the cry that has come to me, or not, that I may know." And Job, praying that the iniquity laid upon him, whether by the devil or by those who reproached him with it, should not be hidden from the Lord, that is, not be disregarded by him, cried out: "O earth, do not hide my blood, and let my cry find no place to hide in you," that is, let it not be held back in a place, but go up to God. That is why he added, "Behold now, my witness is in heaven, and he who knows me is on high." With this intention, then, the lawgiver, setting down the things said, added: "For the life of all flesh is in the blood." Then he adds: "Hence I have said to the sons of Israel," that is, say: "You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, because the life of the flesh is in the blood," solemnly charging them to abstain from all iniquity; charging them also not to expose the sins of brothers committed against their will, but to hand over to the earth the blood of him who has been caught, that is, seen, covering it with pardon and compassion. For he who eats blood and the soul, who defames his neighbour's sin, is rightly reckoned [a murderer], because sin is the death of the soul for those who wish to be called sons of Israel and named God's firstborn sons, and to escape the penalty that is added; for he says, "And whoever eats it shall perish." And neither priesthood, nor faith, nor sanctification, nor any other virtue or dignity can afford protection to such a one; for he has threatened destruction to all who eat blood.

Verses 15–16. "The soul that eats what has died of itself, or what was taken by a beast, whether of the natives or of the strangers, shall wash its garments and itself with water, and shall be defiled until evening; and in this way it shall become clean. But if it does not wash its garments and body, it shall bear its iniquity."

That the carcass is the sinner, as one who suffers the cruel death of sin, and what was taken by beasts not simply a sinner but a great sinner, so far that the evil demons work in him, as was Judas, who betrayed Christ when the devil entered his heart, we set out more fully some time ago, when the lawgiver set forth the sacrifices of pollutions. But there he speaks of one who touched carcasses or things taken by beasts, that is, who shared or was a partaker with those mentioned; here, of one who eats, that is, who made the whole of that man's sin his own and fulfilled his own evil intention from the evil which that man committed: as were Annas and Caiaphas, who became partakers of Judas's betrayal not simply; for it was they who, buying the betrayal, gave him the money, and, long hungering or longing for the Lord's death, prevailed through Judas to feed and nourish their intention and to satisfy their desire. Such are said to eat carcasses and things taken by beasts. These need to wash their garments and body; and he washes his garment and body who cleanses himself wholly, that is, his inner and outer man; for the body is within the garments, as the inner man is within the outer man. And how does he wash? By baptism, or by an abundance of tears imitating the waters of baptism. But he who does not do this "shall bear his iniquity," namely the retribution of injustice. For so you will find divine Scripture threatening to repay, especially in the case of sins; hence Ezekiel brought in God saying: "My eye shall not spare you, and I will not have pity, but I will set your ways upon you, and your abominations shall be in your midst." And Isaiah says: "Priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and comfort her, for her wickedness is fulfilled, her iniquity is forgiven; she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How many goods we gain by carrying our mind over to meditation on the law and its interpretation, what need is there to say? For from this study we not only attain the virtues but also refuse evils; we also acquire the love of God, learning the beauty of his wisdom; and at the same time we free the eye of the soul from the smoke of the world, and cease to endure the rule of human corruption, and thenceforth we surpass men, living in this flesh, which is of earthly matter, more loftily; or rather we become more truly men. For what is rational and contemplative is proper to man; that is why he is said to have been created after the image of God. And these things come to us through study and occupation with the word of God. Therefore let us run through what follows in the book of Leviticus, which brings great help to its readers. For they are the commandments of God, overshadowed in most things in the letter because of the weakness of the Jewish people, but they present perfection to one who looks beyond the letter; and the things spoken through Moses are found, if they are interpreted, to be in harmony with the Gospel.

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.

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.

Verses 1–4. "And the Lord said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: Let not a priest be defiled by the deaths of his fellow citizens, except only for his blood relations or near kin, that is, for father and mother, and son and daughter, and also brother and virgin sister who is not married to a husband; but he shall not be defiled even for the ruler of his people." But the Seventy: "He shall not be defiled suddenly among his people, to his profanation."

The letter commanded the priests to flee the pollutions of the dead; but this is not the intention of the law, nor did the lawgiver propose this; he meant something greater, and something said very necessarily about priests. For who is said to look at them when they neglect the sins of the people? As is written in Hosea: "They eat the sins of my people, and lift up their souls to their iniquity." Not all the sins the people commits ought to be imputed to them, but attention must be paid to that division spoken by the prophet Ezekiel: "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel, and you shall hear a word from my mouth and declare it to them from me. If, when I say to the wicked, You shall surely die, you do not declare it to him, nor speak, so that he may turn from his wicked way and live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you declare it to the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness and his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul." The lawgiver set this out more plainly, and also more precisely, in the present passage. "Let them not be defiled," he says, "by deaths among their citizens." By which? By those who sin, namely, who are filled with pollution and in certain ways become authors of pollution to others, but above all to priests and teachers when they neglect them. Yet in these, he says, he is not defiled "by the deaths of his citizens," that is, when they are found to have omitted nothing that was expedient for them, but to have done themselves what belonged to them and to have preached God's law, while those, unwilling to obey, brought on themselves the death of disobedience. So they are not defiled in those who are far off, but in their near kin and neighbour, in father and mother, in sons and daughters, in brother and virgin sister who is not married to a husband. For the priest ought to apply diligence to the people too, that it may not sin, but especially to his own house and kin; that is why Paul says: "Command these things, that they may be blameless. But if anyone does not care for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." And again: "But if anyone does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?" In son and daughter, then, and brother and virgin sister, namely when they sin, the priest is necessarily defiled, as one who ought daily, and indeed every hour, to instruct them in what pertains to salvation and to watch over them, so that they do not commit such sins as are worthy of death. And this same thing is to be understood of father and mother; for the priestly dignity makes the son the teacher of father and mother. And saying "a sister who is not married to a husband," he shows by this that if the kin of priests have separated themselves and become in a way another house, separating themselves, they suffer no pollution in these when they sin. But as long as they cling to them, keeping the law of nearness and kinship, they are rightly made partakers of their defilement, because they cannot be ignorant of the sins of those who live with them, which gives rise to the cause of defilement for them. Hence, having said that they are defiled in these, he next added, according to the Seventy, "He is not defiled suddenly among his people, to his profanation." What does he show by this, except that the priest is indeed defiled in a people that sins too, but not suddenly? But those who come in from among the strangers … do not defile the priest at once, but when they remain in their sins and the priests neglect to cure them. Moreover, one of the people who sins suddenly makes the priest worthy of pardon, as one who did not know; but one who commits a sin prepared over a long time leaves him no room for pardon. For the priest ought not to have been ignorant, if indeed he had presided carefully over the people and was concerned how this one and that one stood, whether they stood or wavered, so as to prop up those who were tottering. For those who fall suddenly make those who preside free of fault, as a storm coming unexpectedly upon helmsmen. And therefore he did not say that the priest is defiled suddenly among the people to his profanation. And not in vain did he add "profanation," but suggests this by the word: that when the priest is defiled for the cause mentioned, namely the people's sin, neglecting and not doing what the priest ought by all means to do, he is found profane, that is, stripped of the dignity of the priesthood, one himself of the many; for those are called profane who are not sanctified, and very rightly, because they did not … the things of the priest.

Verse 5. "They shall not shave the head, nor the beard, nor make cuts in their flesh."

The law rightly commands that even the sadness that is wont to come from death be overcome by the priests, as those who themselves have the hope of the life to come and teach it to the people. But beyond these things, it plainly commands in what has now been said that they watch not only in their own sins and keep sound minds, but in the sins of others too; and how, learn. The head and the beard are the sign of our wisdom and perfection; that is why Christ is called our head, in whom we have to know all the greatest and most perfect things, as Paul testifies, who says: "until we all attain to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." And the beard rightly signifies the perfection of wisdom, and the other understanding, because in those who have come to the age of youth, when they are able to know what is useful, the beard grows. Since, then, not only the Lord but Paul too calls sinners dead, when he says, "And when we were dead in our sins, he made us alive together with Christ," the head or beard of the priest above all must not be shaved over the dead, that is, over the sinner. For one ought not to spoil the thoughts, which are like the ornate hairs of the head and are themselves the ornament of our wisdom, provided they are orderly and sober, when another sins, but to keep them …, so as to be able to exhort, entreat, rebuke, as Paul wrote to Timothy: "Reprove, rebuke, entreat with all patience and teaching." And how this is to be done he added: "But you, watch, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist." So the priest who does not exhort and reprove the sinner does not watch; and he who does not watch is rightly said to shave his head and beard according to the force of the things mentioned. Nor does it befit the priest to make cuts in his flesh over the dead, that is, not to be scandalized in the sinner, nor to stumble when someone sins, nor to take from this a carnal mind, to the enticement of a like iniquity. For the cut is the mind of the flesh; which Paul says of the Jews, who live carnally and mind earthly things: "Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the mutilation."

Verse 6. "They shall be holy to their God and shall not profane his name; for they offer the incense of the Lord and the bread of their God, and therefore they shall be holy."

How priests profane the name of God the prophet Malachi set out: "You priests who profane my name, and say, In what have we profaned you? You offer polluted bread upon my altar." And adding things like these, he went on: "So if you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil?" And again: "My name is great among the nations, says the Lord; but you have profaned it in that you say, The table of the Lord is deserted." So priests profane the name of God by sin in the sacrifices. Hence, when the lawgiver had said, "They shall not profane his name," he did not add in vain, "for they offer the incense of the Lord and the bread of their God," or, as the Seventy have it, "because they themselves offer the sacrifices of God"; which you should think the lawgiver and prophet command not so much concerning irrational beasts as concerning rational men. For that priest calls and shows the Lord's table polluted who does not command those defiled by the iniquity of sin to abstain from it, but allows the awesome and holy things to be touched indiscriminately; of whom Paul says: "He who does not discern the body eats and drinks judgment to himself." And he offers the lame too at the altar who promotes an unbeliever to the ministry; for so Elijah the Tishbite called the unbelieving, when he said to the Jews: "How long will you limp on both sides?" He promotes the blind and deaf who brings forward one labouring with the disease of disobedience or ignorance of God; of whom Isaiah brought in his God saying: "You deaf, hear, and you blind, understand. Who is blind but my servant? And who is deaf but he to whom I sent my messengers?" When, then, the priest has proposed such men to offer at the altar and to take up the mystical ministry, does he not profane the name of his God? For it will not be without curse and slander for him, as one who commands evil men to minister to God. But he himself too will be holy by keeping himself from these; which Paul shows, saying: "Lay hands hastily on no one, nor share in others' sins; keep yourself chaste." So the cause of chastity and sanctification for the priest is to be mixed up in none of the things mentioned.

Verses 7–8. "He shall not take as wife a harlot and a vile prostitute, nor one who has been put away by her husband, for he is consecrated to his God and offers the bread of the presence. Let him be holy, then, for I too am holy, the Lord who sanctifies you."

The present enactment is wonderful in the Seventy's translation, because, setting forth the same commandment in the person of many and again in the singular, he called them; and it is without doubt clear from this that he commanded concerning the multitude of priests but drew the sanctification of all into one. For they say: "They shall not take a woman who is a harlot and profane," and a little after, "He shall be holy," and again, "I will sanctify him," as though he speaks of those who have taken up the office of the one, that is, of him who ministers according to the order of Melchizedek. For the very words of the text signify him without difficulty, as also, besides our translation, the other interpreters have shown. For where the Seventy said, "He himself offers the gifts of the Lord your God," they rendered, "Because he himself offers the bread of your God." And you are by no means ignorant that Melchizedek possessed his offering and priesthood in bread. That is why he also met Abraham bearing bread and wine, which were the signs of his priesthood; for he bore the image of Christ, of whom David presented the Father saying in prophecy, "You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek." His dignity the lawgiver shows here now too, not only by mentioning the bread; but the following words also, if we attend more precisely to their order, plainly hint that the sanctification of priests tends to Christ, not only because they received from him the law and manner of the priesthood, but because he is the mediator with the Father of the sacrifices and offerings offered by them. And therefore he says: "For they offer the incense of the Lord and the bread of their God," or, according to the Seventy, "He himself will offer the gifts of the Lord your God."

But why did he add, "Let him be holy, then, for I too am holy, the Lord who sanctifies you"? He did not say "who sanctifies you" in the singular, lest perhaps you should think that he is sanctified who offers the gifts to the Father as mediator, but "sanctifying you" in the plural, namely those who have been appointed priests of the church in his figure. What need was there, then, for the words to be connected so, or what consequence at all has the utterance of such words in the Seventy's translation: "He shall be holy, because I am holy, I the Lord who sanctify you"? For above, testimony of sanctification was given him, as those mentioned rendered, saying, "because he is holy to the Lord his God." How then does he infer again, "and you shall sanctify him, for he himself offers the gifts of the Lord your God"? So he shows three things by what has been said: that Christ has sanctification himself, and also that we sanctify; of whom Paul said, "He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all of one." But he is the only Son from God, and God's by nature, and we by grace; that is why he sanctifies and we are sanctified. But inasmuch as it pleased him to become incarnate, and to become not only the sacrifice but also the high priest, in this respect he is said to have a Father and a Lord and God, as he himself said to Mary Magdalene: "Go to my brothers and say to them: I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." And therefore he says: "Because he is holy to the Lord his God": holy as God, but to the Lord his God as man. That is why "you shall sanctify him, for he himself offers the gifts of the Lord your God." And because the priests appointed by him minister in his figure, he is said to be sanctified in them and by them; and therefore, though he had said once, "He is holy," he nevertheless added, "You shall sanctify him," and again, "He shall be holy." And how can we sanctify him? Whence, or from whom, do we have sanctification? Showing this, he added: "Because I am holy, the Lord who sanctifies them." If, then, we priests keep the sanctification given us by God, we sanctify by our sanctification him who is holy by nature, in us at least; because he willed to be sanctified in those conformed to him and sharing his glory, he used this transformation, speaking as it were figuratively and typically.

Yet he does not wish those who are sanctified by him to marry a harlot and vile prostitute, plainly aiming at the synagogue of the Jews; and that it is a harlot, hear the Lord saying in Isaiah: "How has the faithful city Sion, full of judgment, become a harlot? Righteousness dwelt in it, but now murderers." And in Hosea: "And I will remove her fornication from her midst, and her adultery from between her breasts." Moreover David too proclaims her profanation; for he says to God of her: "You have profaned her holiness on the earth; you have broken down all her walls." And the sanctification of the Jews was without doubt their synagogue; for in it was the sacrifice of the tabernacle, in which their ordinances were completed. She too is the one put away by God, as by her husband, who had become her husband by election; but because he afterwards found her guilty, therefore he put her away, so that she was altogether cast out. Hear the voice which Hosea uttered: "Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife and I am not her husband." And hear also what the prophet Isaiah handed on: "Thus says the Lord: What is this bill of your mother's divorce, with which I put her away?" And where there is divorce and sending away, it is clear that she of whom he said this was a wife. So he does not wish the priest to take her as wife, so as not to use any of the things that belong to her according to the letter; that is, that they should not perform the sacrifices of irrational animals and the sensible purifications, in which spiritual things were entrusted.

Verse 9. "If the daughter of a priest is caught in fornication and profanes her father's name, she shall be burned with fire."

It is grave for any man's daughter to commit fornication, but above all a priest's; because, as Paul said, priests must have children subject with all chastity, so that what follows may not be said of him: "If anyone does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?" Therefore the synagogue of the Jews is found called in the prophets not only the wife but also the daughter of God. But depraving both, she appeared unworthy of the gifts, and therefore became estranged; so that God said through Isaiah: "The daughter of Sion shall be left like a booth in a vineyard, and like a lodge in a cucumber field, and like a city that is laid waste." She was profaned and committed adultery. Of her you will find the Lord saying through prophecy in Hosea: "On her children I will have no pity, because they are children of fornication, for their mother has committed fornication"; and she was burned. The temple and this ancient city of Jerusalem show it, still showing the remains of the fire. So the spiritual contemplation of the law is true and irrefutable; for she was not only set on fire, but, as the law says, burned to the ground.

Verses 10–12. "The high priest, that is, the greatest priest among his brothers, on whose head the oil of anointing has been poured, and whose hands have been consecrated in the priesthood, and who is clothed with the holy garments, shall not uncover his head, nor rend his garments, and shall not go in to any dead body at all. He shall not be defiled even for his father or mother, nor go out from the holy places, lest he profane the sanctuary of the Lord, for the oil of the holy anointing of his God is upon him. I am the Lord."

Who is the great priest among his brothers, if not surely he of whom David said, "Great is the Lord, and great his power, and of his wisdom there is no number"? For who can consider his power, who can number or comprehend his wisdom? Because, being God, on account of the dispensation of the mysteries done for us he also became a priest. Rightly, then, he is called the great priest, as one who offered himself for us as a victim and offering. That is why he also allowed his servants to be called his brothers, that is, the saints, who always do his will; for he says, "Whoever does the will of my Father is my brother and sister and mother." Upon his head the oil of anointing was poured, of which [David] said: "Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a right sceptre is the sceptre of your kingdom

You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows." [Both] make mention of the anointing; but because, as David too [says], he declares himself to excel his fellows in that very anointing. For what he said, "above your fellows," is understood without any doubt as "over your partners"; so the lawgiver too called him the greatest among his brothers, that is, the superior. And what must above all be observed in the present account: although according to the Seventy's edition he ought to have added, "on whom the oil of anointing has been poured on the head," he does not say so, but, "the greatest of his brothers, who poured it on his head." For it is the flesh of Christ that received the anointing, communicated to itself, or united to the divinity; and from this flesh we have become his brothers and kin. Rightly he says, "the high priest, that is, the greatest priest among his brothers, on whose head the oil of anointing has been poured," so that it may plainly be found what is to be understood by "the greatest among his brothers," that is, of his flesh; for it is this that received the oil of anointing of this priest. And it is clear that his hands were consecrated, or, as the Seventy have it, perfected, through the nailing to the cross. For then, as those who are priests according to the law consecrated or perfected their hands in the blood of the calf and the ram, so he too consecrated or perfected his hands in his own blood. Of whom Paul says: "Who, though he was the Son, learned obedience from the things he suffered, and being perfected became to all who obey him the cause of eternal salvation, being named by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek"; and again: "For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through suffering." He was also clothed with those garments of which David sang in the Psalms: "The Lord has reigned, he has put on beauty; the Lord has put on strength and girded himself with power."

He did not uncover his head nor rend his garments. He did not uncover his head, because he is not separated from his Father, who is called his head, even when he endures the sufferings of the flesh. Nor did he rend his garments, that is, of the flesh; for from the time the Word became flesh, he is wholly in his flesh, and never cut himself off from it, neither when it was crucified, nor when it was buried, nor when it suffered anything else that belongs to our nature. "And he shall not go in to any dead body at all; he shall not be defiled even for his father and mother." But the Seventy say: "He shall not go in to any dead soul." And how does a soul die, since it was created immortal? Hear the prophet saying: "The soul that sins, it shall die," namely by the death of impiety; for this is the death of the soul, which above all the nations suffered, who had neither the law of God nor other knowledge. Yet he remains undefiled, and is not defiled by the sins of the nations. For of these, according to the Seventy, "every dead soul" is said, as impiety and idolatry were poured out against all. "And not for father and mother": namely for the people of the Jews, from whom he is according to the flesh, and who therefore are called his father and mother. "He shall be defiled, nor shall he go out from the holy places." Though he chose to condescend to sinners, yet he remains holy, and rests in the holy, and is surrounded by the holy angels who are in heaven. "Nor shall he profane the sanctuary of the Lord, for the oil of the holy anointing of his God is upon him." So even if you see him living with tax collectors and harlots, saying to sinners, "I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance," yet he will be defiled in none of these, for he does not become a partaker of their evil action. Hence he does not profane the sanctuary of God, that is, the Holy Spirit; for of him it says, "for the oil of the holy anointing of his God is upon him," agreeing with the words of Isaiah about Christ: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me." And the profanation of the Spirit, that is, injury and grieving, is every pollution of sin; that is why Paul too, teaching abstinence from sins, said: "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." So understand concerning the greatest priest not only what has gone before but also what follows. For the lawgiver does not wish him who is the first priest to be unsympathetic and harsh, so as to approach no dead person; but he wishes to persuade us that the great sanctification with which the high priest is said to be clothed would be defiled by the sight of the dead.

Verses 13–15. "I am the Lord: he shall take a virgin as wife; a widow and one put away, and a defiled woman and a harlot, he shall not take, but a girl of his own people, lest he mingle the stock of his race with the common people of his nation; for I am the Lord who sanctifies him."

Showing above all that he himself is the lawgiver and fulfiller of this enactment, he necessarily added, "I am the Lord"; and of what kind, he taught in the words that follow. "He shall take as wife a virgin of his own people," or, as the Seventy have it, "of his own race," because it is certain to anyone that the race of Christ, on account of the flesh, is the whole race of men. From this he took a virgin wife, that is, the church of those who believe in him, of which Paul said: "I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." "A widow and one put away, and a defiled woman and a harlot, he shall not take." We know that the synagogue of the Jews is called a widow in the prophets, to whom he said, "Stretch out and rejoice over your tender sons, you who are widowed"; or, of the traitor Judas, for their iniquity is common, he says, "Let his sons be orphans and his wife a widow." And we understand her as put away and a widow according to the things said a little before. For she was put away from fellowship with God, committing fornication with idols; that is why he does not allow her to be taken in marriage, so that you may understand that he forbade the way of life that is in shadows and figures, and wishes those who wait for him in good life and faith to share with her in nothing. Hence, having said once, "He shall take a girl, a virgin of his own people," or "of his own race," he was not content, but added: "A widow and a harlot and one put away he shall not take." And according to the Seventy: "He shall take a virgin of his own race," so that you understand the first of the whole body of the church, and this second of every soul. For as the fellowship of the faithful, so also the soul of each one is the bride of God and of the church. And why he does not wish his betrothed to become a partaker of the Jewish way of life, he himself adds: "lest he mingle the stock of his race with the common people of his nation"; but the Seventy, "And he shall not profane his seed among his people." So it is the profanation of the faithful, for these are the seed and people of our priest, to be associated with Jewish customs. And therefore Paul said: "You have been severed from Christ, you who are justified by the law; you have fallen from grace." To these he added: "I am the Lord who sanctifies him"; that is, therefore he does not need the figures of the law, nor sacrifices, nor purifications, since I, the Lord, become in place of all those both sacrifice and purification, and whatever you may say pertains to another sanctification.

And because, when he mentioned the widow, the harlot, and the one put away, he says, "These he shall not take," we say that the lawgiver said this also of the conventicles of the heretics: for they have been widowed of the knowledge of God, and that is why they were also expelled from the communion of the pious; and they also commit fornication with unfitting and wicked doctrines. Rightly, then, he put first the widow, second the one put away, and third added the harlot. None of these does the Lord take into fellowship with himself, lest they defile the seed of the faithful, "because evil companionships corrupt good manners."

Verses 16–23. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron: A man of your seed by families who has a blemish shall not offer bread to the Lord his God, nor approach his ministry: if he is blind, if lame, or with a small or great or crooked nose, if with a broken foot or hand, if hunchbacked, if blear-eyed, if having a white film in the eye, if a continual scab, if a tetter in the body, or ruptured. Everyone of the seed of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall not approach to offer victims to the Lord, nor bread to his God; yet he shall eat of the bread. But let him not enter within the veil, nor approach the altar, because he has a blemish, and he must not defile my sanctuary. I am the Lord who sanctifies you."

If we wished to take this enactment according to the letter, how would the lawgiver's intention seem just? For blemishes do not come upon men by their will. How, then, is it not unfitting that the priest should be thrust from his office for things that do not happen voluntarily? And what if someone, knowing this very precept of the law and envying the priest, crushed a member of his, a hand, or a foot, or an eye, or something else? Or if, fighting against foreigners and armed for the holy things of God (for in Deuteronomy Moses commanded the priests to lead in wars), he received a wound from which one of the blemishes mentioned came upon him: do you think he deserved to be removed from the priesthood for this? For so far are bodily blemishes from being abominable to God that David said that the Lord gives light to the blind. If he did not choose beauty, nor a robust body, nor one that seems well set, so that he said to Samuel of Jesse's elder son, because he had thought that appearance pleased God, "Do not look at his face nor at the height of his stature, for I have rejected him." And yet it was a king, not a priest, who was being anointed; and appearance and size of body were necessary for a king. But what did he add to these? "Nor do I judge according to the sight of man. Man sees what is open, but God looks on the heart." For he searches the heart, whether it has a stain, and judges those who are spotless in mind chosen, but rejects those who have a stain in the soul. For if it is evil to limp on the feet or to have weak eyes, and it separates from God, how did he allow Isaac and Jacob to grow dim and lose the health of sight? For Isaac did not recognize Jacob when he feigned the person of Esau. And of Jacob it was said: "The eyes of Israel grew dim from great old age, and he could not see clearly." Therefore now too the lawgiver enacts without distinction about the blemish; for he says, "A man of your seed who has a blemish," and when he had not distinguished the place, he at once added, "He shall not offer bread to his God nor approach his ministry." But the Seventy say, "He in whom there is a blemish shall not approach." You see that he said "in whom," not "in the body"; and what is in our soul is properly said to be "in us."

So he calls lame him who corrupts the way of God, who in part subverts the divine commandments and the law; of whom he says in the Psalms: "Foreign sons have lied to me; foreign sons have grown old and limped from their paths." For as one foot of a lame man seems sound and the other limps, so too in this man one thing meanwhile seems sound, for he boasts that he serves God; but another is weak, while he corrupts … the intention. He is blind who suffers the disease of total ignorance of God and cannot look upon the light of truth. That is why the Lord said of the Jews: "If the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit." It is proper to the nose to smell. When it is sound, one smells well; but when it is pierced or cut off, one does not smell well; such are some to whom evil things are pleasing, because they have an evil smell of thoughts. For that divine Scripture is wont to take smelling for what is pleasing, hear David saying to Saul: "If the Lord stirs you up against me, let him smell a sacrifice"; and again, when Noah sacrificed, it says, "And the Lord God smelled a sweet odour." Holy Scripture took both as pleasing. The cut ear, cutting off hearing to disobedience. And those have a crushing of the hand and a crushing of the foot of whom David sang: "Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the sinner move me," namely of one who plunders or robs. So the lawgiver signifies by this the proud and the avaricious. He is hunchbacked who carries the heavy weight of sins and does not see it, because the mass of the hunch is behind and is not seen by them; of whom it is said in the parable which the king of Israel used against the king of Syria: "What does the hunchback do, as though he were straight?" "Blear-eyed, and having a white film in the eye": those who have injured eyes and weak sight we say are those who have knowledge of God, but corrupted, such as some who are puffed up; of whom Paul said: "If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the teaching that is according to piety, he is proud, knowing nothing, but sick about questions and disputes of words." Or they are understood who reject knowledge by their life. And the cataract, as Aquila rendered, because it is not evident to all but only to learned physicians, is rightly taken for swelling pride; for this affliction is recognized not by all, but only by those who know how to discern what pertains to the soul. And as a cataract covers the sight of the pupil, so arrogance and elation, poured round the soul, make its knowledge dark. And the white film is taken for depravity of life and conduct, because this affliction is plainly in the eyes for all to see, as depravity of life cannot lie hidden either, which subverts the knowledge of God, even if those who live depravedly boast that they have it. For Paul said of these: "They profess to know God, but deny him by their deeds." And that we do not in vain compare to the blear-eyed those who suffer these things concerning knowledge, you will find by inferring from this the life of those who suffer a cataract or a white film. Their eyes appear open, but they are like the blind as long as they are sick; but when they have been saved, purged of the aforesaid affliction, they can use their eyes as the healthy do. So these too have [knowledge] wounded, and differ nothing from those who suffer the weakness of ignorance, until they wipe away that swelling or depravity of life; for then they may use the sound and clean eye of knowledge. The slanderer has a continual scab: for as the worst scab destroys, so the slanderer is easily provoked. The fornicator has tetters, for the blemishes are plainly the tetter of the body. As fornication is of soul and body …, "with one testicle," according to the Seventy, is the teacher who speaks and does not do; for such a one cannot beget sons.

Whoever, then, has one of the aforesaid blemishes cannot offer gifts or sacrifices to God, because the priest must be spotless in mind too. As Moses commanded him to be clean of twelve blemishes (for you will find that many counted according to the Seventy), so Paul commanded him who is to obtain the priesthood to keep twelve, saying: "A bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God." And who is blameless, if not the undefiled? Then he shows in what follows from what is gathered that he is blameless, by lacking which blemishes or passions: "not proud, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not a striker, not greedy of shameful gain, but hospitable, kind, chaste, just, holy, continent, holding fast the faithful word that is according to the teaching." So he too wishes the priest to keep twelve; and why he lays so much upon him, he said in what went before: "For a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God." And he who administers the things of God needs to excel in virtues those whose steward he is; for how could he administer them, how dispose them? And because the lawgiver commanded one having any of the aforesaid blemishes to eat of the holy things, yet did not command him to approach within the veil and the altar, namely the body of Christ, that is, to minister, you will perhaps find this too kept in the churches: for if any of the priests has been proved to have had a blemish in his soul at some time, and has ceased from it, he is not forbidden to communicate in the holy things; but it is not permitted for such a one to minister, nor to approach the veil and the altar, that is, the body of the Lord, to carry out its ministry. For Paul, writing to the Hebrews, taught this veil and altar: "We have an altar of which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat," namely of the Lord's body. For it is not permitted to the Jews to use this, because of unbelief and the servitude of the letter. And learn from himself that this same thing is also called the veil: "Having, then, confidence for the entrance into the holy places, through the veil," that is, his flesh. To this alone he who has a blemish of soul does not enter. Why? "Because he has a blemish, and must not defile my sanctuary." For it is a defilement of the holy things, and an injury, that such men be brought forward to the ministry, in whom the people stumbles, and those who know their blemishes are scandalized. That is why Paul too wishes the priest to have a good testimony from those outside. And the law confirmed what was said by saying, "I am the Lord who sanctifies you." I who? I who command and bid: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." For he in whom there is even one of the aforesaid blemishes is not perfect.

