On Distinctions of Foods and the Heifer in Leviticus 10–15

Translated by Claude from N. Bonwetsch's German translation (1917) of the Old Church Slavonic; neither is shown

If the Jews wish to live by the Law, they may no longer take the books of the Law in their hands, nor slaughter the lamb and keep the Passover, lest they become liable to wrath for having defiled the holy things of the Lord. For he says: "Every man who becomes unclean and does not purify himself, that person shall be cut off from the congregation," for he has "not been purified with the water of purification": not simply water, he says, but mixed with the ashes of the heifer. For such is the purification of the Law; God did not allow them to purify themselves with water alone, so that they might have cause to boast, nor to touch a grave, nor to enter the house of one who has died, nor to walk through a field of the dead, which is impossible. For by this they were prevented from living according to the Law when the ashes ran out, and they fell under punishment, God arranging this so that they would be compelled to seek one who would redeem them from the Law. For "I testify," says the apostle, "to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is bound to keep the whole Law." The years were fulfilled; the ashes ran out. No longer is "Love the Lord your God" written "on tablets of stone," compelling those under the Law to serve God against their will, but "on tablets of flesh," for those who wish to live forever, to serve God of their own free will. I would like to ask them how they bid us keep the Law: as the Law itself and the Holy Spirit bid us, or as they themselves think it should be kept? If as they themselves think, they bid us do nothing but transgress the Law. For the Law says of one who has touched a dead man's bone or a dead body that if he does not purify himself he shall be cut off from his people, so that they may not touch the holy things; but they touch the dead and bones, and not only do not purify themselves but even defile the holy things by touching them. And if as the Holy Spirit commands, how are they not the most shameless of all? If they bid us live according to the Spirit, they themselves plainly do the opposite, as he says: "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one in secret, and circumcision is of the heart, not by the letter but by the Spirit; his praise is not from men but from God."

Translated by Claude from N. Bonwetsch's German translation (1917) of the Old Church Slavonic; neither is shown

So the mystery of the heifer is kept among us, who keep the Law not according to the letter but according to the Spirit, and who no longer obey shadows and likenesses and images, but the truth itself, in accordance with the truth. Human weakness devised these signs; laying its blindness in them, it receives the truth from something else. For mankind, still powerless and without the divine goodness because of the earlier deception, received signs of what is true, in which it recognizes the truth. But those whose souls are healthy and able to recognize the Creator in the beauty of heaven need neither sign nor image. So it was necessary that the revelation should first come in the Law, so that through it one might become capable of spiritual things too, about which our Lord Jesus Christ taught us: that those who have tasted the truth should "worship" God neither "in Jerusalem" nor on "the mountain" Gerizim, but should lift up "pure hands" to him "in spirit and in truth." For the holy is not bounded by places and spaces; he takes no pleasure in such honors and services, since the true heifer has appeared, of which that one was a type, and the true purifications have been revealed. For "See," he says, "make everything according to the pattern shown you." The true "heifer" is the flesh of Christ, which he took for the purification of the world: called "red" because of the passion, "without blemish" because of innocence, "without a yoke" because pure of all sin, and "not used to" fetters (a yoke) because without passion. Outside the camp, outside Jerusalem, "in a clean place," free of all mixture, it was slaughtered; by its blood the churches are sanctified, by its "ashes" the people are purified, and by its death all the Gentiles have been redeemed from death. For "Lord," says Jeremiah, "my help, my refuge, my hope in the days of evils: to you the Gentiles will come from the ends of the earth and say: How falsely our fathers made idols!" So it is burned, as Scripture says: "They shall burn it, and its skin and flesh and its blood" they shall "burn with its dung." For the mysteries were set down as for the enlightenment and quickening of the one who is to learn. Its flesh is the holy acts; the blood, the word of interpretation; the skin, the form and purity of the faith which we have and offer to God; the dung, the transgressions, the festering wounds, for "he took on our weakness," and so on. Therefore the Law commands all to be burned, for the life of the Spirit is rational, and by it we ought to let ourselves be enlightened, according to the spiritual quickening in our hearts, so that we think nothing dark of him, and, as if led out of a prison, behold the light of God high up as on some lofty mountain, receiving the coming of the Holy Spirit. For as "the eye is the lamp of the body," so reason is that of the soul. When you leave the darkness of the letter, you will remain forever in the light. [12] So the flesh of the lamb too is eaten "not boiled in water but roasted over fire." For he does not bid us receive the word about Christ weak or "raw." For he was the "perfect lamb"; for "like a lamb," it says, "he was led to the slaughter," and so on. So when he leads the people out of Egypt and frees them from the tormentor, he is a lamb; when in turn he purifies sin, he is a heifer without blemish. Therefore "cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet" are laid "in the midst of the burning," so that by them we may recognize, as Scripture makes it known to us through these images, that it is wrong, when inquiring into the flesh of Christ, not to rise up to the holy Trinity. For so the coming of the Word would be held without share in this faith, if we in no way think rightly of the incarnation of the Word who is before the ages. The cedar wood we take, because it does not rot and is evergreen, to signify the knowledge of the Father of all, who has incorruption and immortality. The hyssop we take as a foreshadowing of the coming of the only-begotten Son, since he came for healing and salvation. For this plant is especially good against the drying up of the body, and our Lord Jesus Christ has made alive us who were dried up and withered and led us back to the first honor. The scarlet we say signifies the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, through whom our souls are well "sealed" and by whose gift they are taken out of our bodies. And this is the image of the Trinity, these being laid in the fire: the dispensation (oikonomia) of the heifer … since man, being twofold, is held by a twofold life, a pure and an impure, he needed help to choose the godly life, being suddenly enlightened in soul through these signs which serve for renewal, by which sin is altogether purified. For the ash that sprinkles what has been defiled signifies at one time the burial of Christ's body, since he is laid in "the dust of the earth" for our sake, and at another time repentance for sin. For as there, before Christ had come, they were purified with ashes, so here too those are purified who are baptized into the death of Christ, who washes away the damage (wounds) done to us by transgression. For those baptized "into Christ," says the apostle, "are baptized into his death; we have been buried with him through baptism," and so on. Why then did Scripture call Christ's death "dust (of death)" and ashes? So that it might truly appear that he took on the redeeming passion not in appearance but in truth, having taken our flesh without change; for he tasted death "like us" in truth. But those who have believed in him in such a way that they do not say he truly took on the passion for us are "still in" their "sins." So the people were not commanded to use the ashes of a second cow when the first ran out, in order to appear clean. For "Christ died for our sake," for the redemption of the world. And he has died, says the apostle; "henceforth he will not die. Death will no longer have dominion over him. For the death he died to sin he died once, and the life he lives he lives to God." He has brought the flesh into eternal life.