Verse 24. "Moses, then, spoke to Aaron and his sons and to all Israel all the things that had been commanded him."

What are the things he spoke? Namely the things mentioned before, which God spoke to Moses, and Moses handed on to Aaron and his sons and the people, as what has now been read shows; the law distinguishing these things not in vain, but to commend the dignity of Moses and show plainly that God spoke a few things to others but all things to him, because of his righteousness and the image of Christ that he bore. Likewise teaching us too to give our mind to whatever our elders and the more perfect have said, knowing that they continually enjoy the working from above.

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.

Verses 1–3. "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: These are the feasts of the Lord, which you shall call holy. Six days you shall do work; the seventh day, because it is the rest of the Sabbath, shall be called holy; you shall do no work on it. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings."

If you attend closely to what is said in the present words of the lawgiver, you will find that he inserts the intention of the Spirit not only in the contemplation of the law but in the letter itself. For having said, "These are the feasts of the Lord, which you shall call holy," that is, these are my festivals, he at once added: "Six days you shall do work." He ought, it seems, to have passed over this and said what follows: "The seventh day, because it is the rest of the Sabbath, shall be called holy." But by joining "Six days you shall do work" to the feasts, he shows that the first feast, or festival, in the law is to work, and to work good things; for this reason he says: "Six days you shall do work," because all things whatsoever that God established in six days are very good. The second festival, when these works have gone before, is the rest of the seventh day; and no one can celebrate this festival who has not worked good works worthy of God. For it was not without purpose (for it was God who spoke, and he says nothing without purpose) that he first said, "Six days you shall do work," and after this, "The seventh day, which is the rest of the Sabbath, shall be called holy," but to show that if someone does and achieves good things in imitation of God, which is to work in the six days, he rests in the intelligible Sabbath, of which Paul said: "Let us fear, lest, while the promise of entering his rest remains, any of us should seem to fall short." For one who does not work now lacks that rest. It is said to be called holy because the Sabbath has been assigned to those who are called, of whom Paul says, "We know that all things work together for good for those who fear God, for those who are called according to his purpose," to those who attain holiness, without which no one will see God. Then we shall do no work, for in that age there is no time for working. For this reason he also added: "It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings," calling it the Sabbath of the Lord, that is, his rest (for Sabbath is interpreted "rest"), which is in the time when he makes his people rest from present labours and vexations. Of it Paul speaks thus: "So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his." And very fittingly he adds, "in all your dwellings," so as to make it plain by this too that he speaks of the age to come. For the present world is a sojourning, but what follows is a dwelling; no one moves from those mansions or dwellings once we have been allotted them. That Sabbath is interpreted "rest" is made clear by the edition of the other translators: in place of "the rest of the Sabbath" they give "a Sabbath of Sabbath-keeping."

Verses 4–7. "These, then, are the holy feasts of the Lord which you must celebrate in their seasons: in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at evening, is the Lord's Phase; and on the fifteenth day of this month is the solemnity of the unleavened bread of the Lord. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. The first day shall be most solemn and holy for you; you shall do no servile work on it, but you shall offer sacrifice by fire to the Lord seven days. And the seventh day shall be most solemn, and no servile work shall be done on it."

Come now, if you please, let us ask the Jews why he commanded the festival to be kept not on the fourteenth day, on which the figurative Pascha took place (he mentions it, but they fix the festival on the first day of unleavened bread, which came after it). It is plain that the one who gives the law wants us to know what difference there is between figure and truth: that it is fitting to know the figures, since they lead to the truth, but to keep the festival when the truth contained in the figures has come. He mentions the fourteenth, because it held the figure; but he commanded the festival to be kept on the fifteenth, because on it is the true Pascha, of which Paul said: "Christ our Pascha has been sacrificed."

But let us now examine the words themselves. "These are the holy feasts of the Lord which you must celebrate in their seasons." Why did he not say "feasts to the Lord," but "feasts of the Lord"? Perhaps to testify to the hearer of the law that the law commanded these festivals of which he speaks to be celebrated not simply to God, but because they are properly his. For as there are festivals of an emperor on which he set up victories and trophies against enemies, saved nations, and acquired cities, so too there are festivals of Christ, on which he saved our race, won back our captivity, and established for himself an inheritance from the nations, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession. Then, where according to the Seventy he should say, "These are holy convocations, which you shall call in your festivals," our translation has it more plainly, saying "in their seasons." He did not speak thus of "their festivals," showing that these festivals belong not to those who serve the figure but to the faithful who receive the festival. One of them is the one of which he says: "In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at evening, is the Lord's Phase." We rightly call the first month the time of the Lord's passion, to which these words spoken by God to Moses also fit very well: "This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first for you among the months of the year." For the beginning and entrance of the new life, and the beginning of our way of life now, is that. He speaks of evening times, in which the Lord came; for John says: "Little children, it is the last hour." The Lord's Pascha took place at evening. Having suffered, he did not at once end the times, but left remnants of the last hour and of the evening, in which the preaching must run its course, and in which the saving word must penetrate the whole earth. Moreover, at evening, or between the evenings, Christ celebrated his cross, anticipating his own Pascha. For on the day of the figurative paschal festival, which was the fourteenth, after the supper he handed to the disciples the true Pascha beyond the senses, which belonged to his mystery. So it was already night when Judas, taking the bread from that supper, went out to betray the Lord; and on the following day, which was the fifteenth, he fulfilled the Pascha of the cross. For this reason the lawgiver commanded this festival to be kept on the fifteenth day of this month, and in this celebration he proclaimed the solemnity of the unleavened bread of the Lord. For if we wish to celebrate the Pascha to him properly and truly, we must be unleavened from all wickedness, and much more from the Jewish error and oldness. Hence, after Paul said, "Christ our Pascha has been sacrificed," he added: "Let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." And not for a time, but for our whole life we must be clean of the leaven of the world's malice; for this reason he says: "Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread," by the number seven giving us a commandment concerning our whole life.

Verse 8. "The first day shall be most solemn and holy for you; you shall do no servile work on it."

The Spirit hints that servile work is in every way that of which the Lord says: "Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin." … because Christ, who suffered for us, set us free from sin and its slavery. It is not that he commanded no servile work to be done on the first day, and on the other days for that reason commanded servile works to be done. See, then, what he added: "But you shall offer sacrifice by fire to the Lord," or as the Seventy: "You shall offer whole burnt offerings to the Lord seven days. And the seventh day shall be more solemn and more holy, and you shall do no servile work on it." So, in commanding whole burnt offerings to be offered for seven days, he also commanded abstinence from all servile works on them. For how will anyone offer a burnt offering to God while he is worthy of the devil or does servile things? Then he named not only the first but also the seventh for this reason, that in the first and the seventh he might take in the whole of human life; for the one holds the beginning and the other the end, in which all things are contained. He seems to accept this too: that one who is instructed, or initiated into the mystery, should do no servile work; for he must do the things that belong to freedom, because the Lord set us free through the one who has been sealed for him. But if after this he does something that belongs to slavery, sinning as a man, let him at least take care for the freedom that is at the end, and strive that our end may be made good, that the seventh day, namely the time in which we finish, may have no servile work. For in whatever state God finds us, in that he promises to judge us. For this reason David too heads very many of the Psalms "To the end, do not destroy."

Verses 9–21. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: When you have entered the land which I will give you, and have reaped the crops of your land, you shall bring sheaves of ears, the firstfruits of your harvest, to the priest. He shall lift up the bundle before the Lord, so that it may be acceptable for you. On the day after the Sabbath he shall sanctify it, and on the same day on which the sheaf is consecrated a lamb without blemish, a year old, shall be slain as a burnt offering to the Lord, and libations shall be offered with it: two tenths of fine flour sprinkled with oil, as incense to the Lord and a most pleasing fragrance, and drink offerings of wine, the fourth part of a hin. Bread and parched grain and fresh ears you shall not eat of the crop until the day on which you offer of it to your God; it is an everlasting precept in your generations and in all your dwellings. You shall count, then, from the day after the Sabbath on which you offered the sheaf of firstfruits, seven full weeks, until the day after the completion of the seventh week, that is, fifty days; and so you shall offer a new sacrifice to the Lord from all your dwellings: two loaves of firstfruits of two tenths of leavened fine flour, which you shall bake as firstfruits of the Lord. And with the loaves you shall offer seven lambs without blemish, a year old, and one calf from the herd, and two rams, and they shall be a burnt offering with their libations. … you shall make also a he-goat for sin, and two lambs a year old as victims of peace offerings. And when he has lifted them up with the loaves of firstfruits before the Lord, they shall go to his use. And you shall call this day most solemn and most holy; you shall do no servile work on it. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in all your dwellings and generations."

The words themselves, when examined, can teach us how far the people of the Jews is from the present law. They are convicted of neither fulfilling it according to the letter nor being able to understand the spirit that is in it. He commanded that the sheaf be offered on the next day, that is, after the first of unleavened bread, and that a sheep be sacrificed with it; and that from the day on which this is done seven weeks be counted, and the day after the last week, and so he commanded that the festival of Pentecost be celebrated in the manner he has now described. But some are found to celebrate the festival of Pentecost otherwise: they count from the first day of unleavened bread, not from the day on which the sheaf is offered, the morrow of the first, that is, the second day, and so announce that they will celebrate Pentecost. For this reason the Lord, reproaching them for not fulfilling the law according to the letter, said: "And none of you keeps the law." But the church keeps it, as is now shown.

"And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: When you have entered the land which I will give you, and have reaped the crops of your land, you shall offer sheaves of ears, the firstfruits of your harvest, to the priest. He shall lift up the bundle before the Lord, so that it may be acceptable for you." We have often taught that the land given by God is the teaching and way of life of the gospel. It is called land because of the fruits of the virtues that spring from it. It was given by God himself, for he used no mediator for it but announced it with his own mouth. When, then, did they enter and reap its crops? Those who received the saving word. For they are both the reapers and the intelligible crops, to whom the Lord said: "The harvest is great, but the workers are few; ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest," to whom he also entrusted the mystery of the word. Then the harvest was so ripe that the Lord said: "Lift up your eyes and see the fields, for they are already white for harvest." The intelligible priest, Christ, offered his own body as the sheaf of the firstfruits. For since the chief point, or sum, of the harvest, namely of the saving word and of the divine preaching, was the resurrection of the dead, so that Paul cried out, "Men, Pharisees, it is concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead that I am on trial today," the preaching had to be followed by its fulfilment, and so it was. For Christ, now the intelligible priest, raised his own body from the dead as the true sheaf and the true firstfruits of our harvest; of him Paul said: "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." But when this has been done, "the priest shall offer it on the next day." What we said before has shown that the first day is that of the Lord's passion, on which the Lord, not without reason, dispensed his own sacrifice. But since this was called the first of unleavened bread and the first of the paschal festival, the next day after the passion was the resurrection. For this reason, though he could have said, "the priest shall offer this on the second of unleavened bread," he did not say so, so that he might lead our thought on to the following day, but "on the morrow of the first." He means the resurrection; for as tomorrow follows today, so the resurrection followed the Lord's passion.

Now attend to what is said in what follows, and keep to the precision of the words. First he shows the priest offering the sheaf of firstfruits; after this he says: "And on the same day on which the sheaf is consecrated a lamb without blemish, a year old, shall be slain as a burnt offering to the Lord." He wants us, on the day on which we celebrate the Lord's resurrection and celebrate the intelligible offering of the sheaf, not to forget the Lord's sacrifice, from which the offering of the sheaf comes to us, but to slay a lamb without blemish, a year old, as a burnt offering to the Lord: sacrificing mystically and offering the intelligible Lamb, the Lord's handing over. He made memory of him as of the one who is slain as a sacrifice. For not otherwise, but through meditation on him and through his power, the things performed in that sacrifice are transferred from things of sense to things of the mind. And what is this sacrifice? "Two tenths of fine flour sprinkled with oil." For one must know how to temper together the perfect humanity and the perfect divinity, that is, to bring them into one, in oil, that is, through the compassion he has toward us; for thus the sacrifice is found to be a fragrance of sweetness to the Lord, when we think of him what is worthy. In what things, and through whom, the sacrifice is performed, and how the offering of the intelligible Lamb is celebrated, what follows shows. For God does not accept a sacrifice from us in blood, nor through irrational animals, as what follows shows; for he says: "And drink offerings of wine, the fourth part of a hin; bread and parched grain." Since it would perhaps be doubtful by what things the mystery of the sacrifice through Christ, of which we spoke above, is celebrated, see, you have the offering of the intelligible Melchizedek, which is accomplished in bread and wine, in which a fourth part of a hin of wine is offered in the drink offerings, so as to signify by the fourth the gospel tradition, which is in four books, and by the libation the Lord's word, when he says: "This is my blood, which will be poured out for you." For the lawgiver resolved to signify the mystery of Christ without diminution; for this reason he also added: "Bread and parched grain and fresh ears you shall not eat of the crop until the day on which you offer of it to your God. It is an everlasting precept in your generations and in all your dwellings." Or according to the Seventy: "And new parched grain you shall not eat until that very day, until you offer gifts to your God. It is an everlasting ordinance for your generations." We shall not begin the new way of life before the day has come, before the good things just mentioned are offered to God, from which the new creation that is in Christ and the new way of life have been announced to us; of it Paul says: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new, from God, who has reconciled us to himself." For the offering of the present gifts, which we have shown to be the mystery of the Only-begotten, has reconciled us to God and has supplied us with the food of new parched grain and fresh ears, or, as the Seventy have, "chytra." For the precepts of Christ are not only new but also chytra, or "soft"; for so other interpreters have rendered chytra. The gospel preaching, then, is soft: "Take my yoke," he says, "for it is easy." Or "rubbed and cleaned by hand," for chytra is also interpreted this way, because the doctrines of Christ require action and correction, which the hands signify. "It is an everlasting precept in your generations and in all your dwellings." For neither place nor time changes the mystery of Christ, through which the whole world has flourished, and the inhabitants of the whole earth keep in harmony the things that pertain to him.

Having said this, and having described the grace of the resurrection in the fitting manner, the lawgiver turns his discourse to Pentecost, which we celebrate, saying: "You shall count, then, from the day after the Sabbath on which you offered the sheaf of firstfruits, seven full weeks, until the day after the completion of the seventh week, that is, fifty days; and so you shall offer a new sacrifice to the Lord." That neither the time nor the number of this Pentecost is kept by the people of the Jews was sufficiently shown above; but by us it is kept both with contemplation and in the letter. Wishing, then, to show his intention more plainly, the lawgiver commanded that fifty days be counted from the day after the Sabbath, meaning without doubt the Lord's day; for this is the day after the Sabbath. For on it the resurrection took place, from which seven weeks are counted, until the day after the completion of the week. On the Lord's day again we celebrate the festival of Pentecost, on which we were granted the coming of the Holy Spirit. Not in vain do we keep the coming of the seven weeks, but so that we may recognize that God commanded those who desire to receive him to do nothing old, nothing worldly, and nothing near to the old corruption. And he ordered a new sacrifice to be offered to the Lord then, for the Spirit, when he came, renewed our whole life, confirmed the tradition of Christ, and established it … "he will take, and will announce it to you." For this reason he came on no other day of the week than the one on which the resurrection took place and the intelligible sheaf was offered, so as to prove this too: that the new way of life, by which he renewed us, freeing us from the corruption of oldness by the resurrection of Christ, was set right also by the coming of the Holy Spirit.

The offering itself shows the kind of victim he commanded to be made: "And so you shall offer a new sacrifice to the Lord from all your dwellings: two loaves of firstfruits of two tenths of leavened fine flour, which you shall bake as firstfruits of the Lord, and with the loaves you shall offer seven lambs without blemish, a year old, one calf from the herd, and two rams." By saying "new sacrifice" he excludes the sacrifices of the law as old, and in their place introduced the gospel one. Then, by adding "from your dwellings," he signified the church, and fitted to it the offering of what was mentioned. For he did not say "from all dwellings," but "from all your dwellings," so as to show absolutely one special dwelling, of which David says: "Blessed are those who dwell in your house." And again: "One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I will seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life." The two loaves of firstfruits are the law and the gospel; for they are loaves, the food of faithful souls. They are also loaves of firstfruits, or, as the Seventy, "set apart," because they surpass all wisdom and are set apart and separated from the wisdom that is outside. They are, then, of two tenths of leavened fine flour, of the teaching that hands down the perfect divinity of God and the perfect humanity, and they cannot be baked otherwise than by such teaching. But their firstfruits are the Lord's. For the Lord was the first who fulfilled the law and after this taught the gospel: "Hear, for it was said to those of old: You shall not kill. But I say to you: Everyone who is angry with his brother without cause will be liable to judgment." For here he joined the law to the gospel; for this reason they are called his firstfruits. Luke too, confirming this and showing us the true firstfruits, wrote: "The first account I made, O Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and to teach." He commanded that seven lambs without blemish, a year old, be offered with them, signifying the gifts of the Spirit, of which Solomon said in the Proverbs: "Wisdom has built herself a house; she has set up seven pillars." Isaiah handed it down more plainly: "And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him." Nor was he silent about what the gifts were, or of what number, for he added: "the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness, and the Spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill him."

He calls these gifts lambs, to show that the Holy Spirit is one in Christ, of whom it was said: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world." Hence no one … So it is not without reason that the present offering includes a calf from the herd with the seven lambs; it plainly signifies him who according to the flesh was made of the herd of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. With these he joined two rams without blemish: the surpassing commandments and virtues, which the others must follow like sheep; for in them, as in those who butt against the intelligible enemy, they have protection and safety. What are these? "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me." For it is a very great commandment to sell what one has and give to the poor, and a very great one to follow Christ, so that, with contempt for possessing anything, we may also strive to do all things according to the will of God and the Lord; for this is to follow him. These commandments, then, since they are established for a life without blemish and perfect, are called rams, because rams are more excellent than the whole flock. Their sacrifice and libation, namely knowledge and correction, is a fragrance of sweetness to the Lord, that of which Paul said: "But thanks be to God, who always triumphs in us in Christ Jesus, and manifests the fragrance of his knowledge through us, because we are the good fragrance of Christ."

Yet he did not set the offering of Pentecost only so far; he also mentions the rest, because perfection belongs above all to the Spirit, whose festival the one just mentioned is. What, then, does he say? "You shall make also a he-goat for sin," introducing the word of repentance. "And two lambs a year old as victims of peace offerings," signifying these commandments of Paul: "Pursue peace with all," he says, "and holiness, without which no one will see God." Since these were expressed through the apostolic tongue, he commanded them to be offered with the loaves of firstfruits, which we have said are the teaching of Christ. In what follows he says again: "And when the priest has lifted them up with the loaves of firstfruits before the Lord," and according to the Seventy thus: "And the priest shall set them apart with a setting apart, with the loaves of firstfruits, before the Lord, with the two lambs," signifying to which Lord, he says: "And they shall go to his use," that of the priest who offers them, namely Christ. For he is our priest, he is our Lord. To him belong, as the loaves of firstfruits, so also the lambs of the commandments just mentioned; for it was he who spoke in Paul, he who offered all that has been mentioned. For the Lord was the first to announce peace, which Paul commands, to the disciples; and he kept holiness above all, as the Holy of holies, for he was the one of whom Gabriel said to the virgin: "Therefore what will be born of you will be called holy, the Son of God." Yet if you wish to grasp the excellence of the day of which he speaks, look at the confirmation of what was said about it: "And you shall call this day most solemn and most holy; you shall do no servile work on it. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in all your dwellings and generations." What, then, is in it that excels in these respects? For see, he calls other days holy too; but of this one he first says, "and you shall call this day most solemn," and after this, "and most holy," so that you might recognize in it what it has in common with the others and what it has as its own. For on it the calling of the nations not only began to be preached but also to be put into effect, when the Parthians and Medes and Elamites and those who live in Mesopotamia, Judea, and Pamphylia, and all the other nations that Luke lists, began to hear the apostles speaking the mighty works of God in their own tongues and preaching. Let us, then, do no servile work on that day, that is, nothing that pertains to slavery, but let us keep it as an everlasting ordinance in all our dwellings and generations, working nothing servile in the time when the Spirit came to us, because "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom," as Paul wrote.

Verse 22. "And when you have reaped the crop of your land, you shall not cut it to the ground, nor gather the ears that remain, but leave them to the poor and the strangers. I am the Lord your God."

It is plain that what is now commanded by the law is full of piety. For this reason it must also be kept according to the letter, but its contemplation holds the greater gain. Note this in them: that, though he commanded similar things above, he did not ordain the same things; the very change of words shows this. For there he says, "You shall not complete your harvest," but here, "You shall not cut it to the ground," so that we may understand the difference from the change of words. We have often shown that the land of the faithful is the way of life set out by the law of God. Its harvest flourished after the Saviour's resurrection from the dead and the coming of the Holy Spirit. And the word of preaching does not hand down all the knowledge that we shall have when we come to God himself; there are things it leaves, since they cannot be revealed to us now. For this reason he placed this law among the festivals just mentioned, saying: "And when you have reaped the crop of your land, you shall not cut it to the ground." By saying "you shall not cut it to the ground" he signified what we lack for full and perfect knowledge; for this reason he also added, "nor gather the ears that remain," so that we may not strive or try in vain for the things that escape our knowledge. And therefore we cannot gather what is said to fall from the harvest, but let us leave it to Christ; signifying him, the lawgiver added: "Leave them to the poor and the strangers," or according to the Seventy: "You shall leave them to the poor man and the proselyte." And who is this? Hear what follows: "I am the Lord your God." He is called poor here because for our sakes he became poor though he was rich, so that by his poverty we might become rich; and a stranger, because, though he came to his own, his own did not receive him. To him, then, you shall leave them; he alone knows what remains for us. For this reason we cannot gather them either; they have been set apart for him to gather, as Paul testifies when he says: "O the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments and unsearchable his ways!"

Verses 23–25. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath, a memorial with the blowing of trumpets, and it shall be called holy. You shall do no servile work on it, and you shall offer a burnt offering to the Lord."

That the number seven bears a clear and certain figure of the consummation, whether of each of us or of all in common, many other things show, but this above all: that God ceased from his works on the seventh day, giving us from it to infer our rest, of which Paul says: "For whoever has entered that rest has himself rested from all his works, as God did from his." But the beginning of the consummation of the times is the coming of the Lord; for this reason John the evangelist called it the last hour, for he says: "Little children, it is the last hour." And James too: "Behold, the judge is standing before the door." This time the law rightly called the first of the seventh month, as the beginning of the consummation. It is also a rest for us, because he refreshed us from the evil works of the flesh and freed us from a heavy yoke: "Come," he says, "all you who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you." And again: "Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls." This is also its memorial of trumpets; for it proclaims the resurrection of the Saviour, which is a memorial of the common resurrection of the dead, which takes place at the sound of great and terrible trumpets, "at the Lord's command, at the voice of the archangel, at the trumpet of God," as Paul taught. This time "shall be called holy" to the Lord, because it holds the calling that is in sanctification, from which comes the adoption that belongs to those called to him. "You shall do no servile work on it, and you shall offer a burnt offering to the Lord." For it is no longer the time to do servile works, because the past time is enough for the will of the gentiles, in which servile works were done; and as we presented our members as weapons of iniquity for iniquity, so we must present our members as weapons of righteousness for sanctification. For this, again, is the burnt offering.

Verses 26–32. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: On the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the day of atonements, most solemn, and it shall be called holy; and you shall afflict your souls on it and offer a burnt offering to the Lord. You shall do no servile work in the time of this day, because it is a day of propitiation, that the Lord your God may be propitious to you. Every soul that has not been afflicted on this day shall perish from its peoples; and the one that does any work, I will blot it out from its people. You shall do no work on it, then. It shall be an everlasting ordinance for you in all your generations and dwellings. It is a Sabbath of rest; you shall afflict your souls. On the ninth day of the seventh month, from evening to evening, you shall celebrate your Sabbaths."

Rightly Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the Jews: "All these things happened to them in figure, and they were written for our correction, on whom the ends of the ages have come." For the lawgiver plainly signified through the present words that the mystery of the Saviour was accomplished at the end of the age, and what and how great things were dispensed from it. What, then, does the grace of Christ and his preaching hint to us, or what does it ordain? The hope, certainly, of the resurrection of the dead, and a life with moderation and humility, in abstinence from foods, in contempt of present things and of possessing, and in the other virtues; doing these, we use this earth like sojourners, pitching our tents in it not for a long time but for a very short one. For each of the things mentioned has been foretold to us in this fullness of the times through the gospel way of life. He kept the seventh month, of necessity, for all the figures, for this number usually signifies the consummation of the times. Dividing them, he signified above, through the new moon of the seventh month, the hope of the resurrection of the dead; in it he also placed the memorial of trumpets, because we expect the dead to rise at the trumpet of God. The life that is in humility and abstinence from foods he signifies through the tenth of the month, of which he now speaks (and the using of the world in passing and the expecting of departure from it through the festival which, as you will find him saying a little later, begins on the fifteenth). But let us examine what belongs to the present words. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: On the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the day of atonements, most solemn, and it shall be called holy, and you shall afflict your souls on it, from the evening of the ninth day of the month." The lawgiver wants to show that propitiation, namely deliverance from sins, is acquired for us in humility and affliction of soul. We must do this from evening, that is, from repentance itself, as those who are beginning; for Christ too made repentance the beginning of his preaching. But on repentance we must build a good life, perfect and complete in the virtues. For this reason he added: "And you shall offer a burnt offering to the Lord. You shall do no work …" … to the Lord. By doing no work he shows abstinence from earthly works. So very fittingly he added: "Because it is a day of propitiation, that the Lord your God may be propitious to you," showing both things: that this is the time given us by God for propitiation, in which the Lord came and washed away our sins, and that in the time in which we await these things we must do nothing earthly. Then, extending the law and offering support to Christ, who said, "Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls," he says: "Every soul that has not been afflicted on this day shall perish from its peoples." For such a soul does not follow Christ, who ordained these things and humbled himself so far that Paul said of him: "He humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." "And the one that does any work, I will blot it out from my people. You shall do no work on it, then. It shall be an everlasting ordinance for you in all your generations and dwellings." He said this as though it were commanded to the people of the Jews; but it is not so, for the law is common to all, because the Lord said to all: "Do not work for the food that perishes," wanting us to work at nothing earthly. Well and wisely, then, wishing to carry the keeping of the rest on to a higher contemplation, he added: "It is a Sabbath of rest," or as the Seventy: "They shall be Sabbaths of Sabbaths for you," so that by this we may understand the intelligible Sabbath, which went beyond the weakness of the Jews, as did the holy of holies; for this reason they had no Sabbaths either, nor the Song of Songs either, for they do not understand the power of what is written there. And let us understand that everything in the law that admits a higher sense goes beyond the measures of the Jews.

Now see what words he used: "And you shall afflict your souls. On the ninth day of the seventh month, from evening to evening, you shall celebrate your Sabbaths." He sums up again the word of humility, because Christ often taught it and established it for the apostles as a crown, as the base and foundation of the virtues. For when he was asked who was greatest in the kingdom of heaven, he answered: "Whoever humbles himself like this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." His saying "from evening to evening" plainly belongs to one who wants a rest from superfluous and vain things to be pursued always. Hence the Lord does not allow even a lawsuit; for he commanded us not to go to law over a tunic or a garment, nor even to think about what we shall eat or what we shall drink or what we shall wear. He himself taught it and announced the Sabbath of Sabbaths, in which everything ceases, and only the things of God are shown, only what is useful and profitable to the soul is offered.

[Verses 33–36.] … saying: "Speak to the sons of Israel: From the fifteenth day of this seventh month there shall be the feast of tabernacles, seven days to the Lord. The first day shall be called most solemn and most holy; you shall do no servile work, and seven days you shall offer burnt offerings to the Lord. The eighth day also shall be most solemn and most holy, and you shall offer a burnt offering to the Lord. For it is an assembly and a gathering; you shall do no servile work on it."

Here he says that the lawgiver signifies not only that we should use the wisdom of the age and know that it is passing and temporal, but also that we must have our eye on the age to come. This you will find figured, without any doubt, both by the number and by the tabernacles. For he commanded the festival to begin on the fifteenth day. This number is composed of seven and eight, one of which figures the present age and the other the age to come. Hence, having commanded that the festival be completed in seven days, he mentioned other days again as most solemn and most holy, and he did not count it with the seven but set it after them and apart from the others, as the future age follows the present but is something other than it. He called it the festival of tabernacles for seven days. For whoever uses the present world as a tabernacle can hold a festival in it and rejoice for the expectation of the future, as can whoever knows that if the earthly house of this dwelling is dissolved, a building not made with hands will receive him in heaven. He called the first of the seven days most solemn and most holy. For one who knows how to use present things as a tabernacle begins his first day, that is, his beginning and starting point, from the sanctification of his calling; therefore he very fittingly says: "You shall do no servile work." For those who regard what is in the age as a tabernacle and as passing are slaves to nothing in the age. He also commanded burnt offerings to be offered for seven days, showing that a perfect way of life must be followed through the whole of time. When, therefore, we run through the present life in this way, then we have the most solemn and most holy eighth day, namely the age to come, when the one who called us in this way of life also calls us into the good things prepared for the saints; for the Seventy too have it thus: "The eighth day shall be called holy." Then, therefore, we offer to the Lord as burnt offerings what we have prepared here. "For it is an assembly and a gathering," or as the Seventy: "It is a going out," because here is the departure, there the dwelling, as Paul says: "I desire to depart and be with Christ." "We shall do no servile work," because in that time we shall be like the angels of God. Note this too: how he says the same things of the first and of the eighth, because both are, in a manner, of one power. For the day of the resurrection, which is the substance of the age to come, is the beginning of the way of life in Christ and the starting point of the things to come; and the eighth succeeds the present age, which the number seven is said to signify. Moreover, if someone here dwells as in a tabernacle and as one passing through the world, he already has the age to come, though not yet in fact, yet in power, doing what pertains neither to matter nor to restlessness, which is proper to that age. For this reason the Lord said to the apostles, as men who chose such an inheritance of life: "The kingdom of God is within you."

This too must be noted according to the Seventy: he named the first "called holy" without addition or distinction; but of the eighth, saying "called holy," he added "shall be for you," so that by "shall be" he might signify the future, and by "for you" show its distinction: because the first is called and holy for all, since here the Lord called all, without distinction, to sanctification, to living well, and to the race for the inheritance of the good things to come; for he preached without any distinction: "Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you." But in the future the calling to the inheritance of good things is not of all, but of those who accepted the present calling and kept the festival of tabernacles, knowing that the form of this world is passing away. For this reason he said "for you," calling out to those who lived thus. That this is so he himself shows again: for he who said here, "Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you," namely into the rest of the future, says this again about the future: "Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you," leaving out what he had said, "all," because "many are called, but few are chosen."

Verses 37–38. "These are the feasts of the Lord, which you shall call most solemn and most holy, and you shall offer on them offerings to the Lord, burnt offerings and libations, according to the rite of each day, besides the Sabbaths of the Lord, and your gifts, and what you offer by vow or give freely to the Lord."

Look at those apostolic words: "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all things." These seem to agree with the present words of the Mosaic ordinance. For see, the lawgiver, setting out certain special festivals, which he named most solemn and holy, mingled with them the daily libations and sacrifices. "For these are the feasts of the Lord, which you shall call most solemn and most holy." And when he should have named this or that one, he did not speak so, but added: "And you shall offer on them offerings to the Lord, burnt offerings and libations, according to the rite of each day." And he himself [commands] us to rejoice and keep festival, and without ceasing … the sacrifice, or burnt offering, which we can offer when we have presented our bodies as a living sacrifice to God and have put to death our members which are on the earth, and are ready to go to the Lord, saying with Paul: "For I am already being poured out, and the time of my departure is at hand." For this reason he added: "Besides the Sabbaths of the Lord, and your gifts, and what you offer by vow or give freely to the Lord," plainly handing down this: that beyond turning away from evils, which is the Sabbath, and beyond the other acts of righteousness that we promise God from time to time, sometimes a fast, sometimes an offering of possessions, whether in dangers that come upon us or voluntarily, we are debtors, beyond vows and free offerings, of a daily service to God and of a perpetual sacrifice, if indeed our action is righteous, so that we offer our whole life to him, saying as Paul said: "I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." For this reason we too must offer him our life, because he too offered himself for us.

Verses 39–44. "From the fifteenth day, then, of the seventh month, when you have gathered all the fruits of your land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day and on the eighth day there shall be a Sabbath, that is, a rest. And on the first day you shall take for yourselves the fruit of the most beautiful tree, and branches of palms, and boughs of the tree of thick leaves, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, and you shall celebrate its solemnity seven days in the year. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in your generations. In the seventh month you shall celebrate the feast, and you shall dwell in booths seven days. Everyone who is of the race of Israel shall stay in tabernacles, so that your descendants may learn that I made the sons of Israel dwell in tabernacles when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. And Moses spoke concerning the solemnities of the Lord to the sons of Israel."

The lawgiver commands us to belong wholly to the age to come and to fit the present life to it. For this reason, as he completes the discourse on the festivals, he now repeats the festival of tabernacles, because the sum of the whole law is not to gape after present things nor to cling to earthly things, but to know that we are sojourners and strangers in this life, as all our fathers were. "On the fifteenth day, then, of the seventh month." We have said that the seventh month is the completion or fullness of the times. The fifteenth, since it consists of seven and eight, signifies the gospel preaching, which consists of the present life and the future one, ordering the one and preparing the other. When we have gathered all the fruits of the land, let us celebrate the feast seven days, that is, let us give our whole life to celebrating the divine festival. "And on the first day a rest, and on the eighth day a rest." Not now on the seventh, though he had proposed that the festival be kept for the number of seven days, but on the eighth: first, because it is not permitted to those who hold the law according to the letter to celebrate the festival, for it has been set apart for the new people, which knows how to receive the law according to the Spirit and to honour the eighth, which we have said signifies the resurrection of the dead; second, because the first and the eighth have one power, since the eighth is itself also the first, inasmuch as it is the beginning of the age to come. Then the first day, which is the beginning of the preaching made at the end of the ages, holds a rest. For it makes us rest, when it frees us from the labours of sins through the gift of baptism; and since the flood that came upon creation through the deluge of waters in Noah's time bore its figure, it was rightly said of him: "This one will give us rest from all our works, and from the remnants of our hands, and from the earth which the Lord God has cursed." At the same time the first day, namely the beginning of the preaching, promises the later rest which the eighth holds, that is, the resurrection of the dead and the kingdom of the age to come, of which David sang: "Arise, O Lord, into your rest." For since the beginning of the gospel preaching holds both rests, hear what Christ first preached to the human race: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near," proclaiming through repentance rest from the labours of the life that is in sins, and through the kingdom of heaven the hope of the future rest. The first day, then, has rest from the labours of sins; yet from the one who has been called to build upon this rest it will require the working of the virtues. For this reason the Lord says: "Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls," and he adds, "For my yoke is easy and my burden light," commanding this working of the virtues that goes with rest. Here the lawgiver, having proclaimed the festival of seven days, called its first day a rest but is silent about the following days, so as to signify by this that we must devote ourselves to the virtues. Then he transfers the rest to the eighth day, showing that for the faithful and those who serve the law of God the true rest is that of the age to come.

What, then, must we work at through our whole life, and where must we begin the working? "And on the first day you shall take for yourselves the fruit of the most beautiful tree, and branches of palms, and boughs of the tree of thick leaves, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, and you shall celebrate its solemnity seven days." That we must devote ourselves through our whole life to the virtues, which he signified by the fruits and branches of the trees just mentioned, the very number of the seven days confirms beyond any doubt. That we must begin from the calling itself, from which the intelligible rest of Christ was proclaimed, which is the first day of the festival, is plain; he called this day above a day of rest. Now he commands that on it we take the fruit of the most beautiful tree, namely those of which David sang in the first Psalm: "And he will be like a tree planted by the streams of waters, which will yield its fruit in its season." By "beautiful" he means seasonable and timely, that is, what is in its time and is done by virtue at the fitting times, so that we may by no means, in the time for justice, flee from it and turn aside to compassion. For he says: "You shall not pity the poor man in judgment." For justice, and compassion, and whatever you may name, has its own fitting time, as Paul says: "Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek release. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife." And Solomon says: "There is a time for everything: a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time for war and a time for peace," and many things like these. Hence Saul too was condemned, because he spared Agag out of season and had compassion at a time when he ought not to have done so; nor ought he to have spared him, since God had commanded that the whole of Amalek be destroyed. If, then, you have taken the fruits of the tree of which Joel says, "Do not fear, animals of the field, for the beautiful places of the desert have sprouted, for the tree too has borne its fruit," and the Song of Songs too, "I sat in the shade of him whom I desired," namely Christ, "and his fruit was sweet to my throat," I take the most beautiful; for all the things that God has made are also good in their season. And Paul too says, "Let all your things be done decently and in order," signifying that the virtues must be fitted to the time. So the fruit of the most beautiful tree is principally Christ, the fruit of that tree of which it was said in Isaiah: "A rod shall come out from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up from his root," namely of the virgin Mother of God; according to the Seventy, he himself is the beautiful fruit. For he dispenses all things at the fitting time. And if there is anything according to his law and zeal that has been set right in word or deed, this too is rightly called a beautiful fruit. Take also branches of palms, that is, the youthful offspring of righteousness; for "the righteous will flourish like the palm," David said. But since there is nothing in the palm that can be rejected, as there is nothing in those who live righteously, take also boughs of the tree of thick leaves: all the fruits of the virtues, but above all mercy; for it must be continual and lasting. Ecclesiastes commends it, saying: "Let oil not be lacking from your head." And in the Proverbs: "Do not say: Go and come back, and tomorrow I will give to you, when you can give at once." … that is, of continence and of chaste marriage. For the willow signifies continence, because it bears no fruit; as the continent, who are the true eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, bear no fruit of the senses. To them God says through the prophet Isaiah: "Let not the eunuch say: I am a dry tree; for I will give them in my house and within my walls a named place, better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name." We say too that the willow bears the figure of prayer and of repentance. So let us understand what was said by David: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered you, Zion. On the willows in its midst we hung our instruments." For the tears of prayer and repentance, of which Isaiah says, "like willows by flowing waters," need continence from intercourse at the time when they are offered, as Paul shows when he says, "Do not deprive one another, except by consent for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer," because marriage must be chaste. He says again: "But they will be saved through the bearing of children, if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with sobriety." And again: "Marriage is honourable, and the bed undefiled." But these are to be taken "from the brook," that is, from the present life; for it is rightly called a brook because of its passing, or running down, and also because of the winter it has of various temptations and tribulations, so that David said of Christ, because he too tasted of the world and its tribulations, having become like us: "He drank from the brook on the way; therefore he lifted up his head." For he lifted it up as he hung on the cross; and he was crucified because he chose to drink once from our brook.

One who does these things, then, can rejoice for seven days, namely the whole of time. But "rejoice before the Lord," not with the joy of the ungodly and sinners: "There is no joy for the ungodly, says the Lord," for they hold their festival in pleasures and corruptions; but "rejoice in the Lord." What is it to rejoice before the Lord? It is to believe in him and to suffer for him. Peter shows what this joy consists of, for he wrote: "Through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, in which you will rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you are grieved by various trials." So the seventh month bears the figure of the last times: festival and joy through the faith that is in Christ and for his sufferings. But how we must complete and close this festival these words of the lawgiver show: "And you shall celebrate its festival seven days in the year. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in your generations. In the seventh month you shall celebrate the feast, and you shall dwell [in booths] …" … that we may use the present age as a tabernacle; for so Hezekiah called it, saying: "My generation has ceased; it has been taken away and rolled up from me like a shepherds' tent." So let us not be ignorant of its passing or running down, gathering riches or building great houses, but, as Paul says, let us attend, because the time is short, so that we may be "buying as though not buying, and possessing as though not possessing, and using this world as though not using it; for the form of this world is passing away." "Everyone who is of the race of Israel shall stay in tabernacles, so that your descendants may learn that I made the sons of Israel dwell in tabernacles when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God." You see that these figures and images of greater mysteries were given to the people of the Jews; and therefore they were commanded to dwell in tabernacles and to celebrate the festival of tabernacles, so that they would not forget the deliverance from Egypt. This is according to the letter; but spiritually it is so that we may remember that we have been freed from the intelligible Egypt, that is, from the slavery of the intelligible Pharaoh, which consists in the corruption of the bricks of the present age. Whoever wants to be wholly free of it, let him dwell in tabernacles, imitating his God, who says: "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air a nest, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." The native will stay [in tabernacles]: that is, the truly noble one, the true Israelite, the heir of Abraham, who left his country and kindred and his father's house, and dwells in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the co-heirs of the promise. That the lawgiver wants the true Israelite to dwell in tabernacles not for seven days only, but signifies the whole of life by this number, the sons of Jonadab son of Rechab and what is written of them in the prophecy of Jeremiah teach us. For it runs thus: "And we obeyed the voice of Jonadab son of Rechab our father in all that he commanded us, so that we drank no wine all our days, we and our wives, and built no houses to dwell in, and had no vineyard or field or seed, but we dwelt in tabernacles and obeyed and did all that Jonadab our father commanded." So the righteous, who were able to understand the spiritual fruit given in the letter like a cluster among leaves, strove after the heavenly quiet, an undivided life, without any vexation.

These festivals Moses spoke to the sons of Israel. In them let us rejoice, celebrating the feasts in the law of God and doing what he has ordained according to his intention; and instead of the matter that vexes man let us choose the good part: the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Verses 1–4. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Command the sons of Israel to bring you oil of olives, most pure and clear, for keeping the lamps burning continually outside the veil of the testimony in the tabernacle of the covenant. And Aaron shall set them from evening until morning before the Lord, by a perpetual worship and rite in your generations. They shall be set on the most clean lampstand always in the sight of the Lord."

Now too the law of the Spirit is full of goods, manifold and of many kinds; for it does not cease to seek out the things that serve the correction of those who please God and that may win eternal life for us. Of what, then, the lampstand, the lamps, and the oil now set out by the law bear the figure, the reader can learn from the words themselves, first calling to mind what Paul wrote to the Hebrews: "Even the first had ordinances of worship and an earthly sanctuary. For a tabernacle was prepared, the first, in which were the lampstands and the table and the setting out of the loaves." Then, explaining how such things are to be understood, he said again to the Hebrews that the law has a shadow. Through the shadow, then, let us seek the body. We say that the lampstand is the gospel way of life, in which Christ commands the virtues to shine and blaze: "No one," he says, "lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel, but on a lampstand, so that it gives light to all who are in the house." For these lamps the oil is almsgiving, because fasting, virginity, prayer, righteousness, and every good action are watered by the mercy of love for the poor and are kept unquenchable. The lamps of the five foolish virgins show this: because they had too little of the oil of love for the poor, they were shut out by the bridegroom. But the oil must be most pure, of olives, so that we do not serve love for the poor out of injustice or greed, nor for show. It is "of olives" if it comes from good labours and from righteousness … for olives are rightly called shady and fruitful. "Most clear," so that we do not give alms for human glory. This lamp, then, must always be lit, "outside the veil," namely of the body of Christ; for it has been shown through much that went before that this is the intelligible veil. "In the tabernacle of the covenant," or, as the Seventy, "of the testimony," that is, in heaven, where it is plain that God dwells. Both, then, were said by the lawgiver. For if whatever we do for the poor is reckoned as done to himself by him who became poor for our sakes, the lamp of almsgiving is rightly lit before the Lord's body; but also in heaven, for there the merciful send their treasures ahead. For this reason Aaron, or according to the Seventy "and his sons," lights it. For Christ, who is the true priest, began compassion for the poor; and whoever wishes to gain his adoption imitates him. "And Aaron shall set them," or as the Seventy, "Aaron and his sons shall light them from evening until morning," that is, without ceasing; for Solomon too said, "Let oil not be lacking from your head," showing that the lamp of almsgiving must be lit continually, and this "before the Lord," as the Lord himself said: "But when you give alms, let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." Let us hold this law "by a perpetual worship and rite in our generations, on the most clean lampstand," that is, the gospel way of life, as we have already said. For it is clean of all pretence and hypocrisy, since those who follow it light the lamps of almsgiving before the Lord and not before men. Let us light them "until morning," namely in the present age. For when the morning of the age to come has dawned, there is no longer a time for the working of almsgiving; Solomon signifies this plainly when he says: "Do not say to your friend: Go and come back, and tomorrow I will give to you, when you can give at once; for you do not know what the coming day will bring forth." That is, hurry and do not put it off, lest you be led away to places where you have no time to work, but where accounts must be rendered of what we have worked here.

Besides these things, the lawgiver's meaning holds a saving time … the lampstand is clean, because he had no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth; and a lampstand, because he is the true light that enlightens every man coming into this world. On it is lit the lamp, the Holy Spirit; for he is fiery in substance and in operation, and hence he came down on the disciples in the form of fiery tongues. Hence we must offer most pure oil, that is, a clean life, knowing that it does not belong to all to light it, but only to the intelligible Aaron and his sons: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me," upon whom he came down from heaven in the form of a dove. And, "I came to cast fire upon the earth, and I want it to be kindled": he said this signifying the fire of this lamp. For he himself handed it on to his sons, when, breathing on the apostles, he said: "Receive the Holy Spirit." But this lamp is not lit otherwise than through a clean life and a most clear, or bright, way of life. In one who is not such, the Spirit will be quenched. For not without cause did Paul solemnly charge, "Do not quench the Spirit," showing plainly that it lies in us to kindle his operation or to quench it, either by attending to the things by which he is kindled or by neglecting them. So, very fittingly, since he mentions "a lamp" and not "lamps," because he speaks of the Holy Spirit himself, he says that the lamp burns "always," showing both his eternity and that he is kindled of his own will and by his own authority. Where he mentions lamps, he means the operations of the Spirit. The Seventy say: "They shall light the lamps before the Lord until morning," showing this, that we must kindle the operations of the spiritual fire by supplying them the matter by which he wishes to be kindled. By "until morning" he means until the age to come; then we shall no longer need to light or kindle them. For all of us who have gained this dignity in this age will be spiritual.

Verses 5–9. "You shall also take fine flour and bake from it twelve loaves, each of which shall have two tenths. You shall set them six on each side on the most pure table before the Lord, and you shall put on them most clear frankincense, so that the bread may be for a memorial of the offering of the Lord. Every Sabbath they shall be changed before the Lord, received from the sons of Israel by an everlasting covenant; and they shall belong to Aaron and his sons, to eat them in the holy place, because it is a holy of holies from the sacrifice of the Lord by perpetual right."

The very number of the loaves calls us to the contemplation of the commandment, and so does their setting out; and the fact that he does not command these to become a burnt offering, as with those from the pan, the gridiron, and the oven, but to be placed on the table on each side, and to be eaten by the priests alone and not by the Levites, and yet by them in a holy place. And since they are called holy of holies, understand what is said; for the Lord will give you understanding. Remember the mystical table, which no one is permitted to presume upon except the intelligible Aaron, that is, Christ; for he first initiated it; and also his sons, who have been made Christ's by him and have put him on. Yet they were commanded to eat it in a holy place. It is also a holy of holies, so that they may hold its sanctification as special and not to be despised. These loaves are of two tenths, for they are of God and man … they will be … even in the age to come. Six loaves make one row, because it is a perfect number, as the mystery itself is perfect and makes those who enjoy it perfect. In six days this visible creation was made, and on the sixth day man was brought forth, for whose sake Christ prepared the mystical table. Yet all together are rightly twelve loaves, because the apostles, who were twelve in number, were the first to eat the Lord's supper. On them most clear frankincense is placed, or, as the Seventy, also salt. But the frankincense first signifies thanksgiving, that is, the offering, which holds the first place in the Lord's supper; not only because it is offered to God, but also because, as physicians say, it heals many diseases of the eyes. The salt signifies the teaching of the apostles, to whom it is said: "You are the salt of the earth." Rightly, in many places, the apostles themselves and their teaching are placed on the mystical table, because as the Lord handed on the communion of the divine supper to them, so they handed it on to us. Their clean table is the altar, of which David sang: "You have prepared a table before me against those who afflict me." It is clean, first as cleansing, then as having nothing of falsehood or defilement, such as there are in the mysteries of the pagans; moreover, because one may not become a partaker of it who does not approach with a clean mind and has not put on a white garment; whoever has not put it on is always cast out from those who have been called to this supper. He also commands that it be set out on the Sabbath day: first, because it has a place in the intelligible rest, which is the true Sabbath, and this is the Lord's table, even though his supper is new, as one may infer from what the Lord said about the cup of the old vine. That we do not take what the lawgiver has now set out of the table of the Only-begotten without reason, nor speak arrogantly, nor search out with clever trifling what does not belong to the intention of the law, but rather infer it rightly and truly, the very words can satisfy the hearer, in which he seems here to have spoken properly. For he says: "So that the bread may be for a memorial of the offering of the Lord." Who is meant, or in whose commemoration? Beyond doubt it is what Paul wrote that the Lord said when he handed down the mystery: "As often as you do this, do it in memory of me." Then it is added again: "Every Sabbath they shall be changed before the Lord, received from the sons of Israel by an everlasting covenant," or, as the Seventy, "an everlasting testament," meaning beyond doubt that testament which the Lord mentions in handing down the mystery. Let us too, saying how much truth and how much dignity it has, approach with the greatest fear and love. Because he calls it clean … he commands those who partake of it to eat it not everywhere but in a holy place. Let the holy place for us be first the court of God, then our bodies when they are clean of defilements, so that these words of Paul may also fit us: "For the temple of God is holy, which you are." Further, raising its glory and lifting the dignity of the mystery on high, he adds: "It is a holy of holies from the sacrifice of the Lord by perpetual right." Prayer, then, is holy; holy is the reading of the divine Scripture and the hearing of its interpretation; holy, in short, are all the things said and done in the churches of God according to his law. But the holy of holies from the sacrifice of the Lord, namely of all that is offered and done for his glory, is the table which Christ sets out from his own sacrifice. For he did not say simply that it is a holy of holies, but added, according to the Seventy, "to him": since it has from him not only its fulfilment but also its very existence, as he shows and established it not carelessly but by his own blood, which was poured out for us.

Verses 10–14. "But behold, the son of an Israelite woman, whom she had borne to an Egyptian man, went out among the sons of Israel and quarrelled in the camp with an Israelite man. And when he had blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed him, he was brought to Moses. His mother's name was Shelomith, daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. And they put him in prison until they should know what the Lord commanded. And he spoke to Moses, saying: Bring this blasphemer out of the camp, and let all who heard lay their hands on his head, and let the whole people stone him."

Now too the lawgiver hands down admirable things to us, over which it is fitting to say: "How sweet are your words to my palate, O Lord, beyond honey and the comb to my mouth." For he hands down necessary and very useful things in living images and in signs that are animate and active, that move themselves, as it were. For there is an outside wisdom, of which Paul says, "For God has made foolish the wisdom of this world," and again, "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." He means the wisdom concerned with the courses of the stars and the measurements of the heavens and the investigation of other things beyond our grasp, which was studied among the Egyptians and in a way took its beginning and reward there; Moses, brought up in Pharaoh's palace, was not ignorant of it either. But the book of Kings says: "The wisdom of Solomon surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the East and of the Egyptians." The Israelite woman is the divine Scripture, of which it is said in the Proverbs: "An understanding woman is blessed, and let her praise the fear of the Lord," because, leaving superfluous questions, she clung to the divine fear. The Israelite woman, then, the wisdom of the spiritual Scripture, must not come together with the outside wisdom, so as to be subjected to it, so that the one born of them, namely one who is taught by both, is not only the son of the Israelite woman but also the son of the Egyptian, savouring the things of Egypt, joining himself to the outside wisdom, and wanting to hold the doctrines that are there. If this ever happens, and such a one is among the sons of the intelligible, faithful Israel, and in the camp, which is the church (Jacob, seeing it in figure in a dream, said, "This is the camp of God"), and the son of the Israelite woman and the Israelite quarrel (the Israelite being one who is great and clean, who has given himself wholly to the wisdom of God and says with Paul, "We speak wisdom among the perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world or of the rulers of this age, who are being destroyed"), let them quarrel over words or contend over doctrines, and the son of the Israelite woman blaspheme "the name": let this be when one who has been harmed by the outside wisdom mentions Christ. For I have seen that the lawgiver, following great precision, says, "And when he had blasphemed the name." What name he is silent about; for when this was being ordained it was not yet known, because he who was incarnate of the virgin and the Holy Spirit had not yet been born, of whom Gabriel said: "And they shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Paul, showing how great this name is, says: "God gave him the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth." When, therefore, one who trusts in wisdom and attends to the outside wisdom, which speaks of small, great, and greatest, and seeks out grades in the Godhead, which is impossible, has blasphemed the name of Christ (for one who says the Son is less than the Father blasphemes the Son), he is of necessity driven out of the camp and led out of the sight of the church. "And let those who heard lay their hands on his head," showing by "head" that Christ is truly the head, and the head of Christ is God, because one who has blasphemed the Son has also blasphemed the Father in him. "And let the whole people stone him," those who kill and destroy the one who blasphemed.

Note fittingly these words of this ordinance too: how they brought him to Moses. But he does not act on his own authority, nor does he pronounce sentence against him, but put him in prison, so that he might be judged by the commandment of the Lord. For the Mosaic law itself hates one who blasphemes the Son, as is plain from its frequently hinting at the mystery of the Trinity (not openly, indeed, nor speaking of it as plainly as the gospel), and for this reason it reserved him for the judgment of the Lord's commandments. Which ones? Those, namely, which say: "Whoever does not believe in the Son is already judged," and again, "If you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins," and many other such things said in the gospel precepts.

Verses 15–16. "And you shall speak to the sons of Israel: A man who curses his God shall bear his sin, and whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord, let him die the death. The whole multitude shall crush him with stones, whether he is a citizen or a stranger. Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord, let him die the death."

According to the edition of the Seventy he commands here something new, which troubles the ears of many: "A man, a man, whoever curses God shall receive sin; but whoever names the name of the Lord, let him die the death." So naming the name of the Lord is graver than blaspheming God; for the one only receives sin, the other also undergoes the penalty of death. For what difference is there between Lord and God? Is it not this very one who said, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God," and again, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart"? How, then, does one who cursed God receive sin, while one who names the name of the Lord will die? Or for what reason at all is one who names the name of the Lord put under a penalty? For you will find Isaiah exulting in this and saying: "O Lord, we know no other besides you; we name your name." What name of the Lord, then, does one become subject to a curse and to the penalty of death by naming? If the lawgiver now speaks of some hidden name, unknown to us, which is not made manifest in sacred Scripture, how could anyone name what he has not learned and cannot bring forward? But see what God has made manifest to us through Moses: "And when the Lord had come down in the cloud, Moses stood with him, calling on the name of the Lord; and as he passed before him he said: Ruler, Lord, God, merciful and gracious." He would not have made this manifest to us if he had not wished us to name it. But now something else the lawgiver shows through the present passage: he wants the blasphemy that someone commits knowingly to be under the greatest penalty and not pardonable. And he says plainly what the Lord says in the Gospels: "Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come." He calls blasphemy of the Spirit the blasphemy committed in the knowledge of God, because knowledge is especially a gift of the Spirit, so that Paul said: "To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge." Therefore here too you understand that one curses God who blasphemes without knowing. Hence Symmachus did not write that he blasphemed him, as of the son of the Israelite woman, but that he disparaged him; for he said, "A man who disparages his God." By this it is chiefly shown that through great ignorance he says of God the things he holds about a man, in which there is room for disparagement. Yet even so he receives sin, because he did not have knowledge when he ought to have had it. But he says that one who blasphemes in knowledge names the name of the Lord in cursing. Those properly name the Lord who have gained knowledge of him through the Spirit; for no one can say "Jesus is Lord," as Paul says, except in the Holy Spirit. Since, then, they blaspheme knowingly, they are rightly without pardon, whether they have the knowledge from their fathers, and for this reason are called citizens, or have only now learned it, and for this reason are strangers. When, therefore, they name the name of the Lord, they rightly die, that is, when they name it and blaspheme. You see, then, that the son of the Israelite woman too named the name and blasphemed, and brought the penalty on himself. What seems doubtful in this ordinance Aquila gave more plainly, for he says: "A man, when he blasphemes his God, shall receive iniquity for himself; and one who pronounces the name of the Lord, let him die the death." He did not say "naming" but "pronouncing," so as to show that the one of whom he now speaks both blasphemes and names: the one who blasphemes and names the name of the Lord, namely of the Spirit; for Paul says, "The Lord is the Spirit." This one the lawgiver commands to die and be killed; and he is, as we have said once, the one who blasphemes knowingly.

Verses 17–22. "Whoever strikes and kills a man, let him die the death. Whoever strikes an animal shall make restitution for it, that is, life for life. Whoever inflicts a blemish on any of his fellow citizens, as he has done, so let it be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth he shall restore. Whatever blemish he has inflicted, such he is compelled to suffer. Whoever strikes a beast of burden shall render another. Whoever strikes a man shall be punished. Let there be equal judgment among you, whether a stranger or a citizen has sinned; for I am the Lord your God."