Translated by Claude from N. Bonwetsch's German translation (1917) of the Old Church Slavonic; neither is shown

Next, what he says (for we ought to look at what follows too): "And this is the law: if a man dies in a house, everyone who goes into that house is unclean, and everything that is there." Here he speaks not of the common death but of the death of the soul. For the soul too dies, not with a temporal death but with an eternal one. As the prophet says: "The soul that sins, it shall die." For this is its true death, the death of sin. For the beauty and covering (garment) and adornment of the soul is the good life according to Scripture. For "wise women," he says, "have built houses." So the Lord too, wishing each of us to build houses by virtue, likened him to "a wise man who built his house on the rock," calling himself the rock, and the house the stronghold of faith. "If" then "a man dies" by the death of the soul, and "you go in to him into the house," that is, into his ways and deeds, you have defiled your conscience and at once darkened your mind as well. But it is possible, if you repent before the evil works ruin in soul and body, to come and purify yourself through the holy Body. "And every vessel that is open and not tied up (with a cord) is unclean." For every soul tied and bound by the "bond" of "love" cannot take on that uncleanness. But what is open through weakness and does not bear "the seal" of Christ is defiled by the deceits of the Evil One. So Jeremiah spoke to the people, "that death comes in through their doors," calling the senses doors. If one wishes to explain these words that the Law speaks about the dead in such a way that one who touched a dead body would truly be unclean, we say: what sense would it make that what touches a dead body is unclean? How then? Do we abhor the bodies of the dead as people who will not die ourselves, or as people who will die? If as people who will not die, we say nothing at all. But if as people who will die too (for no one can avoid tasting death), what absurdity it is to abhor the bodies of the dying, as though not wishing to become like the dying; and indeed the dead are purer than we, since they are not enslaved by sins, having escaped the guilt of sin. "For whoever has died," he says, "is justified from sin." If the body were not clean, would the Lord wish to raise it and make it worthy of the kingdom of heaven? For the Lord speaks of the resurrection of the dead: "As Moses said … He is not a God of the dead, but of the living." If he is the God of the living, and the bodies that have left life are living, insofar as they have the hope of the resurrection, then they are not unclean, since God watches over them. How did the bones of Joseph not defile what came near them? For the whole people went with them.

Translated by Claude from N. Bonwetsch's German translation (1917) of the Old Church Slavonic; neither is shown

"And everyone who walks through a field of the dead, or comes near a dead person, or a man's bone, or a grave, will be unclean." A field of the dead is the desire of incontinence, which harms many, and countless are those it has killed, bringing pleasures of the imagination. To flee these snares the wise Sirach also prayed, saying: "Lord, Father and Master of my life, do not leave me in their counsels …, so that the thoughts of the belly and of sexual immorality may not overtake me." For "blessed" indeed "is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly" and shrinks back from evil deeds from afar. Or "the bone of a dead man or the grave" of a dead man: calling "bone" those who have fallen away from the faith and do not belong to the members of the church, but are cut off and dead, have lost all living movement, and are deprived of the most honored Head, our Lord, "from whom the whole body, joined and held together," "grows into a holy temple of the Lord." A grave and tomb are the hypocrites, because they adorn themselves outwardly while being evil within, as the Lord too likened such people to "adorned tombs." The Law commands one who touches such lawlessness to purify himself. For it is good, even when we have sinned a little, to purify ourselves quickly before we go down into the depth of evil. The "seventh day," on which the unclean person is declared clean, signifies the space from the sin to the confession, since the time has not yet come to its complete circuit. For if this period had passed in seven days, the times having ended, they would have found "no room for repentance." For on the seventh day, that is, at the end of life, he should be found clean. The "ashes" signify humbling (mortification). As David too said: "A broken heart God will not despise." And "the Ninevites" repented "in sackcloth and ashes." So too Esther, strewing "dung and ashes" on "her head," prayed to the Lord for her kin. So too Abraham to God: "I am earth and ashes." And in the hundred and first psalm it is said: "I ate ashes like bread and mingled my drink with tears," showing the great humbling offered from the whole heart. And again the same: "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy is forever."

Translated by Claude from N. Bonwetsch's German translation (1917) of the Old Church Slavonic; neither is shown

These are the true purifications of those who fear God, and these are the sprinklings for those who are made perfect through the body of Christ, by which not only the bodies but also the souls are purified, more than by the blood of the heifer and the other purifications of the Law. "But the blood of Christ," says the apostle, "will much more purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." To him be glory now and always and to all eternity. Amen.