Here too we find the lawgiver using a close sequence, if we fix our mind on the intention of what is written. Since no glory of God suffers diminution from anyone's blasphemy, it is not for his own sake that he commands those who blaspheme him to be under such punishment and torments; but since we are harmed by such words, and it is ruinous to men that the divine repute be lessened and the dignity of the Creator and common benefactor be unknown, he rightly added the present words: "Whoever strikes and kills a man," or according to the Seventy, "whoever strikes the soul of a man, let him die the death." And who strikes the soul of a man, except one who entices him to impiety, who draws him into blasphemous talk, in which he may die by the worst death of sin, which is the true death of the soul? For this reason he commands such a one to die the death. Yet here, saying "the soul of a man," he means above all the unspiritual man, that is, one who cannot understand the things of the Spirit, of whom Paul says: "The unspiritual man does not receive the things of the Spirit; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually examined." Whoever strikes him dies the death. "And if he strikes an animal," namely one who lives like cattle, of whom David says, "Man, when he was in honour, did not understand; he was compared to senseless beasts and became like them," "he shall make restitution for it, that is, life for life." For one who has made a sinner, or a common man who has no fine discernment about God, go astray is not worthy of pardon at all. But if he did not strike him so as to lead him completely into impiety and make him go astray wholly from God, but said or wrote certain things to him, he has inflicted a blemish of sin to that degree and will suffer punishment; for he says: "Whoever inflicts a blemish on any of his fellow citizens, as he has done, so let it be done to him: fracture for fracture," or as the Seventy, "crushing for crushing," "eye for eye, tooth for tooth." For whether that neighbour, teaching evil, or persuading, or giving scandal, or disparaging and slandering, has crushed the virtue the citizen had, or has blinded his eye, namely his knowledge, by doing any one of the things mentioned, or his tooth, the power of words (for Scripture is accustomed to take teeth for words, as David shows when he says, "The sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword"; and the patriarch Jacob said of Christ in the blessings, "His eyes more beautiful than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk," for the gospel words of Christ are clear and open beyond the milk of the law), then of necessity one who has harmed anything of what has been mentioned suffers a like blemish himself, namely in the judgment to come. For if he harmed or crushed another's virtue, his own will be crushed; if he darkened knowledge, his own knowledge will be counted as nothing; if he did harm by teaching words, the judge will make his words fruitless and useless to him. For this reason he did not say, "So you shall do to him," but, "So it shall be done to him," hinting at the judgment to come, in which the judge will render to each according to his works. And if someone also strikes a man perfect and complete in faith (for this is properly what belongs to a man; for this reason David said, "Men and beasts you will save, O Lord," calling men those who do what is perfect, beasts the imperfect and unlearned), and strikes him with a deadly blow that drags him to impiety, he will die the death. For even if the one who was struck was able to repel the wound, this obtains no excuse at all for the one who struck him; and he will be under a much greater penalty, because he killed even one who could have resisted him. "Let there be equal judgment among you," he says, "whether a stranger or a citizen has sinned; for I am the Lord your God." Nor did he make an exception of those who have been taught just now, as against those who knew the sacred Scriptures earlier and from their parents. He sets a common penalty against both, and adds: "For I am the Lord your God," who said: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it is better for him that a millstone be hung around his neck and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea." For he did not make distinctions in these words, but by saying "whoever" subjected all to the penalty; for this reason Paul too said: "But the one who troubles you will bear the judgment, whoever he is," that is, whether small or great, whether having much knowledge or little, whether he has learned just now or earlier, whether a citizen in the faith or a stranger. This being so, the ordinance according to the letter too was necessary for the Jews, and they did not wish to hear, "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the other also"; for since they were ill-disposed, each would have exacted this from his neighbour rather than doing it himself. Rightly, then, "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" was said to them, so that by fear of the penalty in return they would abstain from violence and murders.

Verse 23. "And Moses spoke to the sons of Israel, and they brought the one who had blasphemed out of the camp and crushed him with stones; and the sons of Israel did as the Lord had commanded Moses."

So it is not without reason that we have shown you that the one who struck the soul of a man, or of cattle, or a man, whom he commanded to die for this, is, according to the contemplation of the law, the one who has struck another into blasphemy by teaching or inciting him or doing some other such thing. For see, the order of the ordinance proves this and shows it beyond any doubt: having given commands about those who curse God or blaspheme, he joined to them the one who struck the soul of a man, or of an animal, or the man himself; and not only did he impose the penalty of death on this one as on those, but, explaining that the things said have one intention, he added again the one who blasphemed, and the penalty which the whole multitude, obedient to the law, exacted. For we have heard how he brought out of the camp the one who blasphemed, and commanded him to be crushed with stones. For this reason he added the deed to the indignation, and showed you the law confirmed by experience itself, so that you too might fear and flee blaspheming God, fearing the greatness of that sin which he commanded not only the rulers but the whole multitude to punish. For the fight against blasphemers must be common to all, because they try to disparage our common benefactor, the common source of our life, from whom we all have both being and well-being; they do no harm to his glory, but they want to separate and drive us away from him.

Verses 1–7. "And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: When you have entered the land which I will give you, keep a Sabbath to the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather its fruits. But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of rest for the land, of the Lord. You shall not sow your field, and you shall not prune your vineyard. What the ground produces of itself you shall not reap, and you shall not gather the grapes of your firstfruits as a vintage; for it is a year of rest for the land. But they shall be food for you: for you and for your servant, your maidservant and your hired man, and for the strangers who sojourn with you. For your beasts of burden and your cattle all that grows shall supply food."

The land, which it befits God to give us and profits us to receive, from which we can win the true life, is the good way of life according to his law and the commandments he has given us, of which David says: "Teach me your will, for you are my God; your Holy Spirit will lead me into the right land." If we have entered it, we can sow our field and plant our vineyard and gather the fruits that grow from it for six years, that is, as long as we are in this life and in this visible creation, which the number of six days rightly signifies, because all things that are seen were established in six days. "But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath and rest for the land." For when the intelligible Sabbath has come, that is, the rest from the present age, of which Paul says, "So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God," which the seventh day marks, because on the seventh day God rested from all his works, namely the visible ones, then there is no time for working; and therefore we can neither sow the field of the law then nor plant the vineyard of the gospel. For we rightly understand the field as the law, because the elder son, who is jealous of the younger people and bears the image of the people of the Jews, is said to return from the field, that is, from the working of the law. The vineyard, beyond any doubt, is the preaching of the gospel; for Christ gave it its occasion and matter, who said: "I am the vine, you are the branches, my Father is the farmer." So after our departure from this life, or our passing over, we shall not be able to cultivate the commandments of the law or of the gospel; nor shall we reap what grows of itself, that is, whatever the natural law suggests to men for action. For this is what grows of itself, because, apart from the study of books and all hearing of teachers, it suggests and urges what is useful and supplies us with thoughts that help the soul. Nor shall we then need to gather the grapes of the firstfruits, or, as the Seventy, "the grape of sanctification"; and what the grape of sanctification is, those who have been initiated into the mystery of Christ know, who have perceived by experience the prophecy concerning Christ: "He will wash his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape." This grape of sanctification we shall not gather; for there we shall see the Lord's mystery then, but in greater glory, needing no thing of the senses as now. Hence the lawgiver mentioned the grape, but Christ promised that he would drink it with us in the kingdom, but new. In this Sabbath, then, that is, the rest of the age, in which we rest from the land just mentioned, … we now have time for the things that must be worked. Hence the five foolish virgins too, when they were called to enter the royal wedding, went to buy oil, as though they did not know the time, and were shut out.

"But they shall be food for you: for you and for your servant, your maidservant and your hired man, and for the stranger who sojourns with you; for your beasts of burden, for your cattle." For whatever we have worked now, of this we receive the fruit there, and that word of the Psalm will be fitted to us: "Blessed are all who fear the Lord. You shall eat the labours of your fruits; you are blessed, and it will be well with you." He describes the blessedness of the age to come, to find a blessed food; for he calls blessed the one who eats bread in the kingdom of heaven. But much more blessed it is to have servants and maidservants and hired men, strangers, beasts of burden and cattle, or, according to the Seventy, wild beasts. For these are the various kinds of those who become disciples to us in the holy way of life of God. Servants and maidservants are as many as have subjected themselves to us as disciples, or have been bought by us out of the outside slavery. Our hired men are those who have been invited by us, yet are not so far subject that they may be called servants and maidservants. Strangers, or, as the Seventy, sojourners "who lie beside us" (for they did not say "sojourners," but "the sojourner who lies beside you"): as many as are like sojourners in this life through philosophy, yet do not lie beside those outside but beside us, who have entered the good land and possess it and what pertains to it. And if we help any unlearned man or common man, for these are beasts of burden; and further if we make any of the unbelieving or ungodly, who are rightly called cattle, or, as the Seventy, wild beasts, gentle, and make them leave the woods and come to our land and be called beasts of the field, of whom David said, "Waters will pass between the mountains; all the beasts of the field will drink of them": these too will eat the fruits of the good land of the way of life handed to us by God, as we have said, in the intelligible Sabbath, in the rest of the age to come, receiving the delights of the fruits of the land just mentioned. For this reason Ecclesiastes said, "Prepare your works for your departure," because after the departure it is not permitted to begin any working. And Christ says: "Work not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you." Its work is here; in the future is its fruit. Woe to one who goes from here with empty hands to where there is no longer a time for laying up treasure or for working, but where the things we have worked here are brought out and enjoyed. Building upon these, the lawgiver added what follows:

Verses 8–13. "You shall also count for yourself seven weeks of years, that is, seven times seven, which together make forty-nine years; and you shall sound the trumpet in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, at the time of propitiation, in all your land; and you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and you shall call a release to all the inhabitants of the land. It is the jubilee. A man shall return to his possession, and each shall go back to his former family. In the jubilee, the fiftieth year, you shall not sow, nor reap what grows of itself in the field, nor gather the firstfruits of the vintage, because of the sanctification of the jubilee; but you shall eat what is taken at once. In the year of jubilee all shall return to their possessions."

Here the Jews must be asked: if the lawgiver, honouring the seventh day, as they themselves say, commanded rest on it from the works of the field and other such things, for what reason did he command cessation from works in the fiftieth year? For if weeks of weeks are reckoned to make forty-nine years, there was no need to rest in the fiftieth, unless perhaps it signified something and the law was setting out mysteries which it was not yet time to open plainly because of the weakness of the hearers. What are these? Listen. A twofold consummation of all visible things is brought on by God: one of each of us, the other common to the human race and to the very things that make up the present way of life. But neither when each of us has been consummated, nor when all have been, will there be a time for us to work. And giving the law very knowingly (for he was God), he hints at this to us both in these words and in those above: in the ones above, suggesting the end of each one; in these, the consummation of the whole human race and of the visible world. "You shall count, then, for yourself seven weeks of years," or as the Seventy: "You shall count for yourself seven rests of years"; the remaining interpreters gave "Sabbaths" for "rests." And what is this? For he says seven weeks of years seven times; and seven weeks of years are forty-nine years. For the whole human age is divided into the week of days; when this has been multiplied by itself and the whole turning of the age has been completed, whose time the Creator has fixed, having long turned upon itself, it reaches its end. And therefore that end of the times of weeks is rightly called the forty-ninth year. But the following one, the fiftieth, must also follow, as the lawgiver says here, in which the resurrection of the dead takes place; for after the end the resurrection follows. How and in what way it comes about Paul tells, and the lawgiver likewise added it in the present words; for he says: "And sounding the trumpet in the seventh month, in all your land," signifying that trumpet of which Paul wrote to the Corinthians, saying: "For the Lord himself, at the command, at the voice of the archangel, at the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and the dead who are in Christ will rise incorruptible." For the trumpet must go before the resurrection of the dead, raising them. Hence he commanded the trumpet to be sounded in the forty-ninth year, in which we said the common consummation takes place; and rightly he commanded the trumpet to be sounded in the month … in all your land, showing by the propitiation that because of his goodness and kindness toward the whole human race he dispenses the mystery of the common resurrection, bestowing mercy on Adam, who through disobedience was ordered to return to the earth; for had he not been merciful and a mercy seat, he would not have freed him from earthly corruption. He said "all the land," because the resurrection will be of the whole human race. By the seventh month and the tenth day you will understand the one who did these things, namely Christ. For in the seventh month came the age of the world. We call its first month the time in paradise; the second, until the flood; the third, until Abraham; the fourth, until the time of the descent into Egypt; the fifth, until the captivity in Babylon; the sixth, until the coming of Christ; the seventh, the coming of the Lord itself. For even if not all these ages have some difference among themselves, yet they have the marks of times as months do. He added the tenth day for this reason: because Christ proceeds to perfection (for ten is a perfect number) in our propitiation through the cross and passion. Hence too he commanded that the sheep which Moses ordered to be sacrificed be perfect and be set apart on the tenth day, bearing the image of the one of whom we now speak. What did he add to these? "And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and you shall call a release to all the inhabitants of your land." The Seventy add: "It shall be a year of release for you, a signal." This shall be sanctified, that is, await it in holiness and think holy things about it. Moreover, correct holiness in it, remembering him who said, "Pursue my peace with all, and holiness, without which no one will see God." And let us announce release to all who are on the earth from the sentence pronounced against us because of Adam. This is the signal; for the signal is the resurrection of the dead by Christ the victor, through which he conquers the enemy, subjecting all things to himself and destroying death, as Paul says: "He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death." But this signal is given through the gospel preaching; for Christ, when he came, signified and proclaimed it. "Then a man shall return to his possession, and each shall go back to his former family," or, as the Seventy, "to his fatherland." For our possession is the attainment of the age to come, because we possess it not for a time but for ever; it is not now of this one and now of that, but always of the same, a firm possession that cannot be taken away, of which the Lord said: "Lay up treasure for yourselves … where thieves do not dig through and steal." And we return to our former family, or, as the Seventy, "we shall walk to our fatherland." For there is plainly a fatherland, or family, of those who love hospitality, over which Abraham presides; plainly one of the chaste, whose prince is Joseph; plainly one of the zealous, in which Elijah holds the first place. We receive their inheritance when the release of the things that are here, and the sanctification, the victory over death, has been accomplished. "In the fiftieth year, which comes after the week of weeks," that is, after the common end, as has been shown once, then the things that grow of themselves in the field cannot be sown or reaped, nor the firstfruits of the vintage gathered. For it is not the time in which we gain for ourselves by working any holiness that we did not gain in this life; in the age to come it is the time to enjoy what we have worked here. For this reason he added: "But you shall eat what is taken at once," or, as the Seventy, "you shall eat from the plains what grows in it," that is, things prepared, not things sown then nor because they are being cultivated, but sown and prepared long before. For that is the time of which David says: "For you render to each according to his works."

But what did he say at the end of the present ordinance? "In the year of jubilee," or according to the Seventy, "in the year of release of the signal, all shall return to their possessions." By what has now been said the law plainly testifies to us that even if we depart from here, no one can return to his possession, namely to his inheritance, until the year of release, which is that of sanctification, namely until the common consummation and the resurrection of the dead which Christ brings about when he raises his complete trophy over the enemy and death. For this reason Paul too says: "We who are alive shall not precede those who have fallen asleep." For the righteous, who are called living, do not go before the dead, but the judgment of all will be common, and all together are sent to the places that befit them. He says well "shall return," because we walk to God, from whom we also came when we did not exist before. When we come to him, then we begin to be. We began to be in common from the time Adam was created; but each one exists individually from the time he was formed in his mother's womb, for he says: "Who forms the spirit of man within him." Yet we came from God by reason of his workmanship and creation; for this reason Paul too said: "I am hard pressed between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ." May this come to each of us with confidence, that is, that we may find and possess a good possession, one counted with the families of the righteous. For then, as we have said, [we shall find] our possessions … The lawgiver said at the beginning of this law, "You shall count for yourself seven weeks," or "you shall count for yourself seven rests of years," not because we can grasp that day and hour by a number, but so that, as those who count look for the end of the number, so we may look not only to our own individual consummation but to the common one, in which, leaving earthly corruption, we are sent to the heavenly possessions that are without labour, and to the rest of the age to come, which the fiftieth year has been said to signify. Hence Solomon too said in the Proverbs: "Give portions to seven, and also to eight," so that we may attend to the consummation, which the number seven signifies, and to the rest of the age to come, which the eighth day signifies. For this reason Christ's resurrection too took place after the seventh day, the Sabbath, on the eighth, and from it the universal resurrection of the dead took its substance.

Verses 14–17. "When you sell anything to your fellow citizen, or buy from him, do not grieve your brother; but according to the number of the years of the jubilee you shall buy from him, and according to the reckoning of the crops he shall sell to you. The more years remain after the jubilee, the more the price increases; and the less time you count, the less the purchase will cost. For he is selling you the time of the crops. Do not afflict your kinsmen, but let each one fear his God; for I am the Lord your God."

That there is a sale whose contract comes about without silver Isaiah taught us plainly, for he said: "All you who thirst, come to the waters, and you who have no silver, hurry and eat." For this reason Peter, condemning Simon, said: "Your money perish with you, because you thought the gift of God could be acquired with money." Good and truly blessed is what is spiritual, yet it is not lawful to acquire its possession with money. Such a spiritual sale and possession the law now sets before us; for he says: "When you sell anything to your fellow citizen, or buy from him," that is, if you have either given or received some teaching, that is, either taught or been taught. For this is the good possession, which passes over to the possession of the age to come. He joined them well: "When you sell anything to your fellow citizen, or buy from him." For disciples and teachers are each other's riches, each other's possession, as Paul shows when he writes to the Corinthians: "We are your glory, as you also are ours, in the day of Christ Jesus." "Let a man not grieve his brother," then; that is, let us not lay on disciples more than their strength, but what is possible for them: virginity to one for whom it is possible, namely the one of whom Paul says, "He who has determined in his heart, being firm, having no necessity but having authority … to keep his virgin, does well"; marriage to one who does not receive the word of virginity, for the same Paul said: "He who gives his virgin in marriage does well, and he who does not give her does better." And again: "If anyone thinks he is behaving unbecomingly toward his virgin, because she is past her prime, and it must be so, let him do what he wishes; he does not sin if she marries." And again: "It is better to marry than to burn." So too with every virtue God himself requires of us what is according to our ability, and wants us to minister to one another; for he rebuked the Pharisees as men who laid heavy commands on others, for he says: "They bind heavy and unbearable burdens and lay them on men's shoulders." Very fittingly, then, the lawgiver added: "But according to the number of the years of the jubilee you shall buy from him," or as the Seventy, "according to the number of years after the signal you shall acquire from your neighbour." By "signal," as has already been said, he means the Lord's coming and the gospel preaching proclaimed concerning him, which signified to us the future victory over death and the rest of the age to come. From the time this signal was given, then, no one bears a hard yoke or carries a heavy burden, but "according to the number of the years," that is, according to his strength; for a man's years show his age, from which it becomes plain what one can do bodily. Explaining this further, he added: "According to the reckoning of the crops he shall sell to you." According as he has the strength to work and bear fruit, let the disciple render fruit to the teacher. "The more years remain after the jubilee, the more the price increases; and the less time you count, the less the purchase will cost. For he is selling you the time of the crops." If he can work much, demand much fruit; if little, little. For one is required to bear thirtyfold, another sixtyfold, another a hundredfold. Nor is this something the lawgiver took up carelessly; it is pursued in earnest, for he says again: "Do not afflict your kinsmen, but let each one fear his God; for I am the Lord your God." Let a man not bind his kinsman, that is, not lay on him a heavy burden beyond his strength, but "let each one fear his God," who says: "Take my yoke, for it is easy, and my burden, for it is light." "I am the Lord your God," that is, who gave commands about virginity to the apostles and said, "Not all receive it, but let him who can receive it receive it." So he requires of each according to his strength; and this is the gain of the contemplation of the Spirit. But the letter too holds no small instruction: he wants us to have compassion on our neighbour in dealings of the senses as well, and wants no one to be harsh or burdensome, nor to trade on the needs of the poor, nor to strive or hurry to annex their possessions, but to give to those in need, and to receive back what they gave little by little from the fruits gathered from the fields. To forgive the debt itself, and not to take back what was given as a loan, is truly this way, which not all receive; but those who receive it are blessed.

Verses 18–19. "Do my precepts, and keep my judgments and fulfil them, so that you may dwell in the land without any fear, and the ground may produce its fruits for you, which you may eat to satisfaction, fearing no one's attack."

The Spirit of God uses very great caution toward our ears, lest perhaps, learning that we are required to bear fruit of the intelligible possessions according to the number of years, that is, according to strength, we should grow slack and turn to pleasures, and the very condescension should become harmful to us. "Do my precepts and keep my judgments," he says, "and fulfil them." For he by no means allows us, even though we are weak, to be idle from the working of the law, but wants us without doubt to work, even if according to our strength, the strength which our conscience convicts us of, as Paul says:

"their thoughts among themselves accusing or excusing." Let us, then, first keep all the righteous ordinances of God, all his judgments, and afterwards do them. Let us keep them by not corrupting their intention, keeping them strictly and unchangeably: as when someone wishes to practise almsgiving, let him not work it by harming his neighbour, nor, if he is poor, seize another's money to give to the poor; for God wants alms to be offered from righteousness. We say the same in each commandment: that we first keep its intention and end, and so advance to working them. For then we shall dwell in the intelligible land, namely in the divine land of the spiritual Scripture and of the good way of life, which God commanded us to possess and cultivate, when we have not transgressed his intention; then it produces its fruits, which we may eat to satisfaction, and we fear no one's attack. For one who keeps the intention of the law and does its works will gather its fruits and eat them to satisfaction, and dwells in it without fear, because he does not transgress the lawgiver's intention, nor is he conscious of having lived against the law within the law of God.

"But if you say: What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we do not sow or gather our crops?"

Verses 21–22. "I will give you a blessing in the sixth year, and it will produce fruit for three years; and you shall sow in the eighth year, and you shall eat the old crops until the ninth year; until the new grow, you shall eat the old."

Hence it is fitting that we be helped first, that is, by what is useful in the letter; this must be attended to, and gain of this kind pursued. … that those who receive the law should be troubled about two years of rest, how or from where they would eat; but he says: "I will give you my blessing." Which one? Because man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. How, then, do some accuse the commandment of Christ as impossible and laborious, by which I said, "Do not be anxious about tomorrow"? For see, the law commands similar things, and bids those who attend to the lawgiver's power not to be anxious for three whole years. Besides, by the three years we necessarily understand the consummation of each one of us, the common one, and the recompense that follows the resurrection. In each of these we eat what we have worked here; for this reason he says: "But if you say: What shall we eat in the seventh year?" that is, in the consummation of each of us. For it is plain that in the common one, in which the resurrection takes place, and in the recompense, we have the same food. Hear the answer God gives you about these through the law: "I will give you my blessing in the sixth year, and you shall produce fruit for three years." The blessing of the Father is the Son; for he destroyed the curse brought upon Adam. For this reason David the Psalmist taught that we must be blessed in him: "The blessing of the Lord be upon you; we have blessed you in the name of the Lord." By "the name of the Lord" he plainly means the Son, because as a name makes known each one who is not seen, so Christ, appearing, made the Father known in himself, though he is invisible. He came in the sixth year, both in perfection, which the number six signifies, and so that in the last time the re-formation might come again, in the number of whose days man was formed. Therefore, as the sixth day is that of the formation, so the sixth year is rightly called that of the re-formation. That there it is called the sixth day, but here the sixth year, is for this reason: because many spaces of time ran between our formation and our re-formation. So it is not without reason that the lawgiver mentioned the sixth year. For in it Christ, coming, gave us to acquire fruits by which we can be nourished in the proper consummation of each of us and in the common resurrection and recompense, granting the human race to bear the fruit of the virtues abundantly, so that even those who were hired to work about the eleventh hour received a denarius as wages with those who were hired in the morning.

What follows is not contrary to these, for he says: "And you shall sow in the eighth year," which they call the fiftieth, of which he ordained in the preceding passage: "Because it is the jubilee and the fiftieth year, you shall not sow nor reap." How, then, does he bid them sow here? Do you think the lawgiver says things contrary to himself? But let us understand the seed here so that we may find no contradiction either in the letter or in the spirit. "You shall not sow, then, nor reap," of the fiftieth year: nor were they to sow seed in the seventh week from which the harvest would come in the fiftieth year. For this sowing, even if it took place in the preceding year, the forty-ninth, in which above all, as in the seventh week, the sowing had to rest, is yet said to be of the fiftieth, because it would be sown for its sake; and for this reason it is forbidden. For the law did not command any sowing or work at all in the seventh week, which we have said is the pattern of the common consummation. As, then, the letter compelled us to attend not to itself but to the lawgiver's intention, so that the apparent contradiction might be resolved, so it will grant us, in the contemplation too, to judge in harmony with the intention of the spiritual interpretation. For they sow in the eighth year, in the age to come: not those who sow then (for that is not lawful, and indeed impossible, as we said once), nor those who sow in the seventh, for you have learned that this too is forbidden; but as many as sow in the sixth, in which Christ, coming, gave us the good seed; whoever sends seed ahead from here, from which the harvest of the promises will flourish for us, that is, the harvest of recompense, of which David says, "Coming they will come with rejoicing, carrying their sheaves," and Paul too: "He who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. He who sows in the flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows in the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life." Hence we must sow in the eighth year, namely in the age to come; for so what follows fits us: "And you shall eat the old fruits until the ninth year; until the new grow, you shall eat the old." The Seventy have: "You shall eat the old of the old": not simply old, but the old of the old, because, as we have said, not only as soon as we go out from here, which is the seventh year, but also in the resurrection of the dead, which is namely the eighth year, and in the recompense, which we take as the ninth year (although the age to come is one, it is divided into the orders just mentioned), we eat whatever we have worked; and therefore they are called the old of the old, in comparison with ages so great that, when considered, they surpass number.

Verses 25–28. "If your brother has become poor and sold his little possession, and his kinsman wishes, he may redeem what he had sold. But if he has no near kinsman, and he himself can find the price to redeem it, the fruits shall be reckoned from the time he sold it, and he shall pay the remainder to the buyer, and he shall receive his possession again. But if his hand does not find enough to pay the price, the buyer shall have what he bought until the year of jubilee; for in it every sale returns to the owner …"

… no ordinary, but very great wisdom, if one attends fully; for it teaches in order what our substance and possession is, and how we alienate part of it, and how we receive it back. Each man's possession, then, is the good way of life that we have been allotted by God, of which Paul said: "Let each, brothers, remain with God in the calling in which he was called": this one virginity, that one chaste marriage, another a life of righteousness, this one silence and withdrawal from lawsuits, this one the priesthood, that one the protection of the poor; another other things: each possesses according to his own strength. But when through sloth our thoughts have grown weak, then we give up part of our own possession. For this reason the Seventy gave, "If he becomes poor"; Aquila, "If he falls away"; Symmachus, "If he is humbled." How this can be saved for us even after the lapse you will learn by examining the words themselves part by part. "If your brother has become poor and sold his little possession, and his kinsman wishes, he may redeem what he had sold." The law means our fellow believer as brother. For according to the Seventy he did not simply say "your brother," but added, "who is with you," hinting at those of whom John the evangelist wrote: "For if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us." There are, then, some false brothers, who cling to wicked heresies and bear the name of godliness in vain, of whom Paul says, "In dangers among false brothers." Who these are he warns elsewhere: "Avoid a heretical man after a first and second admonition." And John too: "If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, nor greet him." Those with whom we may not associate we can in no way correct. In contrast to them he says: "If your brother has become poor," or according to the Seventy, "If your brother who is with you comes to poverty." He meant our brother, the one who is with us, the fellow believer, into whose thought, when sin comes, he slips into poverty, and is truly poor, because he has lost spiritual riches, having become like the one of whom David spoke when he set forth the man who was caught in the thoughts of sins: "I am needy, and in labours from my youth; but having been exalted, I was humbled and confounded." When, therefore, one who is such has sold part of his own good possession that fell to him by lot, accepting the thought of sin (for he sells his mind to the adversary, as God said to the Jews, "Behold, you were sold for your sins"), his kinsman and near relation will come, a relative according to the Spirit and a fellow believer, showing the law of kinship by deed, and will free his brother's sale, fulfilling what Paul wrote: "Brothers, if a man is overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfil the law of Christ." For if we lighten one another's burdens by exhortations, admonitions, and timely counsels, we can free a brother from poverty and redeem the passion which he sold through negligence when he ought not to have, and it becomes in a way a common possession. But if someone has no near relation or kinsman (perhaps because he did not show compassion to another at the right time, so that the other might keep the right of spiritual kinship toward him; or perhaps he is ashamed to tell what has happened to those who are akin to him according to the Spirit, and has not known what is said in the Proverbs:

"A brother is proved in necessities"), because one who hides his wounds and does not at once take the remedy into his mind must save himself and redeem his own substance; and therefore he says: "But if he has no near kinsman, and he himself can find the price to redeem it, the fruits shall be reckoned from the time he sold it, and he shall pay the remainder to the buyer, and so he shall receive his possession again." Which of us, then, is fit or able to free a mind sold through sloth or depravity, so that it does not perish wholly at the hands of the one who alienates it, if not by a good life and effective action, whoever of us has been found in a mind of sin? We must, then, consider for how long a time we have sold our minds to the one who is accustomed to buy them with wicked thoughts and reduce them to slavery, yielding and consenting to him, and pay him "what remains," or according to the Seventy, "what he has." For they did not say "what remains," but "what he has," so that we may win by a stronger contract and recover our mind. If, for example, the thought of greed has invaded our desire, let us recover our mind so as to despise even money and possessions that are justly ours. If gluttony has suggested captivity, let us recover ourselves by the intention of a strict fast and of continence from all foods. For if we can take back our possession from a greater enemy, we shall have conquered him.

But if this has not been done, what happens? "But if his hand does not find enough to pay the price." For, as we have said, if no spiritual kinsman has come first and admonished us how to repel such thoughts without harm, the thought and the action follow from which we can free whatever we have been found to have wrongly alienated. "The buyer shall have what he bought until the year of jubilee; for in it every sale returns to the owner" and former possessor. If, then, neither through a brother's teaching nor through any other virtue we have amended our thoughts and received back what was alienated from our possession, the one who possessed it through our negligence will be its master. For the sin is carried on into the deed, and we do not receive back our intelligible possession otherwise than in the time of the jubilee, or, as the Seventy, of release, because a year is perfect, holding in itself all the seasons and the circuit of all modes. A sin that is perfected and remains for a long time may not be corrected, and the mind in which the one who wickedly acquired what is ours has ruled may not be freed, otherwise than by perfect repentance, in which fasting, prayer, sackcloth, almsgiving, and tears are practised. Through these a full release is won for us.

If we have said that the one who has taken our minds captive was called a man by the lawgiver, do not wonder; for Paul too called him "the man of sin and son of perdition," and Isaiah in his prophecy called him an Egyptian "man and not God." The Lord too plainly allows the devil to be called a man, because he moves among men and devotes himself to plotting against them. For when he explained the parable of the tares, he said: "The servants of the householder came and said to him: Lord, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where then do the tares come from? And he said to them: An enemy man has done this." Then, interpreting the parable and explaining who the enemy was, he says: "The enemy who sowed them is the devil." That one who betrays his mind to the devil through sin has concluded the wicked and ruinous contract of his sale, Paul too explained, writing to the Romans: "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin." Note this above all: that he did not say that the one to whom he sold was a brother or a kinsman, nor did he call him a neighbour, as in the preceding ordinance, in which he said, "When you sell anything to your fellow citizen, or buy from him, do not grieve your brother"; by adding nothing of the kind here he shows plainly that he speaks of someone foreign to us, who wickedly acquires what is ours. This is the spiritual contemplation. The explanation of the letter alone is plain to all and easily handed on: by such a commandment he sets before the Jews a law of sufficiency and of not delighting in greed; and therefore he wants possessions to return in a cycle to those who once held them. He did not forbid selling, so as not to distress the poor man or press the needy one, who could not live or escape some necessity otherwise than by selling; but he did not command that those who acquired them should possess them for ever, but fixed a time within which the law would restore the possession to its former owners. But that the law cares more for contemplation and spiritual help, and not for the letter of the commandment and the explanation that lies on the surface, what follows makes plain.

Verses 29–34. "Whoever sells a house within the walls of a city has the right to redeem it until a year is fulfilled. If he has not redeemed it, and the circle of the year has run out, the buyer shall possess it, and his descendants for ever, and it cannot be redeemed even in the jubilee. But if the house is in a village that has no walls, it shall be sold by the law of fields; if it has not been redeemed before, it shall return to its owner in the jubilee. The houses of the Levites that are in the cities can always be redeemed. If they have not been redeemed, they shall return to their owners in the jubilee, because the houses of the cities of the Levites are for possessions among the sons of Israel. But their suburban lands shall not be sold, because it is an everlasting possession."

If the lawgiver had had this one intention, that possessions should not pass from some to others (and this was useful, because the law, as we have said, cares for sufficiency), for what reason, do you think, did he order houses to belong to their buyers when they had not been redeemed within a year, as he says? And not even this simply, but keeping a certain fine distinction. For whatever houses are within the walls of fortified cities might be redeemed only within a year; but whatever are in unwalled ones he always allowed to be freed. The houses of the Levites, whether in walled or unwalled cities, he commanded always to be redeemable; and he forbade everyone to sell fields. This distinction is now fruitless on the face of the letter that it shows: for there was a law when it had help from the letter, but not always nor in every respect; for this reason spiritual contemplation is necessary to it. The usefulness from it to one who attends is perpetual and comes from every commandment of the law; that is why the letter grows hard, so that, compelled by necessity, we may run back to the spiritual contemplation. Hence Paul too said: "Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up for the faith that was to be revealed." For the confinement of the letter persuades us to love the freedom of the Spirit.

Now, then, let us examine the power of the present ordinance. In the preceding passage he set forth the possession of a single person, saying: "If your brother has become poor and sold his little possession, and his kinsman wishes, he may redeem what he had sold; but if he has no near kinsman, and he himself can find the price to redeem it, the fruits shall be reckoned from the time he sold it, and he shall pay the remainder to the buyer, and so he shall receive his possession again; but if his hand does not find enough to pay the price, the buyer shall have what he bought until the year of jubilee." He set forth, without doubt, the individual way of life of each person. Here he speaks no longer of an individual way of life, but of that of a whole synagogue or church. Among these he sets out, in a manner befitting God, how the synagogue of the Jews still serves the enemy and adversary who acquired it, and how the church, the gathering of the nations, is saved in certain respects through certain intelligible Levites, that is, the apostles. He says: "Whoever sells a house within the walls of a city has the right to redeem it until a year is fulfilled." Let us understand this of the synagogue of the Jews, which was … to be inhabited: for this reason he established it through Moses, to be inhabited, though it did not keep this … by those in whom he dwelt. For this reason the Lord too said to the Jews: "My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of robbers." It was in a walled city, in Jerusalem, for it had a wall; and someone sells this house. Yet he did not call this seller either a kinsman or a near relation, as he called the former; for it was not one man selling it, but the whole people of the Jews living wickedly, which was not worthy to be called either brother or kinsman, so that God called it the people of Sodom and Gomorrah through the prophecy of Isaiah: "Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of our God, people of Gomorrah." And again the prophet said to them: "To which creditor have I sold you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities." But they were permitted to redeem this sale within the year in which Christ proclaimed redemption from sins to the whole human race, and above all to the people of the Jews. This year, which the law now hints at, Isaiah set forth openly: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the meek, to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim release to the captives and opening to the bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our Lord." Hence the Seventy too gave: "Its redemption shall be daily," because on each day of that which was called a year those who had sold themselves to the devil were permitted, by redeeming themselves, to be sold to God. For the enemy could no longer rule over them, since they had been sold to God. That they were permitted to redeem their own captivity not once or twice but daily, hear the Lord saying: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, how often I wished to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing!" By saying "how often" he made plain that they were permitted daily to work their own redemption, if they had wished at all. Because they did not wish it, the law set out things like what Christ said; for the Spirit was supplied to it by him.

"But if it has not been redeemed until a year is fulfilled, the house that is in the city that has walls shall be confirmed to the true buyer and his descendants for ever, and it cannot be redeemed in the jubilee." For the enemy who bought it rules over the synagogue of the Jews, and "his descendants for ever," namely the present … or "generations," as the Seventy give, because he has power for the present time over those who are joined to him; "and it cannot be redeemed even in the jubilee," or, as the Seventy, "in the release." In which release, if not that which the Lord, when he was crucified, spoke for them: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." But they renewed the sin and became malicious after the forgiveness was given; and, as if the former sin were not enough, they added other, worse ones, which they dared around the tomb, after the resurrection, and after the ascension into heaven, against Christ himself and against the choir of the apostles. Confirming, then, what we have now said, and showing that the houses of the Jews and the temple of Jerusalem have wholly become the adversary's and can no longer have a share with the Lord, because they did not receive the redemption that was preached to them, the Lord, having said, "How often I wished to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing," adds: "Behold, your house will be left to you desolate."

As, then, attend to what the Spirit foretold of the Jewish synagogues, so attend to what he says of the church of the nations: "But if the house is in a village that has no walls, it shall be sold by the law of fields; if it has not been redeemed before, it shall return to its owner in the jubilee." That the houses in the village are to be understood as the churches of the nations the prophet Isaiah shows us: "Praise, barren one who does not bear; sing praise and shout, you who were not bearing; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband, says the Lord." Who is the barren and desolate one who does not bear, if not the church of the nations? It had no patriarchs, no law, no prophets; hence it is rightly called unwalled. Hence he added something else in the same prophecy, for the Lord said: "Enlarge the place of your tent and of your courts." So the houses of the nations that are in those, or, as the Seventy, "in the courts," are understood as the churches. This is shown still more plainly in what follows in the same prophecy: "Well done; do not spare; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes; spread out still to the right and to the left, and your seed will inherit the nations and inhabit the desolate cities." See, he called the cities of the nations desolate, that is, unwalled. For they did not have the wall of the law, and they were desolate, their error being one of sorrows. Their houses in those that the Seventy called "courts," which we have said are churches, "shall be sold by the law of fields," or according to the Seventy, "shall be reckoned with the field of the land." Of which field? Of that, surely, of which the Lord says: "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid, and for joy he went and sold all that he had and bought that field." He calls the gospel the field, in which is the treasure … These, then, are sold by the law of the field, or are still reckoned with the field, because they are near to it, not to the law. Therefore they can always be redeemed, or according to the Seventy, "they shall be redeemable in every way." From the time the Lord came, then, until his second coming, the nations are redeemed part by part and escape through the release which he proclaimed to the whole human race through the cross. For the cross is the true release. Hence too the ram that was offered as a burnt offering in place of Isaac, bearing its figure, was found, according to what the Seventy give, caught in the thicket of Sabek; and Sabek is interpreted "release," because what was done then prefigured the cross, which was the thicket of release. So Christ said, as of Abraham seeing the day of the cross in figure: "Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad."

Now see how the lawgiver, foreseeing it, resolved what seemed contrary to what was said of the Jewish house. For after the year in which Christ, present in the flesh, was freeing the human race, whole synagogues of the Jews were freed through the apostolic teaching, now three thousand, now five thousand, and again many more than were mentioned; lest anyone think the lawgiver was ignorant of this, see how the spiritual Wisdom showed this too: "The houses of the Levites that are in the cities can always be redeemed; if they have not been redeemed, they shall return to their owners in the jubilee, because the houses of the cities of the Levites are for possessions among the sons of Israel." Not without reason might one say that the apostles are called Levites, but because it was said of the Levites: "In their land you shall possess nothing, nor shall you have a portion among them. I am your portion and inheritance in the midst of the sons of Israel." This was properly fulfilled in the apostles, who said confidently to the Lord: "Behold, we have left everything and followed you; what do you think we shall have?" Their houses in the cities, then, or according to the Seventy, "the houses of the cities, their possessions," are rightly understood as the Jewish congregations, as many as followed them in faith and way of life, because they were first commanded by Christ to go for their sake, as to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So those belonged to their lot and possession, and could always be redeemed; and the history of the Acts of the Apostles has shown this, for many congregations of the Jews were freed from error through the apostles. Nor was it permitted to the apostles alone to accomplish this redemption, but also to their disciples. Yet this had to be done according to their teaching, so that it would be credited to those who made the beginning of it, who laid down the doctrines by which those in circumcision could be saved and freed. For this reason, according to the Seventy, he says: "And whoever redeems from the Levites," that is, receiving the manner of freeing from them. For they are not freed by the Levites, as Aquila … "whoever is a kinsman of the Levites," they say. Whoever, then, teaches things like theirs and redeems certain houses, even if they are in Jewish cities, "the sale goes out," according to the Seventy, that is, they will be freed in the release of the faith of the cross and of the pardon granted through it. Our edition has: "If they have not been redeemed, they shall return to their owners in the jubilee." Why this was said follows: "Because the houses of the cities of the Levites are for possessions among the sons of Israel," that is, because of their kinship with the apostles. For the possession of the intelligible Levites, the apostles, was in the midst of the sons of Israel, as we have learned that Peter and John received the lot of apostleship in preaching to those of the circumcision. In another way too the apostles had a possession in the midst of the sons of Israel: for they themselves had circumcision and had always lived according to the law of Israel. For this reason the houses of the cities were theirs: for they were freed by them, and whoever were saved were saved through them. And though they were unworthy because of the blasphemy they committed against the cross and dared again after the resurrection, yet in honour of the apostles, who believed before the cross and remained steadfast at the cross and even after the cross, they were received in faith. And that this is true, learn from Isaiah saying: "Unless the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah." For if the seed of the apostles had not been left, nothing would have prevented the whole Jewish people from perishing in the manner of Gomorrah and Sodom; but because of the apostles not all perished.

What their virtues and possessions were, consider in these few words: "But their suburban lands shall not be sold, because it is an everlasting possession." Whose? Those of the apostles, namely, who have been said to be Levites. Their suburban lands, or fields, are not sold, that is, their ways of life, virtues, and teachings. For these they cultivated in place of fields, so that Paul said of them: "Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit?" And again: "The worker is worthy of his wages." And again: "Is it for oxen that God cares? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? Because the one who ploughs ought to plough in hope, and the one who threshes in hope of a share of the fruit." And again: "If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things?" These teachings, then, were set apart for the cities of those who stood firm through them and were saved through them; and they could not be sold, because it was said to them: "Freely you have received, freely give." Hence too he deprived Simon, who wished to buy the gift of the Spirit, of his portion, or lot, in it.

Verses 35–38. "If your brother has become poor and weak of hand, and you have taken him in as a stranger and a sojourner, and he lives with you, do not take interest, so that your brother may live with you. You shall not give him your money at interest, and you shall not demand an increase of crops. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God."

In the present law there are two things for which one must admire the lawgiver: wisdom and piety. Wisdom, because he sets out sublime things through things that seem lowly; piety, which lies in keeping both the letter and the spiritual contemplation. For the letter requires help for the poor man, and that one should neither shut one's heart against him when he asks for a loan, nor trade on his poverty by demanding increase, taking interest, and seeking gain from piety. The Spirit shows by the higher sense how we must treat those who have become poor with that poverty of which David cried: "Let your mercy quickly come before us, for we have become exceedingly poor." Let us then attend in order to what is said. "If your brother has become poor and weak of hand, and you have taken him in as a stranger and a sojourner, and he lives with you." By the brother of each one he here means one equal in dignity and way of life. If he has grown weak in working the virtues (for this is to be weak of hand; for this reason Aquila says, "If your brother falls away and his hand fails with you"), he wants us, according to the sense of the Seventy translators, to help him as a proselyte and a sojourner. Our proselyte, or stranger, is one who has just come to the faith; our sojourner is one who does not yet have his own house, but needs our admonition and careful instruction, so that he may be protected and not wander here and there as one without a house. So, then, we help a weak brother: so that he may live with us and by no means die, having become a stranger to the way of life of God; living with us, that is, through us and through our teaching, as to certain people … strengthened by good things. One must condescend to him as to a weak man and treat him with what is according to his strength; for this reason he added: "Do not take interest from him, nor more than you gave." Lest perhaps, since he has become weak and fallen short of his former rule, we demand from him a more abundant working of the virtues; but let us encourage him and support his hand as a weak man's, and require of him only the chief point of the law and of the divine commandments, that is, that he not sin. So very necessarily he added: "Fear your God. I am the Lord your God," whose yoke is easy, who requires of man in every way that he not sin, but requires the virtues according to ability. For this reason, ordaining about virginity, he says: "Not all receive it." … in the commandment he said: "So let your brother live with you. You shall not give him your money at interest, and you shall not demand an increase of crops." But imitate Paul, who says: "I became weak to the weak." Demand nothing of them in the matter of virtue beyond their own strength. And if you say that perhaps they are able but pretend to be weak, this is no longer your affair, but his who knows what we can truly do. He said to the one who hid the talent: "You ought to have given my money to the bankers, and when I came I would have demanded it with interest." And he was not condemned because he did not receive interest, but because he did not give the money: for the householder reserved the exacting of the interest to himself. He wants us, so that we may beware of sin, to pay and to exact from one another, not taking away from us the place of mutual fellowship, not robbing, not killing, not sinning in any such way, as he provides through Paul, who says: "If anyone who is called a brother is sexually immoral, or an idolater, or greedy, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or a robber, do not even eat with such a one." He did not say: "If anyone has not sold his substance," nor, "If he has not promised virginity," nor, "If he has not been of the highest way of life." These are the humbler commandments of all the perfect.

See, then, what conclusion he added to the commandment: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, that I might be your God." Why did the lawgiver need to recall this in the present place? Because he wanted in every way to show this: as he brought the people out of the land of Egypt and out of a sinful people, and brought them into the land of Canaan, of another people, sinful again, he brought them out of the one so that they would not be held under the Egyptians' lordship if they still inhabited the land; and he brought them into the land of the Canaanites because, the nations having been driven out, they were no longer to be reduced to their service, but the land, cleansed, was free of its wicked inhabitants. So God does not allow us to be brought under the dominion of sinners, nor to embrace their company as long as they are sinners; but when their land has been cleansed, he commands us to be with them and to dwell together and to give them our money and our fruits, that is, the divine teachings we have received. Money is understood as teaching; for this reason Paul too said, "If anyone builds on this foundation gold, silver, precious stones," hinting by these at good teaching. The same is also fruit, or, as the Seventy, food. For you will find Paul again setting out both; for, rebuking the Corinthians, who were attaching themselves to another teaching and despising his own, he wrote: "Already you are filled, already you have become rich, without us you reign." So he means teaching by money and fruits, or, according to the Seventy, foods: teachings are money, as what makes rich, and fruit or food, as what nourishes. God does not command that an abundance of these be demanded, but only what is according to strength, so that he may be our God; for he too receives penitent sinners to himself and lays a moderate yoke on them.

Verses 39–43. "If your brother, compelled by necessity, has sold himself to you, you shall not oppress him with the slavery of servants, but he shall be as a hired man and a tenant. He shall work with you until the year of jubilee, and afterwards he shall go out with his children and return to his kindred and to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, and I brought them out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold on the terms of slaves. Do not afflict him by your power, but fear your God."

The letter itself is full of much piety, but the spiritual understanding much more. For as much as freedom of soul is better than freedom of body, so much clearer are the gifts the spiritual contemplation gives to those who can receive its fruits than the letter. The letter, then, wants us by no means to take advantage of what befalls our brothers, that is, our fellow believers; but even if one of them has been sold to us, humbled by any necessity, let us by no means demand of him the service of a slave. For one whom we once had as a brother by adoption in Christ, how shall we henceforth have as a slave? Hence Paul too, writing about Onesimus to Philemon, said: "For this perhaps he was parted from you for an hour, that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave, but in place of a slave as a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord?" And again: "Let those who have believing masters not despise them, because they are brothers." Beyond this the Spirit commanded something else as well: when we find one of the brothers, equal to us in calling and way of life, sold, yet humbled in the virtues, that is, grown weak, and have turned him back by rebuking and exhorting, we are by no means to take advantage of him, but to approach him with moderation and humility. For this reason attend to the words themselves:

Verses 39–40. "If your brother, compelled by poverty, has sold himself to you, you shall not oppress him with the slavery of servants, but he shall be as a hired man and a tenant."

That the poverty of the soul is weakness in attaining the virtues is plain from what Delilah said to Samson and he to her: "You would not tell me in what your great strength lies." And when she was troublesome to him and clung to him continually for many days, giving him no space to rest, then, opening the truth of the matter, he said to her: "No iron has ever come up on my head, because I am a Nazirite, that is, consecrated to God, from my mother's womb. If my head is shaved, my strength will leave me, and I shall fail and be like other men." After this the history adds: "And she made him sleep on her knees and lay his head in her lap"; and at once his strength left him, and she said: "The Philistines are upon you." "And rising from sleep he said in his mind: I will go out as I did before and shake myself free, not knowing that the Lord had departed from him." But in the edition of the Seventy, having said, "If your brother is humbled," he did not say "by you" but "with you"; for even if he was with us, we did not become the cause of his humiliation. He himself, being negligent, humbled himself and was sold, not with that sale of which Elijah spoke to Ahab. For he said to him: "Have you found me your enemy?" He answered: "I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the Lord." For that one, being ungodly and having fallen into the depth of evils, was contemptuous, and, sold to the enemy, was unwilling to change the sale, or to be sold, that is, subjected, to the prophet, who by reaching out his hand to him little by little could have freed him from his heavy slavery. If, then, a humbled brother has been sold to you, a believer who worships God, receiving teaching and exhortation as the redemption and price of his soul, and regarding you as his master, let him not serve you with the slavery of a slave; let him be subject, but with that freedom of which Paul speaks: "the freedom with which Christ has set us free." You will find the same writing again elsewhere: "You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men." For this reason the lawgiver says: "He shall be as a hired man and a tenant," or, as the Seventy, "a sojourner." For each of these is subject to the one whose house he lives in and in whose field he works because of his poverty, having neither a house nor a field of his own; yet the dignity of freedom is not taken from him on this account. So it must be with one who has been turned from sin through us, if before the sin he was our brother according to the quality of grace and the honour of his way of life. For even if he does not now have his own house of righteousness or his own field of virtue, having once had them, he did not say, "he shall be a hired man or tenant or sojourner," but, "he shall be to you as a hired man and a tenant or sojourner"; for he needs to dwell and work in what is ours, that is, by our exhortations and rules of life and the examples he has received from us; yet there is hope that he will run back to his own dignity when he has done whole and perfect repentance. Making this plain, the lawgiver added: "He shall work with you until the year of jubilee." For through perfect repentance, as one wholly cleansed and therefore perfect, he can work by himself too, "and afterwards he shall go out," as the Seventy say, "in the release, with his children." For not only he himself is made free, but also the virtues born of him before he was brought under the sale of sin. For this reason he will also return to his kindred … which he had received from God, who is properly our Father, of whom Paul says: "And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father."

Why God uses such piety in ordaining these things he himself showed by the words of the law: "For they are my servants, and I brought them out of the land of Egypt." Those, then, who have once become his servants, and through him have been free of the intelligible slavery of Egypt, he does not want to lose this dignity; nor, because someone has slipped a little, does he desire him to lose his ancient dignity for ever. And so he says: "He shall not be sold on the terms of slaves," saying things like Paul's: "You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men." And he added this too:

Verse 43. "Do not afflict him by your power, but fear your God." For we must moderate the yoke of those who are turning back, and fear our God, who said: "With the judgment you judge you will be judged, and with the measure you measure it will be measured to you."

Verses 44–46. "Let your servant and maidservant be from the nations that are around you, and from the strangers who sojourn among you, or those born of them in your land: these you shall have as servants, and you shall pass them on by hereditary right to your descendants and possess them for ever. But your brothers, the sons of Israel, do not oppress by your power."

The variety and multiplicity of the spiritual wisdom cannot be worthily praised. Since, then, we cannot worthily admire it, because we do not grasp it, let us leave this and lend the ears of the mind more carefully to what has now been said, and note each word attentively; for in the difference of the words you will find a difference of meanings too. He wants us, then, to know what difference there is between those whom we have saved for God from among unbelievers, and those whom we have corrected, who, though they were believers and like us in the dignity of calling and in way of life, afterwards for a time grew weak in working the virtues. For this reason he commanded the latter to work with us until the year of release, namely of repentance, but not afterwards. Here, since he speaks neither of one who has been humbled by sin and therefore sold to us, nor of a brother, but of those whom we have gained as disciples from among unbelievers or from another faith, he rightly commanded that they should not be our slaves either, for they too are servants of Christ, as we are; but he commanded that they remain under our possession, as those taught by us, as the very words of the lawgiver show: "Let your servant and maidservant be from the nations that are around you, and from the strangers who sojourn …" … yet they have the hope of faith and salvation, because the gospel has been sent to them, as Paul said to the Jews at Antioch: "Behold, we are turning to the gentiles; for so the Lord has commanded us." From these let servants and maidservants be gained for us, that is, those who are taught through the word. Hence they also call those who have taught them lords, as the jailer at Philippi shows, who said to Paul and Silas: "Lords, what must I do to be saved?" And let us also gain from the strangers, or, as the Seventy, "from the sons of the sojourners who sojourn among us." By sojourners he here means the Jews, who dwell in our light, yet will not fit the eyes of the mind to it, hiding its lamp under a bushel. For this reason the Seventy did not give simply "sojourners," but "sons of the sojourners who are among you," which was written more plainly by Theodotion and Symmachus: "from the sons of the sojourners who dwell among you." Of them David said: "They will dwell and hide." For though they are among us, having the very law and prophets that we also have, they dwell as sojourners, not thinking the same about the law and the prophets as we do; for, seeking to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to the righteousness of God, but have hidden it; and rightly they dwell as sojourners, as those who shut themselves out of the free and confident dwelling. Hence the Lord, hinting that they dwell as sojourners because of unbelief, said: "The slave does not remain in the house for ever," which is proper to sojourners. But the lawgiver says, according to the Seventy: "And of their kindred, whoever are in your land, they shall be for a possession to you." The kindred of the Jews in unbelief are the heretics, because they do not think fully, as those do not, and they preach to us the same mysteries, yet not in the same right, perfect, and sound doctrines concerning God; hence they are in our land, but as sojourners. "These you shall have," he says, "as servants, and you shall pass them on by hereditary right to your descendants and possess them for ever." Whomever, then, we have gained from the unbelieving nations, or from the Jews, or from the heretics, and have offered to God, and have acquired as servants and maidservants, spending for them the money of teaching, these are in our possession. And we can divide them among our sons, that is, our disciples, that is, hand on their discipleship to them. Paul makes this plain; his disciples Titus and Timothy were as sons to him. For when he wrote to them he headed his letters "To Timothy, my beloved son in the faith," and "To Titus, my beloved son according to the common faith." Then he assigned the Ephesians to the one and the Cretans to the other. For to the one he wrote: "As I urged you to remain at Ephesus when I was going into Macedonia, so that you might charge certain people not to teach otherwise." And to Titus: "For this reason I left you in Crete, that you might set right what is lacking and appoint [presbyters] …" … And wishing us now to know what difference there is between those whom we have gained from outside and the brothers equal to us, who perhaps are humbled and corrected, the lawgiver wrote here according to the common reckoning of those just mentioned: "But your brothers, the sons of Israel, you shall not afflict by your power." Not because he commanded us to reduce to slavery or wear out with labours the others whom we have gained from outside (he never seems to have said this in this ordinance), but because we cannot use equal authority over the one and the other. For it is one thing for unbelievers to be led to faith, another for fallen believers to be admonished by us.

Verses 47–49. "If the hand of a stranger and sojourner grows strong among you, and your brother becomes poor and sells himself to him, or to anyone of his stock, after the sale he can be redeemed. Whoever of his brothers wishes shall buy him: his uncle, and his uncle's son, and his blood relative, and his kinsman."

Since the law shows that it is concerned, according to the letter, with the freedom of native Israelites, it does not allow one of them who, because of poverty or some other necessity, fares worse and has attached himself to proselytes or sojourners, who were born of those outside, to be a slave, but commanded that he be redeemed by one of his own kin. See how this must be kept according to the spiritual higher sense too; for he says: "If the hand of a stranger and sojourner grows strong among you (or, as the Seventy, of a sojourner), and your brother becomes poor and sells himself to him or to anyone of his stock." That is, if one who has newly joined our faith from the nations, or from the Jews, or from heretics generally, is dear to us for his virtues, so that he is strong in rebuking and exhorting sinners, his hand properly grows strong, or, as the Seventy, "finds," because by his action he can find the way of life of others and exhort them. Then "your brother," who was instructed in the word long ago, and who is equal to you in the lot of his way of life (for this is the brother who has become poor, that is, who finds no one to exhort him and give him counsel), "sells himself" to the stranger, or newcomer, or sojourner, that is, to one who has newly believed from the nations or from the Jews, or, as we have said, from the heretics; and he is sold to him when that one spends the word of teaching on him because of his way of life. For it is unfitting that one who was known long ago for clear knowledge and way of life should live under one who has newly come to the faith. For discipleship is no small thing, but needs a long time and no small course of life to reach perfection. He is rightly redeemed: "Whoever of his brothers wishes shall buy him," that is, let someone of like honour, like knowledge, and like way of life redeem him by his teaching, and those who have just now been born. For the dignity of long-standing knowledge among teachers is no ordinary thing, so much so that Paul, when he wanted to bind Philemon, wrote thus: "I beseech you, being such a one as Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus." And he joined length of time to the confession he made in chains, as being fit for the glory of those who have advanced in knowledge. "Let his uncle, then, and his uncle's son, and his blood relative, and his kinsman redeem him." Our fathers according to the Spirit are those who begot us through the teaching of Christ; for this reason Paul too wrote to the Corinthians: "For though you have many tutors in Christ, yet not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begot you through the gospel." As many, then, as are their brothers, that is, priests and teachers as they themselves are, or also sons of the brothers, that is, their disciples, who have advanced in the same knowledge and teaching as he, are rightly called the father's brothers. Those who are blood relatives and kinsmen of the one who needs counsel and exhortation, that is, who have been of the same dignity and way of life, these in turn redeem him, mindful of Paul's word: "If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever," and that one must show good to all, but especially to those of the household of faith. These, then, are our blood relatives through the flesh of Christ, because we are of his flesh and of his bones, as Paul again wrote to the Ephesians. So much better is it, then, for one who is lesser in action or knowledge to be admonished by those who are older and of the same faith, that Apelles of Alexandria was a learned and distinguished master, yet lesser knowledge he had, and this, which was the chief thing, he held in a blameworthy way, not knowing the baptism of Christ. Hence Priscilla and Aquila took him aside and explained the way to him more accurately, as Luke says, that is, what pertained to teaching and knowledge, thinking it unfitting that a teacher should be corrected by others and not by those who had advanced in knowledge, as they were.

But though these things are admirable, still more admirable things follow.

Verses 50–55. "But if he himself is able, he shall redeem himself, the years only being reckoned from the time of his sale until the year of jubilee, and the money for which he was sold being reckoned according to the number of years and the reckoning of a hired man. If many years remain until the jubilee, he shall pay the price according to them; if few, he shall make a reckoning with him according to the price and the number of years, and shall pay the buyer what remains of the years, the wages being counted for those in which he served before. He shall not afflict him violently in your sight. But if he cannot be redeemed by these, in the year of jubilee he shall go out with his children. For the sons of Israel are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God."

… he says, so that he commands each of us who has been placed under the slavery of sin to be redeemed by virtues and corrections: if, for example, we wish to gain sackcloth and ashes and tears and the confession that goes with them, and whatever with these contains the year of jubilee, or release; for he set forth the present words to prove a thing of this kind. "But if he himself is able, he shall redeem himself, the years only being reckoned from the time of his sale until the year of jubilee." For if one who has become poor through sin, who before was rich in virtues and corrections, rightly frees himself, as long as he is sufficient for his own exhortation, yet let him not trust wholly in himself, since he has once grown weak and needs exhortation and counsel; let him "reckon with himself," that is, treat and debate with himself. For so Theodotion has it: "He shall treat with the one who acquired him"; and Aquila: "He shall reckon with the one who possessed him." He has treated how he ought to win true freedom for himself, and has reckoned from the year in which he sold himself until the year of jubilee, or release: from the time, that is, when by sinning he came to need counsel and teaching, until he completes a whole and thorough repentance, in which, receiving release, he becomes equal to one who has not sinned at all. And what will he treat of? By what virtues and corrections he can lay hold of the release that comes through earnest repentance, and advance. For as one who paid the money to the redeemer did not need to wait for the year of release, the fiftieth, which was called the jubilee, so one who seeks equal or matching virtues to blot out the sin goes ahead of repentance, redeeming himself by good actions. Zacchaeus shows this: though he had taken a great deal from a great many, he did not need sackcloth and ashes and tears and prayer (for this is for us the year of release, as holding all the things that bear the fruit of release for us). He did not need them, because his sins were sins of money, and he promised to repay fourfold what he had taken and to distribute half of his goods to the poor. For this reason Christ, accepting the money of his redemption, said to him: "Today salvation has come to this house."

What follows is admirable: "And the money for which he was sold being reckoned according to the number of years and the reckoning of a hired man," or according to the Seventy: "The money of his sale shall be, for a year, as the day of a hired man shall be with him." The lawgiver did not mention the day without purpose, but hinted at what the Lord showed plainly in the Gospels when he set out the parable of the workers hired for the vineyard: when he said that some were hired in the morning, others at the third hour, others at the sixth, others at the ninth, and others at the eleventh, and ordered wages to be given to those hired about the eleventh hour as to those who had worked the whole day. As for one of those, then, so shall the money of his sale be for the one who is redeemed; for he may accomplish his redemption both over a short time and over a long one. For this reason the lawgiver reasonably added: "If many years remain until the jubilee, he shall pay the price according to them; if few, he shall make a reckoning with him according to the number of years, and shall pay the buyer what remains of the years, the wages being counted for those in which he served." First, then, he commanded that the one who wishes to redeem himself pay the price according to these, that is, according to the things in which he sinned: if perhaps he sinned by gluttony, let him correct it by fasting; if by talkativeness, let him pursue silence; if through carelessness of the eyes he fell into desire for a woman, let him take care not to look at women, nor to meet them at all. Then, if he wishes to prepare a speedy redemption for himself, let him attend to the money of his acquisition, namely the word of teaching, which made him understand his own sin and live under one who admonishes him. And if he sees that much is lacking for the year of release and for correction, namely for the repentance fixed for him, let him work the virtues more and gain a laborious repentance. And if again he has worked little at this, if not by virtues, then by tears and sighs and the like he must accomplish remedies for them. Confirming what has been said, according to the Seventy he adds: "For he is with him as a hired man from year to year; you shall not afflict him with labour in your sight," looking to those hired men of whom one received wages for an hour's work, another perhaps for three, another for somewhat more. For the one who hired them was not unjust, but, being just, looked not only to the time of the workers but also to their works. So [the reckoning is] better for one who wishes to redeem himself by good actions and perfections, that he be with him "from year to year," the money of his own redemption, in a moment or over many years, or over few, the power of working being like the redemption. "And you shall not afflict him with labour in your sight." What is this? That you should not lay the weight of a strict penance on one who has spat out the sin by virtue; for he has once redeemed himself by good works.

Very rightly, then, he added what follows: "But if he cannot be redeemed by these, in the year of jubilee he shall go out with his children." One who has not redeemed himself by virtues equal to the sin he commanded to be redeemed in the year of jubilee, or release, that is, in a perfect and strict repentance, as we have often said; and also the good works he did before he sinned, which are the children of each of us. If you wish to know what perfect repentance is, look at the Ninevites, who proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them, and cried to God earnestly and with their whole soul, and each turned from his evil way and from the injustice that was in their hands. So God accepted their repentance, so that the prophet added: "God had mercy concerning the evil he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it." And what is the cause that makes repentance blot out sins, and makes a clean redemption to be won by the penitent, so that he no longer needs another to admonish him, nor to live under the yoke of another's teaching? "For the sons of Israel are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt." How did he bring them out? Sighing, namely, as the book of Exodus has shown us: "After a long time the king of Egypt died, and the sons of Israel, groaning because of their works, cried out, and their cry went up to God." He who then received the sighing of the people and freed them from the slavery of Egypt, the same now frees each one who sighs in repentance and will redeem him from the intelligible Egypt. He says to us: "I am the Lord your God," who did those things and commanded these.

Verses 1–2. "You shall not make for yourselves an idol or a carved image, nor set up pillars, nor place a conspicuous stone in your land, to worship it; for I am the Lord your God. Keep my Sabbaths and fear my sanctuary. I am the Lord."

The law commands not only how we may have freedom when we sin, so that we may not need the teaching or exhortation of others, in order that the prophetic word might be fulfilled in us: "And each will not teach his brother, saying: Know the Lord; for all will know me, from the least to the greatest of them, because I will be merciful to their iniquities and will remember their sins no more." But how could this be, unless we abstain not only from the open worship of idols, which the letter of the law forbids, but also from the hidden one, of which Paul said, "The root of all evils is greed," which is idolatry? Just so the spirit of the law now commands us to abstain. And we shall not make for ourselves an idol or a carved image, or, as the Seventy, "a thing made by hand," by building houses and possessing certain fields, nor shape a carved image in them, in a way altering our mind by love of them. Nor let us set up pillars, or a statue, in them, wishing through it to show our memory to future generations; nor let us erect a conspicuous stone, for example a heap of gold or silver, or of stones that seem to be precious; for these too are of the earth, equal to white stones, even if the eyes of the greedy are led astray by them as the eyes of the pagans are by idols; for this reason it is also called a conspicuous stone. But let nothing of the kind happen to us, nor let riches become a conspicuous stone to us, so that we live according to their intention (according to the sense of the Seventy translators), and do whatever they command, and serve their desires, and worship them, and tend them by keeping them. But let us keep the Sabbaths too, striving for abstinence and rest from every other evil, and acting so that we may be free of the works of the present world and rest from them. For this is the intelligible and true Sabbath, which is not that of an ungrateful people but of God himself, as he said in Isaiah: "Blessed is the man who has done this, and the son of man who has laid hold of it, keeping the Sabbath so as not to profane it." Hence he wanted to distinguish it from those of whom he said at the beginning of the prophecy: "New moons and Sabbath and other festivals I will not endure." What the Sabbath of God is, or how one may avoid profaning it, he adds: "Cease to act perversely." So to abstain from evils is to fulfil the Sabbath. And let us fear his sanctuary, striving for holiness, that is, chastity and modesty; for this is the chief point, or sum, of a perfect and complete life. For this reason he also put it last, and then God says to us: "I am the Lord your God," who am holy and also rest in the saints, killing and destroying all who defile my tabernacle and violate my temple with the defilements of pleasures; Paul testifies to this, saying: "If anyone violates the temple of God, God will destroy him." For this reason let us fear his sanctuary, so that we neither defile our body nor approach rashly the body of Christ, in which is all sanctification (for in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead), without careful examination of ourselves; but let us first examine ourselves, remembering him who said: "Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup." What examination does he mean? That one should partake of the holy things with a clean heart and conscience, attending to repentance for what he once did wrong, for the washing away of his sins.

Verses 3–13. "If you walk in my precepts and keep my commandments and do them, I will give you rain in its seasons, and the land will yield its fruit, and the trees will be filled with fruit; the threshing of the harvests will reach the vintage, and the vintage will reach the sowing; and you will eat your bread to the full and dwell without fear in your land. I will give peace in your borders; you will sleep, and there will be no one to frighten you. I will take away evil beasts, and the sword will not pass through your borders. You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you. Five of you will pursue a hundred foreigners, and a hundred of you ten thousand. Your enemies will fall before you by the sword. I will look on you and make you grow; you will be multiplied, and I will confirm my covenant with you. You will eat the oldest of the old, and you will throw out the old when the new come. I will set my tabernacle in your midst, and my soul will not cast you off. I will walk among you and will be your God, and you will be my people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of the Egyptians, so that you would not serve them, and who broke the chains of your necks, so that you might walk upright."

The people of the Jews took these things in the sense of the body, as having little hope of the future and not being sufficiently hung on intelligible goods. For it was wholly intent on the belly and on fleshly ease, so that in the present life it chose the things that pertained to pleasure, even if they were very contemptible and very small, over those that were somewhat laborious but much greater; and therefore it sought the cucumbers, onions, and garlic of Egypt, because they were ready at hand to satisfy them and were there without labour. But we, if we attend to the commandments of God, saying with David, "Show me the way of your righteous ordinances," and again, "Lead me in the path of your commandments," and keep his commandments, corrupting none of them, and acting not according to our own intention but according to his and what is his (for this is properly to keep his commandments), let us expect each of the things just mentioned in an intelligible sense. For we shall find that these were in no way fulfilled according to the letter for the Jews: for many prophets of God who kept his commandments and walked in his precepts were placed in great affliction and did not eat their bread to the full but in want, like Ezekiel, to whom this was commanded by God himself. And Paul too, describing those who were justified in the law and the prophets, said: "They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, humbled, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy." But in what has been said one must attend more to this: that in the present law he set thirty blessings for those who keep God's commandments. For so you will find them in number, distinguishing each blessing from the next by the conjunction in the edition of the Seventy; because the Lord, being of so many years (of whom Paul says, "until we all attain to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ"), came to baptism, so that by the age at which he was baptized he might announce and show the perfection of the gift; and so, having become perfect according to time, he began to preach the gospel, in which is the fullness of all life and gift, of way of life and of recompense. This is what he signified here; for he says: "And I will give you rain in its seasons." He means the word of God, as descending from the heaven of grace, of which Moses spoke thus: "Give heed, O heaven, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth; let my speech be awaited like the rain." It is no ordinary good to receive this in its season, but a manifest showing of God's goodness, as not to receive it is a sign of his turning away. For this reason God, angry with the people of the Jews, threatened through the prophet Isaiah, saying: "And I will abandon my vineyard, and it will not be pruned or dug, and thorns will come up in it as in an uncultivated field; and I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon it." For what profit does it bring us to receive rain in its season? "And the land will yield its fruit," that is, our body; for the fruits of this gift are chastity, sobriety, abstinence. "And the trees will be filled with fruit," or, as the Seventy: "The trees of the plain will give their fruit." The trees of the plain are the movements of the soul, as being higher than the movements of our intelligible land, namely … Their fruits, then, are truth, righteousness, gentleness, compassion, and the like; for this reason, joining it on fittingly, he added: "The threshing of the harvests will reach the vintage, and the vintage will reach the sowing." For since the threshing of the land gathers its fruits, and the vintage those of the trees, we rightly say that the fruits of the body reach, or overtake, the fruits of the soul, because this belongs to the greatest blessing: to possess at one and the same time a body that is steady and fruitful and a soul fruitful in virtues. The vintage reaches, or overtakes, the sowing; for the soul, gathering its virtues, at once desires others, until it reaches those riches to which Paul hastened, and therefore said: "Brothers, I do not count myself to have laid hold of it; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and stretching out to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward calling of Christ." For this reason a good seed follows, full of saving actions, so that what follows fits well: "And you will eat your bread to the full." For if our bread is virtue, of which the Lord said, "Work not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures to eternal life," he eats it to the full, that is, works it, who has a perpetual appetite for it. "And you will dwell without fear in your land. I will give peace in your borders," or according to the Seventy, "and war will not pass through the land," which our translation says a little later: "The sword will not pass into your borders, and I will give peace in your land." For if the body is steady and the soul bears fruit, we shall dwell secure in our land, because "the flesh does not desire against the Spirit"; hence war will not pass through the land either. For in the resurrection there will be no time for the desires of which James says: "Where do wars and quarrels among you come from? Is it not from your desires, which war in your members?" When these are destroyed, peace is won in your land, restrained by the law of God. "And you will sleep," he says. … Sacred Scripture set this too in the form of recompense; for the death of the saints is called sleep, as a rest; but with the wicked it is not so, as Ecclesiastes testifies: "The fullness of the rich man does not let him sleep." For this reason he now fittingly added: "And there is no one to frighten you." For one who lives as was said above will have no one to frighten him at the time of death, which for us is sleep, because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead. He will have no one to frighten him, being conscious of nothing in himself to be frightened about. "I will take away evil beasts," namely the demons. For they are beasts in their like malice: first as lying hidden, then as having an unbearable and deadly poison. "You will pursue your enemies," for they cannot stand before the face of those who live according to the law. "And they will fall before you." By what death? By the one, surely, that comes through fasting and prayer. For in this way our intelligible enemies, the demons, are killed, so that they can never again come back to life against us. Hence the Lord too, when the apostles asked why they had been quite unable to cast out the dumb and deaf demon, answered: "For this kind is not cast out except by fasting and prayer." "Five of you will pursue a hundred foreigners," or as the Seventy: "Fifty will drive out a hundred and fifty." We say that this is the spiritual man, because on the day of Pentecost the Spirit came down from heaven. What that spiritual man is like Paul said: "But the spiritual man judges all things, and he himself is judged by no one"; that is, one who has perfect knowledge for the fine discernment of what must be done can overcome and conquer even a strong demon, for example one who is over a hundred of them and is called Legion because of the multitude of evil spirits obeying and cooperating with him. "And a hundred of you ten thousand." For one who has not only fine knowledge but also a perfect and complete life is in a way doubly spiritual, and therefore is to be honoured with the number one hundred, as bearing a double and perfect fruit in the Spirit; Christ does not name a greater one, but often, hinting at the good land, he said: "It bears fruit thirtyfold, and sixtyfold, and a hundredfold." This one, then, can subject thousands of enemies, namely all the opposing powers, since he has the perfection of the virtues. How does he subject them? By the word of God, surely; for he says: "And your enemies will fall before you by the sword," meaning that sword which Paul set out when he wrote thus. For having first spoken of the thousands of enemies, that is, "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places," he adds: "Therefore take up the armour of God," and listing it piece by piece he says: "And the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." "I will look on you." For what is better than to be looked on by God, whose look is salvation, and whose turning away is death? "And I will make you grow, and you will be multiplied." He increases us when he makes the small good things we do appear very great; he multiplies us when he makes a few grow into many. Did he not say, as he enlarged and magnified our virtues: "As you did it to one of these least, you did it to me"? And multiplying again, he made Paul write: "For you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not covet, and any other commandment, is summed up in this word: You shall love your neighbour as yourself," making this one commandment many commandments, so that by attaining it we may become rich. Very fitting, then, is what follows: "I will confirm my covenant with you." These are the things just mentioned; he confirms it by recompenses, as what follows makes plain: "You will eat the oldest of the old," or as the Seventy, "the old of the old," that is, what was promised you through the law and the prophets, and what he promised through the patriarchs in their blessings. "And you will throw out the old when the new come." What are the new? The gospels, namely; for though the things promised through the patriarchs, the law, and the prophets are very great, yet what has been promised through the gospel is greater, so that in comparison with these the others are judged superfluous by us. See, then, he brings in the chief point that confirms the whole blessing, that is, the things accomplished and fulfilled through the grace of the gospel: "I will set my tabernacle in your midst," or as the Seventy: "I will establish my covenant with you." What is this, in which he promised new things? The prophet Jeremiah makes mention of it thus: "And I will establish with you a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I made with your fathers." With these, above all, what follows is joined: "And my soul will not abhor you. I will walk among you and will be your God, and you will be my people." These too were written openly by the prophet just mentioned, as the edition of the Seventy holds: "This is your God; no other will be reckoned beside him. Afterwards he was seen on earth and lived among men." He would not have done this if he had turned away from us. So he did not abhor us, but even wished to walk in us through the flesh and to become our God, though he was so before, but unknown, because we were joined to error. From the time he bought us with his own blood he became our God and made us his people. And who is it that did this? "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, so that you would not serve them." If you wish to know this, examine the words of Exodus by the order of the gospel. "The Lord said to Moses: I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt; I have heard their cry because of the harshness of those over their works; and knowing their pain, I have come down to free them from the hands of the Egyptians, and to bring them out of that land into a good and beautiful land, flowing with milk and honey." And who is it that brings them into the land of promise? God himself, who showed this to Moses: "Behold, I send my Angel to go before you and guard you on the way and bring you to the place I have prepared." He calls the Son the Angel, because he announced the Father's will to us; of him Isaiah says: "A child is born to us, a son is given to us, whose government is on his shoulders, and his name will be called Angel of great counsel, wonderful, counsellor, mighty God." For how, when God had promised by what was said above to bring the people into the land, could an angel do this, and not he who promised? And who it is that came down he himself shows us, saying to Nicodemus: "No one has ascended into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven." And yet he had not yet ascended into heaven with the flesh, for he had not yet been taken up; but he speaks of his former descent and ascent, of which, as we said, he spoke to Moses: "I have seen the affliction of my people, and I have come down to free them from the hands of the Egyptians." This one, then, gave us what follows too: "who broke the chains of your necks," both of sin and of the letter of the law, "so that you might walk upright," that is, with confidence, because he has given us to work the virtues without any hesitation.

Verses 14–17. "But if you do not listen to me, nor do my commandments, if you spurn my laws and despise my judgments, so as not to do what I have established, and make my covenant void, I too will do these things to you. I will visit you swiftly with want and with burning, which will waste your eyes and consume your souls. In vain you will sow seed, which will be devoured by your enemies. I will set my face against you, and you will fall before your enemies and be subjected to those who hate you. You will flee when no one pursues."

The law has said sufficiently above what good things await those who obey God's commandments. What is threatened to happen to transgressors the things now ordained show. When we examine them one by one according to the letter, we find that the people of the Jews suffered some of them according to the letter, but all of them according to the spirit. "But if you do not listen to me, nor do my commandments, if you spurn my laws and despise my judgments, so as not to do what I have established, and make my covenant void." Who do not listen to God's commandment, and who despise his judgments, if not those who, attending to the traditions of the elders and transgressing the lawgiver's intention, expounded the law as it seemed good to them, who said, as the Lord says: "Whoever says to father or mother, Whatever you would have gained from me is a gift, need not honour his father and his mother"? That is, whoever says to his parents, "What I have is vowed to God, for I have offered it to him as a gift and offering," is not obliged to honour those who begot him. Who are those who do not do all his commandments, if not those who tithe dill and cumin and mint, but leave aside judgment and mercy and faith, though God says to them through the prophet: "I will declare to you, O man, what the Lord seeks from you: surely to do judgment, and love mercy, and walk carefully with your God"? For this reason the Lord said to them, as men who did not fulfil all the precepts of the law but left its weighty things and did the least: "These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others." They properly transgress God's commandments and are above all disobedient to them, because they keep their outward face and not God's intention. Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus are found to have rendered it more plainly: the one says, "If you reject my statutes"; the others, "If you refuse my subtleties," that is, the way of the field. They transgress the doctrines of God and the subtlety that lay in the spiritual understanding of the commandments, because it agrees with the New Testament, wishing by this to weaken the grace of the gospel; rebuking them for this he says: "And make my covenant void." What did he threaten in return for this? The penalty is very like their transgression: "I too will do these things to you." How? "I will visit you swiftly with want." For the Lord made them very needy through his word, so much that they said to one another: "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" As, then, they willingly transgressed the understanding of the law, so as to make void the gospel covenant, which had its beginning from it, so he too spoke obscure words to them and made the grasp of his doctrines difficult. But now learn what follows: "And with burning, which will waste your eyes," or according to the Seventy: "I will set upon you scab and jaundice, which consume your eyes." Scab is a disease of the body, but a visible one, running over the surface of the flesh and its skin. Jaundice (ikteros) comes from inflammation; it too is visible, running over the surface of the flesh and skin, and much more settling in the eyes. Neither disease can be hidden. Such were the diseases of the souls of the Jews: visible and evil, and no longer hidden at all. For, jealous of the Lord's words and miracles, they could no longer hide their diseases, but cried out openly and proclaimed: "What shall we do, for this man does many signs? If we let him go on thus, the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." So it was not because he taught things contrary to the law or the prophets (for he taught what agreed with them entirely), but for the sake of their self-love and their own interest that they did not obey his words. Struck with this disease, then, they wasted their eyes and consumed their souls, not only blazing with fury and corrupted by envy, but, having once grown sick in mind and having thoughts not at all sound for discerning deeds and words, they wasted their inner eyes and consumed their soul at his words and miracles, so that they cried out to him: "How long will you take away our soul? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly." This was because they were subject to the consumption of the soul of unbelief. John too says this of them: "Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah says: Blind the heart of this people and make their ears heavy, lest at any time they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart." You see that as they did, so Christ did to them. For since they strove to make his covenant, or testament, void, he rightly blinded their eyes and heart, and gave them the burning, or jaundice, that wastes their eyes and consumes their souls.

But what did he add to these? "In vain you will sow seed, which will be devoured by your enemies." For in vain do they bring out the seeds of the prophets and the law and sow from them the words of teaching, since they do not have a land fertile for the fruit of intelligible doctrines; hence they do not enjoy their food either, but their adversaries devour it, those who believe in Christ, whom they have made their opponents through unbelief and envy. "And I will set my face against you," according to that prophetic word: "But the face of the Lord is upon those who do evil, to destroy their memory from the earth." "And you will fall before your enemies." For the gentiles, whom they judge to be their enemies, fall before them, stumbling at their salvation. Hence Symmachus says "you will stumble" for "you will fall" "before your enemies." And what else did he add? "Those who hate you will pursue you, and you will flee when no one pursues." What is said here seems in a way contradictory. For if they suffer persecution from their enemies, how do they flee when no one pursues? But the lawgiver took "they will pursue you" not of driving out, but because they would press on them by running, hastening to their salvation. Hence for "they will pursue you" Symmachus gave "they will reduce you to service," and Theodotion "they will instruct you." Paul too shows us such a pursuit: "I press on to lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of." So the gentiles, even if they say, as David said of the Jews, "Did I not hate those who hated you, O God?", yet press on toward their salvation, hasten and pray; for they know that their acceptance, as Paul says, is life from the dead, and their fullness the salvation of the world. But they flee when no one pursues. For we do not begrudge their salvation as they begrudge ours; hence we neither persecute them nor, when they turn away from us, turn away from them, but fulfil what the prophet Isaiah said: "Say to your brothers who hate and abhor you, that the name of the Lord may be glorified and be seen in their joy, and they will be ashamed."

Verses 18–26. "But if even so you do not obey me, I will add to your chastisements sevenfold for your sins, and I will crush the hardness of your pride, and I will make the heaven above you like iron and the earth like bronze. Your labour will be spent in vain; the land will not bring forth its produce, nor will the trees give fruit. If you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will add to your plagues up to sevenfold for your sins, and I will send among you the evil beasts of the field, to consume you and your cattle and reduce all to fewness, and your ways will become desolate. But if even so you will not accept discipline, but walk contrary to me, I too will walk against you and strike you seven times for your sins, and I will bring upon you a sword that avenges the covenant. And when you flee to the cities, I will send pestilence in your midst, and you will be given into the hands of your enemies, after I have broken the staff of your bread, so that ten women will bake bread in one oven and give it back by weight, and you will eat and not be satisfied."

Not without reason did the lawgiver use such distinctions. For now he says, "But if even so you do not obey me"; then, listing certain chastisements, he adds, "If you walk contrary to me"; and again, setting out other plagues, he adds, "But if even so you will not accept discipline, but walk contrary to me." He used these distinctions, as we have said, because Christ often wished to receive the people of the Jews, but they did not obey, so that he cried out to them: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, how often I wished to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing!" Let us attend above all to this in what has been said: having threatened seven chastisements, he added them thus: he threatened the crushing of the hardness of their pride, the giving of an iron heaven and a bronze earth, the vain spending of their labour, that the land would not bring forth produce, and that the trees would not give fruit. These are six, not seven; and you will find the same if you run through the other chastisements too. By this, then, it is plain that the number seven is the figure and sign of the whole present life, which revolves through the number seven; and that by bringing seven chastisements, or punishments, or plagues upon them, he threatened complete punishment and whole vengeance, as on men sinning in ways neither pardonable nor worthy of repentance, so that in them that prophetic word reached its end: "What do you devise against the Lord? He himself will make an end; a double tribulation will not arise; for as thorns entwine one another, so their feast, of men equally powerful, will be consumed like stubble full of dryness. From you will come out one who devises evil against the Lord, pondering transgression in his mind." From whom did the thought against the Lord go out, thinking evil and contrary to his precepts, if not from the people of the Jews? Of them Isaiah said: "Woe to them, because they devise evil counsel against themselves, saying: Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is useless to us. Therefore they will eat the fruits of their labours."

Attend, then, to the order the lawgiver uses in his threat: "But if even so you do not obey me, I will add to your chastisements sevenfold for your sins." The Seventy gave: "If up to this you do not listen to me," up to this point which the preceding words showed, where he spoke of want and burning; how these must be taken we explained in what went before. If, then, they are disobedient up to this, so as not to be corrected even by what has been said, he said they would be chastised seven times, that is, a perfect chastisement would come upon them in their sins. In what sins he does not say, so that we may understand their sins from what was said before, from the very fact that they were not corrected. And what did he add? "And I will crush the hardness of your pride." They would not receive the freedom of Christ, saying: "We are the seed of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone." This hardness of their pride he crushed, making them serve the nations. "I will make the heaven above you like iron." So they have received no visitation at all from it. "And the earth like bronze." For the earth they possess, the divine Scripture, is unfruitful for them; since it is not understood by them in the way it ought to be, he says it is bronze. To show this he added: "Your labour will be spent in vain." For the labour they show in the divine Scriptures, bent over the tradition of the letter, is spent in vain, since they cannot fully use the law according to the letter, the place having been taken away in which the letter shut up all the divine worship of the law. What follows fits very well: "The land will not give its produce, nor will the trees give fruit." For neither does their outer man, which is called the land, bear fruit, because they live in gluttony, and of them it is said, "whose god is the belly, and their glory in their shame"; nor do their minds, which are the trees of the field, grafted as it were on the body yet higher than it, give God fruits; for he wants us to bud in godliness. "If you walk contrary to me." For they do not walk to God with an upright heart; they pervert his way, overturning the sense of the law and the prophets, so as to cultivate by this their disobedience and transgression. For this reason he adds: "And if you will not listen to me, I will add your plagues to you up to sevenfold for your sins." No longer chastisements, but plagues, setting out now a heavier punishment than the preceding one, equal to their iniquities. "And I will send among you the evil beasts of the field, to consume you and your cattle and reduce all to fewness, and your ways will become desolate." Since they have thrust themselves away from the way of God, the beasts of the field, the demons, are rightly sent upon them, permitted to rule over them, and they consume them. For whatever righteousness they seem to do God does not credit to himself; Paul shows this when he says: "Seeking to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to the righteousness of God." And again: "But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, did not attain to the law of righteousness." It is necessary, then, that the demons eat them, who consume their cattle, that is, men like cattle, namely the depraved and unlearned people, since there is no understanding in them; they are not accustomed to think anything worthy of the service of God, but like beasts of burden, as with a bridle, by the foolish traditions of their leaders are led about; for this reason they are the food of demons, and they are reduced to fewness both in number and in dignity. And their ways become desolate, which have neither the water of life nor the intelligible reception, or hospitality, nor anyone to lead them forward or bring them as it were by the hand, or to guard them.

"But if even so you will not accept discipline, but walk contrary to me, I too will walk against you." I will use a contrary punishment, as your transgression is contrary to the law: for though you seem to meditate on it, you do not keep its intention; so I too will bring on you a contrary punishment, not chastising you with those things with which I scourged you before, when I brought on you deadly serpents and fire and the opening of the earth and the like, but with others. What these are we shall know by reading what follows. "And I will strike you seven times for your sins." First I will chastise, then I will strike; for the punishment, as it proceeds against the disobedient, becomes stronger. "And I will bring upon you a sword that avenges my covenant." We have often said that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. This word, on the tongues of the church's teachers, avenges the judgment of the covenant, or gospel testament. For it convicts those who transgress the new that they cannot keep the old either; and the gospel is avenged when those who transgress the grace of the gospel are shown to be enemies of the law. Be amazed at the wisdom of the lawgiver, how fittingly he added: "And when you flee to the cities, I will send pestilence in your midst." The intelligible cities are the prophets. It is plain from what God said to Jeremiah: "For I have made you today a fortified city." As, then, one who flees into walled cities is saved if he is a friend, but if he is an enemy is more easily killed, surrounded within their walls, so in the prophetic books and their testimonies the friends of the faith who take refuge find a fortress and salvation, but the enemies and unbelievers are quickly captured and perish. For this reason, when the Jews flee to the prophets, turning away from the spiritual sword that is in learned men, he says he will send pestilence in their midst. For there they die even with no one refuting them, unable to resist all the prophecies about Christ, which are so plain. "And you will be given into the hands of your enemies," namely the intelligible ones, "after I have broken the staff of your bread." For among them the bread of teaching, the most saving, withers. How? Hear what follows: "So that ten women will bake bread in one oven and give it back by weight, and you will eat and not be satisfied." The Jews have nothing that gives their teaching the power to nourish, except the ten commandments, because they flee the true exposition of the prophets, since it agrees with the dispensation of our Saviour. The rest of the law they will not take in an intelligible sense, nor receive spiritually, but according to the letter alone, which cannot stand: first, because the place has been destroyed in which there were the sacrifices, cleansings, offerings, and the rest that belongs to the service of the letter; then, because there were many things in them worthy not so much of study as of laughter, such as those about leprosy of walls, beams, and garments, not ploughing with an ox and an ass, and the like, which are contained in the legal traditions. But the letter of the ten commandments is clear, worthy to be kept and done. Nor is the commandment of the Sabbath an objection: for though it is inserted among the ten commandments, it is not one of them. For if we set as a special commandment, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery," we shall find the complete number of ten commandments. Besides, it plainly signifies the intelligible rest, in which we may do no work of this world. These alone, then, make bread for the people of the Jews, in one oven, namely that of the law, and they give back the loaves just mentioned by weight, that is, by a strictness of the senses. For they do not enlarge the teaching as the gospel does, nor do they show the teaching on adultery so as to guard against even looking at a woman, nor that on murder so as to guard against anger. Hence those who are nourished by the loaves of the Jews are not satisfied by them, taking a scanty teaching that has nothing of richness or spiritual bounty.

Verses 27–45. "But if even by these you do not listen to me, but walk against me, I too will walk against you in my contrary fury, and I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins, so that you will eat the flesh of your sons and of your daughters. I will destroy your high places and break your images. You will fall among the ruins of your idols, and my soul will abhor you, so that I will make your cities a wilderness and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will no longer accept your most pleasing fragrance; and I will lay waste your land, and your enemies will be astonished at it when they are its inhabitants. But you I will scatter among the nations, and I will draw the sword after you, and your land will be desolate and your cities ruined. Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths all the days of its desolation, while you are in the land of the enemy. It will keep Sabbath and rest in the Sabbaths of its desolation, because it did not rest on your Sabbaths when you lived in it. And those of you who remain, I will put fear in their hearts; in the lands of their enemies the sound of a flying leaf will frighten you, and they will flee as from a sword. They will fall when no one pursues, and they will fall each one upon his brothers, as though fleeing from wars. None of you will dare to resist your enemies. You will perish among the nations, and the hostile land will consume you. And if some of these remain, they will waste away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, and they will be afflicted for the sins of their fathers and their own, until they confess their iniquities and those of their forefathers, by which they transgressed against me and walked contrary to me. So I too will walk against them and bring them into a hostile land, until their uncircumcised mind is ashamed. Then they will pray for their impieties, and I will remember my covenant which I made with Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham; I will remember the land too, which, when it has been left by them, will be pleased with its Sabbaths, enduring desolation because of them. And they will plead for their sins, because they rejected my judgments and despised my laws. Yet when they were in the hostile land, I did not utterly reject them, nor despise them so that they were consumed and I made my covenant with them void. For I am the Lord their God, and I will remember my former covenant, because I brought them out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, to be their God. I am the Lord God."

That Moses was not only a lawgiver but also a prophet he himself showed, prophesying specially of Christ in these words: "The Lord will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me." Well he kept the likeness of Christ in himself, who, besides the other things in which he bore his likeness, just as the Lord spoke of the end of the world, so he too wrote down in the present law the things that were to come upon the people of the Jews. They had experienced many captivities and endured many scourges; but what he now tells part by part belongs to that captivity which befell them at the hands of the Romans who laid them waste, because of the iniquity committed against Christ. If you wish to know more precisely what befell them, you learn it from the history of Josephus, in which he described how they even ate their children and endured the rest of the present threats; most of these lie even now before our eyes to see: their land desolate, their cities plundered by enemies, the province laid waste, and they themselves sojourning among their gentile enemies in continual fear. Yet, as they suffered this not only according to the letter but also in the consideration of the Spirit (for sinning doubly, in the transgression of the law and in the blasphemy of the lawgiver, they rightly suffer double punishments too), learn it in this way. They walked contrary to Christ, overturning his miracles and disparaging his teaching; when through envy they were plotting against him, they falsely asserted that the teacher of divine love was acting against God. And he too used contrariness against them in anger in this way: for the judgment and punishment of the iniquity committed against him was the captivity they suffered. Yet he did not make the Romans bring it on them for this reason (for they were not yet avenging his glory), but as men who resisted their rule, though they had formerly been their tributaries, obedient to their taxes, laws, and magistrates. God, exercising contrary fury against them, brought anger upon them, so that he was avenged through the Roman empire as though it had been his herald; and he chastised them with seven plagues according to their sins, multiplying their punishments. And he did not avenge in one way, because they did not sin in one way either. And they eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, that is, their disciples, whom they take as sons, devouring them into the same teaching with cunning words that overturn the soul. And he brought their high places to desolation and broke their images. Their high places are their rulers and teachers, to whom they should have looked as to men set on high, or, as the Seventy, statues, and so ordered their lives. But since these had nothing sound or strong, but all weak and corruptible forms of virtue and imitation, which are spoiled by time and rot (hence in the Seventy too they were called "wooden things made by hand"), he laid them waste, exposing their hypocrisy before all, and with them the common people who looked to them. And he set their corpses among the ruins of their idols, that is, the members of the people, heaping their actions on the actions of their idols, the Pharisees and scribes, whom they used as idols, abandoning God and attending to the seductions of idols. For this reason he says: "My soul will abhor you." Which soul? The one he laid down for us, so that he might [free] us from the slavery of sins … and he turns away from them for ever, because, as far as concerned them, they made his work void, refusing the gift granted through it. For this reason he made their cities a wilderness and made their sanctuaries desolate; for they find no fruit from the prophetic books and cannot strive for any holiness. Nor does he accept the most pleasing fragrance, nor receive their prayer; and he lays waste their land, the whole Old Testament: not that he stripped it altogether, but he made it desolate and pathless for them. He made the nations dwell in it; for this reason he says: "Your enemies will be astonished at it when they are its inhabitants." For the nations are enemies of the Jews, because those chose to be at enmity with God and with those whom Paul calls enemies of the cross of Christ. They dwell in the land of the Jews, in the Old Testament, and as they dwell there they are astonished at him who spoke such things in the law and the prophets, who laid the foundations of life there. Further he says: "But you I will scatter among the nations," not only by this dispersion of the senses but also by an intelligible one. Learn what this is: "And I will draw the sword after you, and your land will be desolate and your cities ruined." For the word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit, running everywhere among the nations and surrounding the whole earth, consumes the sons of the Jews and destroys them from the holy things of God, showing that they have no communion with them; hence the land and the cities are found desolate, they having been driven out of their dwelling. "Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths all the days of its desolation, while you are in the land of the enemy; it will keep Sabbath and rest in the Sabbaths of its desolation, because it did not rest on your Sabbaths when you lived in it." We have often shown that the land is the intelligible Scripture of God and the way of life that is in it: for the Jews, the Old Testament; for the nations, who are hostile to the Jews, the New. Since, then, the Sabbath signifies rest, the lawgiver now hints at this very plainly to the Jews: that they will now find nothing in the law and the prophets that they want to do, but almost the whole surface of the letter has been destroyed for them. For this reason they have come to be in the land of their enemies, that is, in the gospel testament; and they have come to be there, if not willingly, yet of necessity. For against their will he made the sacrifices, the purifications of unleavened bread, the festivals of tabernacles, and the rest cease; suffering this difficulty, they depart into meditation on it. And sacred Scripture accepted this rest from them in place of a Sabbath, and it pleases it even more than the rest of the former Sabbaths. Why? Because "praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner."

And so: "And those of you who remain, I will put fear in their hearts; in the lands of their enemies the sound of a flying leaf will frighten them." … those who remain, still studying the sacred Scripture, are afraid in the land of their enemies, in the New Testament, as we have said; for they fear out of foolishness and a blinded heart at mingling with it, and this is fulfilled: "There they trembled with fear where there was no fear." "The sound of a flying leaf will frighten them." He calls the letter of the law a leaf; for its sound pursues them and announces fear of us to them, because, for example, they hear that the Sabbath day is to be kept, and they see that we hold nothing contemptible about this commandment, nothing earthly, not rest from cultivating the land, but learning rest from evil action; they take offence at us and flee from mingling with us. The letter of the law is rightly taken as a leaf, because, as the fruit of trees is covered by leaves, so the spirit is hidden under the letter of the law. For this reason we, of whom it was said, "If grape gatherers had come into you, they would at least have left you a cluster," strip off the leaf of the letter so that we may find the fruit of the Spirit. But those who do not know this regard us as enemies and flee from us as one flees a sword. "And they will fall when no one pursues." For we do not persecute them; they suffer persecution from the hardness of their own heart. Now see what he added: "And they will fall each one upon his brothers, as though fleeing from wars." For when we speak with them and bring forward against them the testimonies of the law and the prophets concerning Christ and the mysteries of the gospel, hard pressed, some say this and others that, and each falls upon his brother. For they all say weak things, and for this reason they cannot stand together in their answers to one another, and they are thrown into confusion as though fleeing from wars, with no one pursuing. We do not persecute them, nor do we dispute with them to harm them, but to help and gain them. What, then, do they suffer from this? "None of you will dare to resist your enemies; you will perish among the nations, and the hostile land will consume you." For the gospel testament consumes them, crushing the substance of their whole error. Hence they do not resist their enemies, who can be saved through faith; but they perish among the nations, stumbling on the cornerstone, and not even willing to look at the letter of the law, since they have no confidence in it. "And if some of these remain, they will waste away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies." For whoever of them who have been converted remain, persisting in the study of the law, these perish because of their sins in the land of their enemies, that is, in the gospel testament, as we have said, because of their transgression of it; for these are in every way the sins committed against it. "And because of their own sins and because of the sins of their fathers, by which they transgressed and despised me": for they ascribe what has now befallen them to the sins of their fathers. For this reason they will also waste away in them, … not with a good mind, but doing evil, so as to soften the punishment that came on them because of the iniquity they committed against Christ. For he adds: "And they walked contrary to me. So I too will walk against them and bring them into a hostile land." For as they think to outwit God, walking contrary to him and saying other things in place of the interpretations of the law and the prophets that confirm the mystery of Christ, which is the mark of adversaries, so he too walked against them and will bring them into a hostile land, that is, into the gospel, which he gave to the nations. By this they perish in two ways: first, because it destroys the righteousness of the Jews; then, because it is among the nations, of whom they are jealous, and with a contentious mind against them they do not wish to be saved, so that God said through Moses, "I will provoke you to jealousy with a no-nation," and Paul, "As regards the gospel they are enemies for your sake," and again, "For as you, when you were enemies, were reconciled to God, so they too have now not believed, in your mercy." "Then their uncircumcised mind will be ashamed, and then they will pray for their iniquities," or as the Seventy, "they will be pleased with their sins," that is, with the punishments they suffer for their sins; for so we have understood what is said in Hosea: "They will eat the sins of my people." What this is he made plain in what follows: "And they will lift up their souls to their iniquity." So to eat the sins of the people is to bear punishments for them, and they say that they suffer what is worthy of their sins, even if they confess some of their sins and hide others, those they committed against Christ.

"And I will remember my covenant which I made with Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham." Why did he begin not with Abraham, according to the order of time and generation, but with Jacob? Or why do the Seventy say not "the covenant of Jacob and Isaac and Abraham," but "the covenant of Jacob, and the covenant of Isaac, and the covenant of Abraham"? Hinting, as it were, at three covenants, so as to commend the gospel by the law and the prophets; of these the law is the oldest, the prophets in the second place, and they wished to show the gospel as the newest. Because the gospel, though the newest, is set first by God in grace, and therefore he mentions it first, he mentions first Jacob, who is last in time and order. He joined them in the same way as things having kinship among themselves. And in the places where he mentions the law and the prophets, in these he says he mentions the gospel as well. What follows confirms this strongly: "I will remember the land too, which, when it has been left by them," or as the Seventy, "is left by them." Since the land is above all a blessing from God, God, loving the intelligible land, that is, his Scriptures, wants it to be held in memory, and the memory of them … they did not meditate well, they did them injury: first by saying and not doing, then by interpreting contemptibly and covering the excellent spiritual understanding that was in them. Hence he fittingly added: "It will be pleased with its Sabbaths," that is, while it remains desolate of them. For the law of God rejoices, enjoying the desolation of the Jews, which they brought upon themselves. For this reason he also said that it endures that desolation because of them. "And they will plead for their sins, because they rejected my judgments and despised my laws." Double goods, he says, have come to the sacred Scriptures from the people of the Jews being driven out: they are not insulted by them, and for this reason they rejoice at not being read by them; for they do not read them as before, being scattered and lacking all presumption. And they themselves have also become conscious of their sins and of their transgression of the divine law.

What he added as the conclusion and crown of the whole ordinance is also to be admired; and it is to be understood that plainly the one who spoke in Moses also spoke in Paul and in all the apostles: "Yet when they were in the hostile land, I did not utterly reject them, nor despise them so that they were consumed and I made my covenant with them void. For I am the Lord their God, and I will remember my former covenant, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, to be their God. I am the Lord." If you wish to know this point by point, read Paul: how God did not despise them in the hostile land, that is, in the gospel testament, nor consume them so as to make his former covenant void. For he did not bring it to nothing altogether, but left the hope of salvation, not to all, but to a remnant, as Paul says, bringing forward the testimony of the prophet Isaiah: "If the number of the sons of Israel is as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved." "I say, then, has God rejected his people? By no means." He will also remember his former covenant, when he brought the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt. And in what will he remember it? That he may be their God in the sight of the nations. For a plain demonstration of this, these words of the wisdom of the apostle are enough for you: "For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own sight: that blindness in part has befallen Israel, until the fullness of the gentiles comes in, and so all Israel will be saved." Well, then, at the conclusion of the whole discourse, the Lord said: "I am the Lord," who will the salvation of all, and therefore also of the Jews, and who will save a remnant, though after so many iniquities.

Verse 46. "These are the precepts and judgments and laws which the Lord gave between himself and the sons of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses."

… for the lawgiver added to his words a conclusion by which he made it plain beyond any doubt that he wants the letter of the law to be firm until a certain time, and he stopped the mouth of the Jews, who try to keep this law even now, when they have no time for it, since he has already come who sought the letter of the law for the Jews, as for the weak, in place of milk, and who, commanding Moses to minister to it, himself on coming brought them to what is more perfect. So, as we said once, he properly called "judgments" the things said when God gave judgment on certain points about which they asked in ignorance; "precepts," those which the lawgiver ordained not in this way but of himself, with no one asking. Then, wishing to embrace briefly the dispensation of the whole ordinance, he added: "And the laws which the Lord gave between himself and the sons of Israel." For this reason the other translators too, except the Seventy, gave "laws," wishing to show by this word the difference of the law … And what is it that he said "between," if not, without doubt, until he comes of whom Isaiah says, "He himself will come and save us; then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will hear," and whatever else is contained in that prophecy? Then the law must no longer be kept according to the surface of the letter, but as he himself has expounded it, carried over to the grace of the gospel and to a more perfect way of life: not so as to be made void, but so as to be drawn to a wise interpretation and a spiritual sense. Why did he also indicate the place, for he says "on Mount Sinai," if not so that, since David says, "The God of gods will be seen in Zion," and "Suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple," and again David, "Out of Zion, the perfection of his beauty, God will come manifestly, our God, and he will not keep silence," we should not think that this dispensation of his spoken of was accomplished in the time of the law? Hence he mentioned here both the place and the ministering Moses, so that we might learn from this that the prophets promised us another coming of his, which took place neither on Sinai nor through a mediator, but openly.

Verses 1–8. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: A man who has made a vow and pledged his soul to God shall give the price by valuation. If it is a male from the twentieth to the sixtieth year, he shall give fifty shekels of silver by the measure of the sanctuary; if a woman, thirty. From the fifth year to the twentieth a male shall give twenty shekels, a female ten. From one month to the fifth year, for a male five shekels shall be given, for a female three. One of sixty years and over, a male shall give fifteen shekels, a female ten. If he is poor and cannot pay the valuation, he shall stand before the priest, and as much as the priest values him and sees that he can pay, so much he shall give."

These words of the lawgiver too are full of wisdom, kept above all for the fitting time. For having commanded above what ought to be done and what not, he now sets out through what is said the dignity of those who do these things wholly or in part. And he runs through clearly and perfectly what the perfect life is, what life is still set in progress, what holds the beginning of the knowledge of God, what [belongs] to truth, what the works of the virtues are. And writing of different ages, he set out also one who has grown weak yet does not depart from it. He speaks thus: "A man who has made a vow and pledged his soul to God," that is, whoever has promised his soul to God and wished to offer him his whole life. For this reason, in place of "has made a vow," Aquila and Theodotion, and Symmachus too, gave "if he has surpassed." For it is truly admirable, and very near to blessedness, for someone to offer his whole self to God, as his soul to the Lord, or as the Seventy, "the honour of his soul to the Lord," that is, to offer God that honour of the soul which he received from him, of which David said, hinting at the plots of demons: "Yet they have thought to thrust away my honour." "The price of a male from the twentieth year to the sixtieth year shall be fifty shekels of silver, by the measure of the sanctuary," or as the Seventy, "didrachms of silver." Fifty didrachms, or shekels, are a thousand obols; for he himself said in Exodus that a shekel, or didrachm, is twenty obols. For he says thus of the sons of Israel: "According to the number each shall give a price for his soul to the Lord, and those who give shall give half a shekel according to the measure of the temple," or, as the Seventy, "of the didrachm, which according to the holy didrachm is twenty obols." So he wanted us to remember the shekel, or didrachm, "according to the measure of the temple" or "according to the measure of the sanctuary," wishing to send us to that text of the law in which he says that the holy didrachm, or shekel, is twenty obols. And though it was ready to hand to require one shekel, or drachm, to be offered, he did not command so, but half a shekel or didrachm, showing by this that what is properly holy in the law is what is understood not according to the letter alone but also according to the spirit, and its offering is owed. Hence according to the Seventy too he joined the didrachms themselves to himself, but commanded half to be offered: so that you may say that, condescending to those who received the law as to the weak, he commanded not a perfect offering but an imperfect one, namely the half; because the holy didrachm is twice ten obols, that is, twenty. For the law has twice ten commandments, requiring them to be doubled, that is, kept according to the letter and according to the spirit. But for those, as poor in mind, it was enough to offer the fulfilment and action of the ten commandments at least in the sense of the body, through which the Israelite of the senses could also free his soul from the slavery of sins.

If, then, someone is "from the twentieth year," that is, of age, strong, vigorous, able to work all the virtues and to subject the intelligible enemies by all his actions and works (for see what Israel said of this age: "Every male from twenty years and upward, all who go out in strength," bearing witness in the words just quoted above all to the strength of those who are at that time of life, as being at this age able to go out to war and bear arms, and having much fervour and heat in action), his price, that is, his way of life and life, the recompense which he offers and promises to God for himself, is fifty shekels, or drachms. For the number fifty figures the spiritual life, because on the fiftieth day the coming of the Holy Spirit took place. And in the fiftieth year comes the release of every debt and the restoration of land, and many other goods were arranged for the Jews in it by the law. He says fifty shekels, or didrachms, so as to double fifty again and say a hundred drachms, signifying that perfect fruit, of which he says, setting out the parable of the seeds, that the good land bears fruit, dividing it into thirty, sixty, and a hundred; for no man can go beyond this number. A hundred drachms, multiplied tenfold again (for a drachm, as we have said, has ten obols), make the number one thousand, in which is no ordinary perfection, but that of the heavenly, that is, the incorporeal beings, that of those who have been allotted a dwelling above us, of those who go beyond corruption and attain incorruption. For this reason the Spirit of God said in the Song: "The peaceable one had a vineyard among those who have peoples. He gave it to keepers; a man will bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver." What man (for not all can bring this fruit), learn from what follows: "Your thousand, peaceable one, and two hundred to those who keep its fruit." "Your thousand, peaceable one," that is, Solomon; and the intelligible Solomon is Christ, because Solomon is interpreted "peaceable." Christ, then, gave peace to the human race. Perfection befits him above all, and those who follow his way of life and run the angelic course, to whom the number one thousand is assigned as perfect. "For thousands of thousands ministered to him," says Daniel, setting out the heavenly powers standing by God. And David says: "He remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded for a thousand generations," showing by the thousand generations the perfection of the divine law and of those who received the law. "From twenty years to sixty years": for within these times is the age for begetting … that we may think of intelligible things. One, then, who has a mature and perfect understanding, and the strength to do what he has understood, can win other sons for God, spending his way of life or his teaching. The price of his soul, fifty didrachms, is the perfect fruit and the crown of perfection, which will have martyrdom and contempt of things and all that perfection of which the Lord said: "You shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." This is "when it is a male," that is, when he is always strong; for that is what he here calls male.

"But for a female the valuation shall be thirty shekels," or didrachms, so that they make sixty drachms, namely the sixtyfold fruit, itself great, but less than the hundredfold; for this reason he brought in the person of the woman, who is less than the man. So women too, when they have reached the highest measure and advanced to perfection, can be called strong, as having passed beyond their weakness and taken up the intention of strength; for this reason the Spirit of God said in the Proverbs: "Who will find a strong woman?" Who, then, lacks contempt of things? But he says perfectly the other things which the law orders to be set right concerning continence in all things, for the one who lives according to it. Her valuation is thirty shekels, or didrachms, that is, the sixtyfold fruit, which Paul too figured when he said: "Let a widow be enrolled who is not less than sixty years old," wishing to show by age and the number of years what virtues and actions a widow who is chosen by God, who is written in the divine books, and who can live in the number of the heavenly Jerusalem, ought to show. For this reason he also added, suggesting that his concern was not so much with age or years as with the virtues signified by them: "the wife of one husband; if she has brought up children, if she has received the poor with hospitality, if she has washed the feet of the saints, if she has relieved those in affliction, if she has followed every good work." This is the man perfect and complete in all things.

See also the one who lacks this but desires to be carried forward to it: "From the fifth year to the twentieth a male shall give twenty shekels," or, as the Seventy, didrachms. He here means one who is not yet perfect but is a man of sense and has begun to advance; for by the number of five years he hints at the senses, which are of that number. One who is tending toward youth and toward what is more perfect is from five years to the twentieth year; for one of twenty years, able to fight among the strong, is counted by the law, as the book of Numbers shows. His price, then, is twenty didrachms, that is, forty drachms, four hundred obols. [What] the number of forty drachms signifies [we know], because we have learned that Moses and Elijah, and the Lord himself when he was tempted by the devil, fasted for that many days. What the number four hundred signifies, or what way of life it shows, is shown by what is said in the book of Kings, when the ship sent by Solomon to Sophir returned; for he says, according to the Seventy: "And it came to Sophir" (and Sophir is interpreted "good"), "and took from there four hundred and twenty talents of gold, and brought them to King Solomon." So it is good thus to be exercised by fasting and prayer and to be carried forward to that life to which Moses and Elijah advanced, building the virtues upon fasting and prayer; so the Lord too, beginning to make himself known to the human race through preaching and signs, made fasting and prayer the beginning of his way of life. Whoever, then, is a man of sense and begins to advance, yet not greatly but moderately, so that he cannot be burdened by the undertaking of a way of life of fasting, his price is ten didrachms, that is, twenty drachms and two hundred obols. For his way of life lies in keeping the ten commandments, which is doubled according to the letter and the spirit, among which fasting is not commanded. For the way of life belonging to it is higher, befitting lawgivers and prophets and all who have advanced; and his way of life does not yet have perfection, for it needs gentleness and the perfect love that is in zeal for Christ; yet it leads on toward perfection. But because the keeping of the commandments according to the letter and the spirit is rightly reckoned as ten didrachms, which are two hundred obols, the word we quoted just now from the Song of Songs recalls to your memory: "Your thousand, peaceable one, and two hundred to those who keep its fruit." Which vineyard? The one of which he said earlier: "The peaceable one had a vineyard among those who have peoples," which the Jews did not keep; for this reason they brought forth thorns instead of grapes, and all who pass along the way gather from it. Those who keep the fruit are found in the two hundred, that is, in twenty drachms, the doubled keeping of the commandments, as we said, according to the letter and the spirit.

"From one month to the fifth year, for a male five shekels shall be given," or five didrachms, "for a female three." By one of a month you are to understand one who has just been born in the faith, to whom Peter said: "Like newborn infants, long for the rational, guileless milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good." His price up to the age of five, that is, his way of life and life, is five didrachms of silver, that is, ten drachms, and a hundred obols. The way of life of the newly born, then, [must be] five, that is, he must receive in an intelligible way what he hears with the senses; and so too with seeing, tasting, worshipping, and touching; this leads him to perfection, and for this reason he also has the price of a hundred obols; and the number, as has been said, is perfect. So without doubt he indicates one who has just been chosen to share in the mysteries and has not yet gone on to action, but is meanwhile tested in faith, as one still an infant and not yet having the time to show virtue. But if one is less than this, so that the person of a woman fits him, being less as simpler and not very discerning, his price is three didrachms: faith in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, so that he does not transgress it, but believes with the heart, as Paul says, "and confesses with the mouth." For thus these three become two drachms each for one who not only confesses with the tongue but also believes by faith. And such faith brings this one too to a middle perfection; for three didrachms are six drachms, and six drachms are sixty obols, and such a number bears a middle perfection. For this reason the people of Israel too had the number six hundred thousand, which is sixty myriads. For the Israel of the senses had some who were moderately perfect, who, set in the law, practised the gospel way of life to some extent. There were also those whose study of the law and prophets was moderate; for this reason they were likewise myriads, but neither thousands of thousands nor myriads of myriads, so that perfection might always be among them; for this belongs to the angels and to those who live according to the gospel life. For they too become angels when they have advanced.

"One of sixty years and over, a male shall give fifteen shekels," or didrachms, "and a female ten." And who is this, if not one who promises the highest way of life, through virginity, for example, or through possessing nothing, and other virtues, and afterwards has grown weak? For you have learned that the lawgiver set one from twenty years to sixty years before all; then now, after all, he speaks of one "from sixty years and over." By saying "over" he without doubt indicates the old age of soul and the weakness of one who had set before himself the highest way of life. One, then, who promises and sets before himself a way of life of virginity or contempt of possessing, and then grows too weak to fulfil his purpose, let him hear from Paul: "If anyone thinks he is behaving unbecomingly toward his virgin, because she is past her prime" (showing in a way the purpose grown weak and brought to old age), "and it must be so, let him do what he wishes; he does not sin if she marries." And again: "If you marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such will have tribulation of the flesh, and I would spare you. This … that those who mourn be as though not mourning, and those who rejoice as though not rejoicing, and those who buy as though not possessing, and those who use this world as though not using it. For the form of this world is passing away. I want you to be without anxiety." For this reason his price will be fifteen didrachms, which are thirty drachms. For Christ set forth three fruitings of the good land: by the hundredfold signifying the life of virginity and of possessing nothing, by the sixtyfold that of continence, by the thirtyfold that of chaste marriage. But if one of this kind is weaker (perhaps he has fallen into sexual immorality, and hence he is called a woman), not even so is he to be rejected, but he has the price of ten didrachms. For he offers to God the keeping of the commandments of God, which we have shown to be twenty drachms and two hundred obols, and has his way of life in this, justified through keeping the commandments.

If you say: How so? The Lord was thirty years old, though he alone was perfect, while we say that perfection is in the number one hundred, after this in sixty, and third in thirty: learn that he alone was truly perfect, yet as teacher of all and chosen as the firstfruits of the whole lump he figures and sets forth a way of life tempered out of all. For if you want virginity, he is a virgin from a virgin and taught virginity; if marriage, he commanded marriage too and blessed those who marry; if abstinence, he taught this as well; so too the course of faith, whether of the perfect or of the simple. Since, then, he hints at differences here and in a way distinguished the lives of men, and says that the price of this one is fifty didrachms, of this thirty, of this twenty, of this ten, of this five, of this three, of this fifteen, these when gathered come a little short of a hundred and fifty, and divided into five they make nearly the number thirty. See how neither the lawgiver was ignorant of the tempering which Christ made in our life and way of life, nor was the evangelist ignorant of the number that has the tempering. For this reason he says that he came to baptism not at a full thirty years; for he says: "And Jesus himself was beginning, about thirty years of age." And why this? Because both one who strives for a very perfect life, and one who strives for a moderately perfect one, and one who strives for a lesser one, does not come perfectly to the measure; he falls short in every way, because perfection belongs to God alone; but he falls short only so far as gives pardon for what falls short. Hence they are seven short of a hundred and fifty: for the number just mentioned comes to a hundred and forty-three; and by the number seven pardon is plainly signified.

"If he is poor and cannot pay the valuation, he shall stand before the priest, and as much as the priest values him and sees that he can pay, so much he shall give." Now he speaks of one who has sinned much; and for this reason Aquila gave "if he has gone too far" instead of "poor." If, then, this one wishes to be offered to God, he will stand before the priest, so that the priest may value him to pay as much as he sees he can: imposing on him a rule of life according to his strength and prescribing a measure of philosophy which he has judged he can bear. For example, if he is rich, that he distribute money; if he is healthy, that he devote himself to fasts and prayers and other good labours; if he is both rich and healthy, he is bidden to do whatever riches and health suggest to him; if neither, to weep in prayer: in short, whatever he sees he can accomplish through his body, or his substance, or some other strength or means.

Verses 9–10. "But an animal that can be sacrificed to the Lord, if anyone has vowed it, shall be holy and cannot be exchanged, that is, neither better for bad nor worse for good. But if he exchanges it, both what is exchanged and that for which it is exchanged shall be consecrated to the Lord."

The lawgiver set out that the very offerings made from ourselves have certain degrees and differences. For see, through what has been said he explains when the offering of those who are subject to us in some way, so that they are even called our cattle because they are very subject, or because we use them for our service as we use cattle, is holy. He commands that we not repent of what we offer to God. So if we offer of those cattle which it is customary to offer to God (and it is customary to offer him things unblemished and clean), each of us is at once sanctified, and it is not lawful for us to repent of it: as when we offer to God a son, or a disciple, or a servant, or another who is under our hand. Nor may we exchange bad for better, or good for bad. He does not here call bad what is depraved and unclean in every way; for if it is unclean, it is not among those things that it is customary to offer to God, and the lawgiver said this offering was of those that can be sacrificed to the Lord. But here he calls bad what is worse; for so Symmachus too plainly rendered it: "He shall not give better for worse, or worse for better," so that, when we offer this son or servant to the Lord's service and ministry, we may not want to take him back into our own service and use, promising perhaps to offer a better or a worse one. For it is not permitted; for this reason Hannah too said of Samuel: "If you will look upon the humiliation of your handmaid and remember me, and give your handmaid male offspring, I will give him as a gift before you until the day of his death." "But if he exchanges it, that for which it is exchanged shall be consecrated to the Lord": so that we sanctify both the one we offered before and the one we offered afterwards with the first offering, and give both to God. For this does not permit us to repent of what we offer, but strikes the enemy who suggested repentance to us, since we double our offering, which he wished to intercept through repentance.

Verses 11–13. "An unclean animal which cannot be sacrificed to the Lord, if anyone has vowed it, shall be brought before the priest. He, judging whether it is good or bad, shall set the price; and if the one who offers wishes to give it, he shall add a fifth part above the valuation."

The Jew must be asked how this commandment can stand according to the letter. For if it is not lawful to offer it, and it will not be acceptable, how did the lawgiver write both, as though contradicting and resisting himself? But something near to the bounty of the gospel in every way he hints at, and to the condescension that grace knows. Let us understand what has been said thus. It was not permitted to offer to God of the cattle that did not both divide the hoof and chew the cud; for the law held these unclean. Of these the riddle was: not dividing the hoof, of one who does not distinguish the letter of the law and its spirit; not chewing the cud, of one who did not have zeal for continual meditation on the law, and who calls it back to meditation only with the tongue and not also with the heart. If, then, someone offers to God such a son, or servant, or disciple, who is lesser, not from malice but from weakness, in meditating on the sacred Scriptures or in the division of contemplation, he is not yet vowed to God; for the lawgiver does not mention him as though he had been offered. But he brings him before the priest, and the priest sets his price, judging whether he is good or bad, so that, condescending to what is imperfect, he may lay on him a moderate yoke, that is, the way of life that lies between good and bad. This is turning away from evil and advancing to better things. For perhaps we say that this is properly between worse and better; for what is said, "whether good or bad," Symmachus rendered: "The priest shall set the price, if by advancing in some way he can be a gift among the things offered to God." "And if the one who offers wishes to give it, he shall add a fifth part above the valuation." And what is this? The senses are five in number. Their fifth part, for us, is the mind, for they are governed by it. Without it, then, they hardly have being, nor do they help. The five virgins who were not received into the wedding bear their figure; these five did not have wisdom, and hence they are called simply foolish. So if anyone wishes to redeem one who, for the reasons given, is compared to unclean cattle … he will be able to govern himself and not need another's tutoring.

Verses 14–19. "If a man vows his house and sanctifies it to the Lord, the priest shall consider whether it is good or bad, and it shall be sold according to the price set by him. But if the one who vowed wishes to redeem it, he shall give a fifth part of the valuation above, and he shall have the house. And if he vows a field of his possession and consecrates it to the Lord, the price shall be valued according to the measure of the seed. If the land is sown with thirty measures of barley, it shall be sold for fifty shekels of silver. If he vows the field at once from the year of the beginning jubilee, it shall be valued as much as it can be worth; but if after some time, the priest shall reckon the money according to the number of years that remain until the jubilee, and it shall be deducted from the price. But if the one who vowed wishes to redeem the field, he shall add a fifth part of the valued money, and he shall possess it."

No ordinary question arises here. For a little later, at the end of the book, the lawgiver says thus: "Everything that is consecrated to the Lord, whether man, or animal, or field, shall not be sold, nor can it be redeemed." How did he forbid there that offerings be redeemed, but here command that the house and the field be redeemed after they have been sanctified? Perhaps he knows one intention of the offerer here and another there. There, that he should never again touch what he has offered, but consecrate it wholly to God; for this reason he does not say there, as here, "If he consecrates his house, or the field of his possession," but "everything that is consecrated to the Lord." For of the things offered to God none could return to human use, nor could the priest use them. The history of the Amalekites shows this. For Saul was commanded that all the spoils of Amalek should be accursed; and because he allowed the people to take some of the flocks and herds, he incurred a great curse; and it in no way sufficed him for excuse, when Samuel was angry and asked, "What is this bleating of the flock in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?", that he answered the prophet with other words, which were these: "From Amalek he brought the best of the flocks and oxen which my people acquired, to be sacrificed to the Lord your God, and the rest I have destroyed." So it is one thing to sanctify to God (for one who has sanctified may use it in the way the lawgiver now shows us), another to make something accursed, for its use is forbidden. A like understanding must be taken in the contemplation too; but we shall speak of the accursed thing when we come to that part of the ordinance. Now let us teach, as the Spirit suggests to me, what it is to sanctify a house, what a field, saying this in the first place: that it is one thing to be sanctified to God, another to be holy; one thing to offer something to him, another to have no need of it. For what is sanctified and offered begins to be sanctified by being offered; so it was not holy before. What begins to be sanctified needs work, advance, and increase by parts; but what has long been holy and long belongs to God lacks nothing, but is perfect and needs no addition. Therefore it is good to use the teachings of others for sanctification, but better to advance so far as to lead oneself and one's own to sanctification, which belongs not to every man but only to the man of sense. And these are the things the lawgiver intends to signify in this place.

He sanctifies his house to God, then, who wants his family and kindred and his intelligible house to live in holiness, so that it may be and be called a church, as many of the faithful held their houses as churches because of their sanctification, as we have heard Paul writing to the Romans: "Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but also all the churches of the gentiles; and the church in their house." Whoever, then, has this intention, but is not himself fit by himself to bring what he intends to completion, the priest shall consider his house, whether it is good or bad, and as he values it, so it shall be. Why "whether good or bad"? Because a house consists of many and different persons, among whom many need condescension, not being able to do or think what is perfect; so that he may lay nothing heavy on them, but, weighing each one's strength, may bid them turn away from evil and advance in the virtues. "But if the one who vowed wishes to redeem it, he shall give a fifth part of the valuation above, and he shall have the house." That is, if the master of the house who wishes to sanctify it, though it was not holy before nor could be called a church (for then it would surely have been sanctified, which is not now the case, but it is taking the beginning of sanctification): if, then, this man redeems his house, cleansing completely that whose need of sanctification made the priests' exhortation necessary. He redeems it by good teaching and a pattern of life, freeing them and washing away whatever stood in their way to holiness. What will he do? He will give, or according to the Seventy, "add," a fifth part of the valuation above. To the teaching of the priest, to whom he offered his house from the beginning so that he might value it, that is, impose a definition by which it ought to stand or live, he himself will add this, which is understanding. This, then, is the fifth: that he receives what is said and builds upon the priest's words; for more frequent remembrance makes men sensible and understanding. And so he will have the house, not losing its sanctification to God (for that would turn to his loss); but he will have it, because [it belongs] to him both as offering it and as teaching it; and so, set well over his own house and recovering it for himself, he is found in a way to be a priest; for Paul raised the one who knows how to rule his own house to the choice and dignity of the episcopate. For this reason, for what is said, "the one who sanctified it shall redeem it," Aquila rendered: "if the one sanctifying does it to the end." What we learn from this is that if the one who sanctified it claims for himself the rule and government of his house and wishes to acquire it himself, and to do it "to the end" according to the law is to be set over others as a kinsman, let him do what the lawgiver has commanded here. This being so, that the silver of the divine words is properly the exhortation of teaching, hear David saying: "The words of the Lord are pure words, silver tried by fire, purified from the earth." And Jeremiah: "In vain has the refiner refined; its dross is not consumed"; he says this of the Jews, because the words of those who exhorted them profited them nothing. And hear Paul too saying: "If anyone builds upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones."

"And if he vows a field of his possession and consecrates it to the Lord, the price shall be valued according to the measure of the seed." No one will doubt that the field is the divine Scripture, whose vine is properly Christ and whose farmer is the Father; in which the treasure is hidden, that is, the saving preaching, which the worker of the field who finds it will sell all that he has to buy that field, as the Lord says in the Gospels. In this field each one's possession is different, that is, the measure he has been able to obtain from it for understanding. If, then, a man consecrates this to the Lord, though it was not holy before, now he begins to consecrate a guide of his way of life: since he is not himself fit to guide himself, let him choose a priest. For here the lawgiver called "consecrated" the things assigned to the priest. "The price shall be valued according to the measure of the seed," that is, according to how much he has been sown, namely taught; for divine Scripture is accustomed to take the word of teaching as seed. Let the priest prescribe for him as much as he has been instructed in good, lawful, and spiritual teaching, and not that which seducers teach, for example pagans, or Jews, or heretics. For this reason, having said "according to the measure of the seed," he added: "If the land is sown with thirty measures of barley, it shall be sold for fifty shekels of silver," or as the Seventy, "fifty didrachms of silver": by which understand the Old and New Testament. By the measure, or cor, of barley he shows the Old Testament, because the food of this seed is coarser; by the fifty didrachms he hints at what is at once spiritual and perfect; for perfect teaching is also spiritual. But when this rule, or definition, is to be imposed on him whole, and when it is to be lessened by condescension, learn from what follows: "If he vows the field at once from the year of the beginning jubilee, it shall be valued as much as it can be worth; but if after some time, the priest shall reckon the money according to the number of years that remain until the jubilee, and it shall be deducted from the price." He here mentions two years of release, or jubilee, plainly hinting at baptism and repentance. For each is a year of release, because each holds perfect release: the one through the gift of grace, the other for those who devote themselves to prayer and fasts and the other works that complete repentance. If, then, someone at once wishes the way of grace which he has chosen to be guided and led on by a priest, the priest may require of him what he received when he was taught from the perfect and spiritual teaching, in no way condescending to him, for there is no need, since he has been renewed through the gift; but he makes him remain fully in the teaching he received. But if he has fallen from the gift he received and fallen away from it in his way of life (for this is to consecrate the field "some time" after the jubilee, or release), the priest will rightly reckon the silver for the remaining years until the year of release, or jubilee, so that he may fix the rest of the time for him for repentance; "and it shall be deducted from the price." For in so far as he did less, suffered loss, and lived worse, he has diminished the gift, become weaker and therefore more abject, and is no longer such as he was when he received the gift. Yet this one too, if he wishes, can redeem his field, that is, govern and teach himself, adding a fifth of the silver to his price, adding his own understanding to the priest's teaching, so that, understanding and instructed, he may become his own governor and teacher. For so the intelligible field, which he consecrated by offering it to the priest, will be possessed by him and not by another: the way of life and virtue which he pursues, wholly or in part, will be reckoned to him who does it. Attend to the lawgiver's division: how he wants one who wishes to sanctify, or consecrate, a house or field to make the consecration first, and so commands him to redeem what has been sanctified. "And then," he says, "he shall possess it": commanding this without doubt, that we must govern our way of life by the teaching, rule, and law of the priests when we first sanctify it; but we must also advance and add our own understanding to their teaching; for this reason Paul wrote to Timothy: "Understand what I say; for the Lord will give you understanding in all things." And then we shall properly possess what we have done that is near to sanctification. But if we have not kept to this division, see what we shall suffer.

Verses 20–21. "But if he will not redeem it, but it has been sold to anyone else, the one who vowed it cannot redeem it any more; for when the day of the jubilee has come, it shall be sanctified to the Lord, and the consecrated possession belongs to the right of the priests."

Here the lawgiver plainly shows the loss of one who always needs to be governed by another and does not advance, nor is helped by the teaching of others, but is himself always his own guide in doing what is useful only for the present. For one who consecrated his field and afterwards redeems it is the one who allowed his way of life to be governed by another; afterwards, having been helped and having gained understanding, so as now to be, as the prophet says, "taught by God," and able to arrange by himself in future what is expedient, he has gained his field, receiving it back for himself. But one who advances nothing from another's guidance and has not acquired understanding, but always needs to be taught by another, and is such as some of the Jews were, whom God reproached through the prophetic voice, saying such things as: "Who were chosen from the womb, taught from infancy to old age," and "Ephraim like a senseless dove, having no heart," and again, "Ephraim was mixed among his peoples; Ephraim became … turned, and grey hairs blossomed on him, and he did not know it": because if he finds bad teachers he does evil in every way, as one who has no discernment, he cannot seek the reward of the virtue he has done, and therefore he is said not to redeem his own field. But when the jubilee comes, that is, when the time of release passes, in which release has place (and this is the present life), see what and how great a thing he will suffer: "The possession will be sanctified to the Lord"; the way of life he once attained, even if another was the one who governed it, will be holy to the Lord. "But as a consecrated possession it belongs to the right of the priests": for its possession and gain will be credited to the one who continually governed it, even if the one governed by him neglected it a little, turned, or changed himself to evil, as one who had no good zeal from his own understanding; so he will glory in him as in his own way of life; and for this reason he says: "The consecrated possession belongs to the right of the priests." And it does the priest no harm that the field is sold to another, because, having shown the one he governed the proper end of teaching and exhortation, he found him unable to redeem his own, that is, to rule and govern himself; then he sold the field, setting over the one who offered it another who should exhort him; but the reward and gain belong to the one who set him over him: unless perhaps we say that those whom Peter and Paul and the apostles guided to life through their own disciples are not credited to them.

Verses 22–26. "If a field that was bought, and not of the possession of his forefathers, is sanctified to the Lord, the priest shall reckon the price according to the number of years until the jubilee, and the one who vowed it shall give it to the Lord. But in the jubilee it shall return to the former owner, who had sold it and had it in the lot of his possession. Every valuation shall be weighed by the shekel of the sanctuary. A shekel has twenty obols. The firstborn, which belong to God, no one can sanctify or vow; whether ox or sheep, they are the Lord's."

The letter and the spirit of the law show the greatest justice. The letter did not forbid those who possess another's field to sanctify it to God, to offer it to the priests so that the field's revenue might be theirs, because he did not offer what was specially his own: for as, being bought, it was his then, so too, having been of the seller's possession, it is rightly another's. For he commanded the priest to reckon the price of the field until the jubilee and so to give the price for it; but in the jubilee it was to return and be given back to the former owner, that is, to the one who because of poverty sold his own property and alienated it for a certain time. From this he passes to the spiritual understanding too. "If a field that was bought, and not of the possession of his forefathers, is sanctified to the Lord, the priest shall reckon according to the number of years until the jubilee." He possesses a field which he bought and which is not of his own possession who is able to exhort one who suffers intelligible poverty, to rebuke him and move him to repentance. For he possesses the intelligible land which that one possessed, of which David sang, "Your Holy Spirit will lead me into the right land," not allowing it to be wholly corrupted, but gaining the virtue, or life, of his brother, from which that one fell through negligence. If, then, he sanctifies it to the Lord, that is, offers it to the priest (for you have heard that here he calls sanctified to God the things that fell to the priests' lot). And offered how? That is, the one who has sinned must be cleansed and his way of life made holy. "The priest shall reckon the price according to the number of years until the jubilee, and the one who vowed it shall give it to the Lord." Rightly the priest, together with the one who moved the brother to repentance (for that one knows his action and way of life exactly, since he himself corrected him, and this one, as a priest, knows true and perfect redemption), reckon, or test, what kind of repentance should be imposed on him. They reckon "until the price of the jubilee," that is, from what is said about repentance in the divine Scripture. For this is the valuation of the year of jubilee, or release, both because it has valued, or reckoned, the repentance, and because it values how great its dignity is; for we call this the valuation, because when repentance is so defined, its definition will be holy to God; for this reason he also added: "And the one who vowed it shall give it to the Lord," or according to the Seventy, "And he shall pay the price on that day, holy to the Lord." For at the time in which, according to this reckoning, what concerns repentance is defined or laid upon him, when its definition is necessary, it is found holy to the Lord. Well he said "he shall pay," or as the Seventy, "he shall pay," not "they shall pay": for even if the definition of what is valued is established by the common counsel of the priest and of the one who moved the sinner to repentance, yet let that one offer him who made the erring brother feel compunction; for he will obey him, and he too is bound to the amendment of the one doing repentance, since he once made the beginning of his correction. But the penitent is not cleansed at once when the repentance is defined, but when he has completed it; for this reason he says: "But in the jubilee it shall return to the former owner, who had sold it." So the definition of repentance becomes holy at once on that day on which it is valued by the priest and by the exhorter of the one who is to do repentance, through the divine Scripture, how he ought to do it. But the penitent will receive back his possession, his field and his way of life, when he has come to the year of jubilee, or release, or change, and has fully done what pertains to repentance. And moreover, rendering the priest wholly, and every man who wishes to exhort himself or his neighbour or his house and so gain sanctification for himself, he has sought a glorious crown and admirable steadfastness.

"Every valuation shall be weighed by the shekel of the sanctuary; a shekel, or didrachm, has twenty obols," so that every valuation, or definition, may be made by holy weights, that is, by those of sacred Scripture. For the outside weights, such as those of the philosophers, in which they weigh lives and ways of life, are not holy, because they possess imperfect knowledge. Nor are the weights of the heretics holy, for their conscience is seared. But holy are those in divine Scripture, in which twenty obols are a shekel, or didrachm, that is, the ten commandments understood according to the letter and according to the spirit, as the grace of the gospel suggests, and he who says in it: "Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfil." Whoever either makes the law void or rejects the gospel does not have the didrachm, nor do we receive his teaching as sanctifying. Let us treat the heretics and the Jews alike, of whom the one deny grace and the other the law. "The firstborn, which belong to God, no one can sanctify or vow; whether ox or sheep, they are the Lord's." We said in what precedes that the cattle are those who obey us, sons and servants. Their firstborn is one who so obeys and submits to us that he also gives others a lead in obedience and submission; and for this reason he is here called firstborn, and elsewhere the lawgiver says of him: "Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord." For he opens the womb of sons to be begotten who obey according to God and with pious submission, such as, for example, Timothy was to Paul; and for this reason he wrote of him to the Corinthians: "Who is my son in the Lord; he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ Jesus." No one may sanctify one who is such: not because he is unworthy of sanctification, but because he does not need to be sanctified; so he is holy already. For you have learned, as we were saying above too, that it is one thing for something to be holy to God, another to take the beginning of sanctification. The former is better and higher, since, being perfect already, it does not need a better rule. So a son who so honours his father and mother that he becomes an example of such honour to others, honouring them out of piety, that is, out of obedience to the law, and knowing that he offers this honour to God, who commands fathers to be honoured, has fulfilled the first commandment with a promise, as Paul said. And a servant who is purely subject to his master because of the commandment which says, "Servants, obey your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling, in simplicity of heart, as to the Lord, not serving to the eye as men-pleasers, but as servants of God," shows obedience to God. The same is true of the disciple, if [he obeys] his teacher for the honour of God, who [says] through the holy Paul: "Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they keep watch over your souls." Each of these is plainly said to refer to God the things that belong to this obedience and submission, whether he is pleasing to God by good simplicity or by earnest working of the commandments; and whether he ought for this reason to be called an ox or a sheep, both belong to the Lord. For you have heard how each one's obedience and submission belongs to the Lord, when, being subject to fathers or masters or teachers, they also have a good way of life, which places them among the clean animals and not among the unclean, of which he added what follows.

Verse 27. "But if it is an unclean animal, the one who offered it shall redeem it according to his valuation and add a fifth part of the price. If he will not redeem it, it shall be sold to another."

It is plain that every sinner is unclean: "For every wicked man is unclean before the Lord," says Solomon. He is wicked because the lawgiver commanded both to meditate on and to distinguish the law, in the one who chews the cud and divides the hoof; whoever lacks one of these. Whoever, then, is obedient and strongly subject to a father, or master, or teacher, yet does not know how to meditate on or distinguish the law as he ought, is indeed a firstborn among the cattle, as a leader in obedience; but he is unclean, because he does not have what the lawgiver commanded the clean to have. If, then, the father, or master, or teacher wishes to redeem him, he will be redeemed according to his valuation, "and he shall add a fifth part of the price": he adds the fifth when he offers him teaching with understanding, governing him in wisdom and not ruling him unwisely. For it belongs to a senseless father, master, or teacher to teach a son, or disciple, or servant the obedience that is owed to himself, and not to order his life so that he works according to the knowledge of the law, but to allow him to be untaught and unskilled in the law. Let him, then, add understanding to submission and to teaching; for this alone is lacking here; for this reason he said: "He shall add a fifth part of the price." Because obedience has a price, he does not say, "The priest shall value him," as he said above, but, as of one who already has a price and has been allotted the definition of teaching and submission, he ordered a fifth part to be added to it, so that, since he possesses obedience, which the law strongly commands (according to the Seventy, "a wise son is subject to his father"), he adds the fifth, and, as we have said, adds to obedience the sense by which he is to obey; and, rightly redeemed, he will be found clean. Then, according to the Seventy, he will belong to the one who possesses the servant, or son, or disciple; for his glory will lie hidden in him, as Paul said: "For you are our glory in Christ Jesus." And again: "I rejoice, then, in you." And again: "For now we live, if you stand firm in the Lord." But if the one who possesses a son, or servant, or disciple does not redeem him (for it is his part to redeem him and, by prudent admonition, to make him sensible, in the way described), he is alienated from his possession; for he says, "it shall be sold to another," or as … if he has not freed him, "it shall be sold according to the price," so that his price before God is to obey master, father, and teacher. But the one who did not exhort him, when he ought and could have exhorted him, suffers the loss of his possession, and cannot say: "Behold, I and the children whom God has given me."

Verses 28–29. "Everything that is consecrated to the Lord, whether man, or animal, or field, shall not be sold, nor can it be redeemed. Whatever has once been consecrated shall be a holy of holies to the Lord; and every consecration that is offered by man shall not be redeemed, but shall die the death."

What difference there is according to the letter between making accursed and sanctifying we have shown by what was discussed above, where we said that what has been made accursed may in no way return to human use, of anyone, not even of a priest, according to the history of the Amalekites, which we brought forward as evidence of the matter. For it was so far forbidden to touch what was made accursed that when they made Jericho accursed, because someone of the people, namely Achan son of Carmi, stole of the accursed thing, many of them fell in battle, and God, angered, said this: "I will be with you no longer until you destroy the one who is guilty of this crime." From both histories, then, it has been shown how every use and possession of the accursed thing is forbidden. And not only this, but because, by whatever right of war, they took spoils after victory from very great enemies, with whom they were not to make friendship, and from plunder, they made these accursed, and not of themselves but at God's command; for whatever the prophets command is plainly the command of God. So we too, fighting the intelligible enemies, that is, the demons, with whom we may not make friendship, against whom we have perpetual and unchangeable enmity, because of whom the Lord said, "I did not come to bring peace on earth, but a sword" (for this reason he will divide a man against his father and a daughter against her mother, and cut off the compassion of kinship, so that, leaving below the compassion of the flesh, we may more easily destroy the incorporeal enemies): whether a man, or an animal, or a field we have gained as spoil from the war we wage against them, and have won the victory, we must consecrate these to God. And we must consecrate them so that we keep nothing of our own will in them: whether it is someone in his own power (for this is truly "man"; we mean one who is in no way subject to us, but is our equal in way of life), or one who is subject to us and is therefore called an animal, that we have acquired by conquering the intelligible enemies, or from the field of our possession, that is, the one from which we have been allotted our way of life, which we have taken as spoils and trophies while fighting against the intelligible enemies: these we can neither sell nor do we need to redeem, because "everything consecrated is a holy of holies to the Lord." How? Listen. No one can despoil the enemy before he has wholly subdued him, as the Lord said to the Jews: "How can anyone enter the house of the strong man and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man, and then his goods are plundered?" We fully subdue the intelligible enemy, that is, the devil, and can bind him, plunder him, and consecrate his spoils to God, when we have overcome all his devices, crushed every head, turned away from every form of sin, overcome all the desires of the world, and attained all the virtues; for then we have him bound and can plunder him. Plundering thus and defeating him by the victory just described, whatever we have plundered we rightly offer to God. And we hold the holy of holies as perfect and complete, needing neither our exhortation nor that of others, since it needs no addition and is a perfect work. How? Because it has escaped every sin, has worked every virtue, and is estranged from the world and crucified to the world. Very fittingly, then, he added: "And every consecration that is offered by man shall not be redeemed, but shall die." By what death? That of which Paul said: "I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me." And again: "So you too consider yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." Such a one, then, as one who advances to the summit of virtue and has reached the measures of perfection (for he is dead to the age, estranged from present things, and has long since departed from the wisdom of the world), is rightly a holy of holies to the Lord, because he has imitated the Holy of holies according to his ability.

Verses 30–33. "All the tithes of the land, whether of crops or of the fruits of trees, are the Lord's, and are sanctified to him. But if anyone wishes to redeem his tithes, he shall add a fifth part of them. Of all the tithes, oxen and sheep and goats that pass under the shepherd's rod, whatever comes tenth shall be sanctified to the Lord. It shall not be chosen, either good or bad, nor exchanged for another. If anyone exchanges it, both what is exchanged and that for which it is exchanged shall be sanctified to the Lord, and it shall not be redeemed."

Perhaps you wonder for what reason he commands the tithe of the fruits of the land to be redeemed, but does not command this of oxen and sheep. The Jew cannot say, because he serves the letter alone, in which the lawgiver especially inserts many things that admit of questions, so that, being hard pressed, they may run to the spirit and know that the letter is good when it is used as an instrument and servant of the spirit. He here sets forth the difference between the disciples of the law: as among the clean and unclean firstborn some have gained obedience together with good meditation on the law and knowledge, while others have obedience alone, so here some who work the commandments have earthly wisdom and therefore need redemption; others need neither to be redeemed nor to be exchanged, as always perfect and complete. By crops, then, the law here means the harvest that comes from seed, and likewise the fruits of trees in their season. The tenth part of their produce is owed to God according to the law, and both must be taken of the fruit-bearing of the law. The Lord, setting out the parable of the gospel seeds, called those who receive the word and do it the good land bearing fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. David now cried: "The righteous will flourish like the palm," and again, "But I am like a fruitful olive in the house of the Lord"; and now, describing the righteous man briefly, he says: "And he will be like a tree planted by the streams of waters, which will yield its fruit in its season." So every tithe of this man is holy. For their action and zeal are holy; because one who, working the commandments of the law, places his hope of recompense in the present has an earthly mind, as some of the Jews were, to whom, as clinging to the earth, the Lord said: "You are from below, I am from above." And Paul too said of those who have an earthly mind:

"But our citizenship is in heaven." He hints at this now: for he did not say simply "all the tithes of the land," but first said "all the tithes of the land," and then added "whether of crops," so as to proclaim openly that one who works the commandments of the law with the intention and expectation of earthly goods, even if his tithe, that is, the working of the commandment, is holy, yet gains no great help from such working toward the recompense, which ought not to be expected from God by those who gape after earthly things. Hence if anyone wishes to gain this tithe for himself, let him add the fifth, that is, understanding, so that he may set his mind on the things that are above and stretch toward the things that are above, as Paul wrote. For one who works the commandments of the law in this way will not lose its gain, because it becomes his tithe. So the tithe of one who has an earthly mind is holy, but not to him, because he does not work the commandment in an intelligible way, nor does he know what gain to expect in it or what recompense to hope for in it.

"But oxen and sheep," and whatever are under number, "pass under the rod." He means those who are numbered under the rod of the cross, to whom faith in God and friendship with him grant that they be numbered. For whoever is faithful to God is also found to be his friend, as Abraham shows, of whom it was said: "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God." That the friends of God are counted worthy of number, though they are of an immense multitude and exceed not only number but measure, hear David saying: "But to me your friends, O God, are exceedingly honoured; their rule is exceedingly strengthened. I will number them, and they will be multiplied beyond the sand." These do not have earthly wisdom, nor do they seek a corruptible recompense in what they do. For this reason not some special thing of theirs, but whatever commandment they do, is holy to God. "And it shall not be chosen between good and bad," that is, between worse and better. For the distinguishing of them is not easy, because, even if they surpass one another, as star differs from star in glory, yet all are in heaven, as truly following heavenly things, and they are known only by him who is able to discern the saints. In this way we must understand: "It shall not be chosen, good or bad, nor exchanged for another." For since there is none of them who can be rejected, it is not for our virtue to judge which you will exchange for which, or which you should rather choose. Building on these, then, he added what follows: "If anyone exchanges it, both what is exchanged and that for which it is exchanged shall be sanctified to the Lord, and it shall not be redeemed." Since, then, the course of all of them is divine and sublime and near to the heavenly way of life, in vain do you try to reject this one and bring in another in his place and consecrate him to God as better. It is not yours to judge this, nor to call this one worse than that one among the saints. Learn this also from what happened in history. Paul and Barnabas once disputed between themselves. For Barnabas said that Mark ought to be taken along; but Paul said that one who had once withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not run with them in the work ought not to be taken. And there arose such a dispute between them that they parted from one another, and Barnabas, taking Mark, sailed to Cyprus, while Paul, choosing Silas, was commended to the grace of God. You see how he exchanged what he judged better for what he judged worse. But both what was exchanged and that for which it was exchanged became holy. For he chose Silas as fitter than Mark for the ministry of preaching, yet Mark was not driven out. Barnabas took him and went to Cyprus and preached with him, and he became so great that he became one of the four evangelists. So Paul, reconsidering and recognizing that none of the saints is to be rejected, and that no one can call one of those who have advanced perfectly worse and another better, took Mark again himself and wrote to Timothy: "Take Mark and bring him with you; for he is useful to me in the ministry." Do not, then, look to which of these is good or bad, nor exchange one for another. "And it shall not be redeemed." For what need of redemption has one who lacks nothing? And if redemption must also be understood as kinship, as Aquila rendered, he rightly will not become a kinsman; for no such one will claim the government of himself for another; but even if he was the fruit or disciple of another, by whom he came to this perfection, he will be his own governor, his own teacher. For besides the other things said here, the lawgiver wants to show that those who are taught by us, when they become perfect, no longer need our teaching at all; and for this reason he says that the firstborn of the unclean are redeemed, but those of the clean by no means. Nor are the things consecrated to God, nor these of which we now speak, shown to be other than perfect, since they bear the divine and heavenly intention.

What end the Spirit commanded this book to have, see in what follows:

Verse 34. "These are the precepts which the Lord commanded Moses for the sons of Israel on Mount Sinai."

And for what reason not to the sons of Israel themselves, but to Moses for the sons of Israel? Because the people was weaker and could not grasp so great an ordinance of the law, in which God shows, as in mirrors, the clear forms of his mysteries. You, then, if you do not wish to be of the common crowd, but such as Moses was, show yourself obedient, having all the senses of the soul clean, and say to God: "Uncover my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law." Leave the matter of the flesh and follow the riches of the Spirit. Say with David: "How sweet are your words to my palate, O Lord, beyond honey and the comb to my mouth!" so that he may command you too, as he did Moses, and entrust his wisdom to you. "For her trading is better than silver and pure gold; her fruit is more precious than all riches, and nothing that is desired can be compared with her. Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left riches and glory." Live …