Homilies on Leviticus 11.1–11.3

Recently the word of God was read in the hearing of the church, saying: “Be holy, because I too am holy, the Lord your God.” What this name “holy” means, and what it signifies in the divine Scriptures, must be investigated carefully, so that, when we have learned the force of the word, we may also be able to fulfil its work. Let us gather, then, from the divine Scriptures the things of which we find “holy” said, and we shall discover that not only men but also dumb animals are called holy; we find also the vessels of ministry called holy, garments said to be holy, and likewise places situated in cities or their outskirts and assigned to the priests. Among dumb animals, the firstborn of cattle or of flocks are commanded by the law to be sanctified to the Lord, and it is said: “Do no work with them, because they are sanctified to the Lord.” Of vessels, the vessels of ministry in the tabernacle of testimony, censers or bowls or other vessels of this kind, are called holy. Of garments, the robe of the high priest Aaron and the linen tunic and other garments of this kind are called holy. If, then, we look at the sense in which all these things are called holy, we shall see how we too must take pains to be able to be holy. A firstborn ox is born to me: I may not employ it for common work, for it is consecrated to the Lord and is therefore called holy. We understand, then, from this dumb animal, that what the law wants to be holy it commands to serve no one else but the Lord alone. Again, the dishes or bowls that it calls holy are those which are commanded never to go out of the temple but always to be in the holy place, and never to serve any human uses at all. Likewise the garments that are called holy are not commanded to serve the high priest's use at home, but to be in the temple and never to be carried out of it at all, but to be consecrated only for this, that the high priest may be clothed in them while ministering to God, and that they may always be in the temple; for other common uses he is to use common garments. Likewise it is not lawful to use the dishes and bowls that are called holy for human and common uses, but only for divine ministries. If you have understood how an animal or a vessel or a garment is called holy, understand accordingly that by these observances and laws a man too is called holy. For if anyone has devoted himself to God, if anyone has not entangled himself in worldly business, so that he may please him to whom he has proved himself, if anyone is separated and set apart from the rest of men who live carnally and are bound by worldly business, seeking not the things that are on earth but those that are in heaven, he is rightly called holy. For as long as he is mingled with the crowds and rolled about in the multitude of the wavering, and is not free for God alone, nor set apart from the common throng, he cannot be holy. For what shall we say of those who hurry with the crowds of pagans to the spectacles and defile their sight and hearing with shameless words and deeds? It is not for us to pronounce on such people. They themselves can perceive and see what portion they have chosen for themselves. You, then, who hear these things, to whom the divine law is read, whom the word of God himself addresses, saying, “Be holy, because I too am holy, the Lord your God,” understand wisely what is said, that you may be blessed when you do it. For this is what is said to you: Separate yourself not only from every man but also from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the apostolic traditions. For “be separate, you who carry the vessels of the Lord,” it says, “and go out from their midst, says the Lord.” Separate yourself from earthly deeds, separate yourself from the desire of the world. For all that is in the world, according to the Apostle, is the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes, which is not from God. When, then, you have separated yourself from all these things, devote yourself to God as a firstborn calf: let sin not work through you, nor wickedness lay its yoke on you; but be set apart and separated, given over to priestly uses only, like a firstborn animal. Set yourself apart and separate yourself, like the holy bowls and the holy censers, free for the uses of the temple alone and the ministry of God. Separate yourself and remove yourself from every pollution of sin, and be set apart and separated within the temple of God, like the holy garments of the high priest. For in the temple of God he is set apart and separated who meditates on the law of God day and night and who greatly desires his commandments. “Be holy, then,” says the Lord, “because I too am holy.” What does “because I too am holy” mean? As I, he says, am set apart and far separated from all the things that are worshipped or venerated, whether on earth or in heaven; as I surpass every creature and am set apart from all things that have been made by me; so you too be set apart from all who are not holy and not God's. And we say “set apart” not by places but by deeds, not by regions but by ways of life. Indeed the very word in the Greek language means, as it were, to be outside the earth. For whoever has consecrated himself to God will rightly be seen to be outside the earth, outside the world; for he too can say: “Walking on earth, we have our citizenship in heaven.” Solomon also says in the Proverbs: “It is a snare for a strong man hastily to sanctify something of his own; for after he has vowed, it comes about that he repents.” And this is certainly what he means: lest anyone, when he gathers fruits from the threshing floor or wine from the presses, should say, “I wish to offer so much to the church, or to give so much for the use of the poor or of strangers,” and afterwards should presume to take something of what he vows for his own uses; then he has not presumed upon his own fruits but has violated the holy things of God. And therefore it is a strong snare to sanctify something, that is, to vow it to God, and afterwards, led by regret, to recall to one's own uses what one had consecrated. But if we consecrate and offer ourselves to God, or even if we vow others, let us beware of this snare, lest perhaps after we have vowed ourselves to God we are again brought under the yoke of human uses or deeds. Each one vows himself, for example, as the Nazirites used to do, consecrating themselves to the temple of God for three or four or however many years they pleased, so as always to be free for it there, observing what is written of the Nazirites: that they should let the hair of their head grow and no iron should come upon their head for the whole time of their vow, that they should not touch wine nor anything from the vine, and whatever else the profession of the vow included. But one may also vow another to God, as Hannah did Samuel: for before he was born she offered him, saying: “And I will give him to the Lord, given for all the days of his life.” From all this it is clear how each of us who wishes to be holy ought to be consecrated to God and occupied with no other business or deeds that do not pertain to God.

After this it is written: “Keep my commandments and do them; I am the Lord.” And to these it adds: “A man, any man who curses his father or his mother, let him die.” And after many things that he commanded, to which he also attached penalties for transgression, he adds at the close: “And keep all my commandments and my ordinances and my judgments.” It therefore seems to me fitting to ask what is indicated in each of these. As far as I have been able to observe, a commandment, or precept, is that which is said in the Decalogue, for example: “You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery”; for this is only commanded, and no penalty for the offence is attached. But now the same things are repeated with these penalties added; for it is said: “Any man who commits adultery with a man's wife, and with the wife of his neighbour, let the one who commits adultery and the woman with whom adultery is committed be put to death. And if anyone lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's shame; let both be put to death, for they are guilty.” About these things commandments had already been given earlier, but what penalty awaited the one who did not observe them had not been written. Now, then, the same things are repeated, and the penalty for each sin is decreed; and therefore these are rightly called ordinances and judgments, by which the one who sins is judged to receive what is just. But observe the order of divine wisdom: it does not at once set penalties alongside the first commandments. For it wants you to keep your father's commandments not from fear of punishment but from love of piety; but if you despise them, the penalty is commanded no longer so much for a man as for a despiser. First, then, you are called by kindness as a son: “For I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.” But if you do not wish to be an obedient son, you will be punished as a despiser, like a slave. After this he says: “And if anyone lies with his daughter-in-law, let both be put to death; they have committed impiety, they are guilty.” He had given these laws or commandments above without penalties, for he had said: “You shall not uncover the shame of your daughter-in-law, since she is your son's wife; you shall not uncover her shame,” and all that follows. And this passage too he wrote there in the same way without punishments, but here with various kinds of punishment. In this place I recall the word which the blessed apostle Paul speaks when writing to the Hebrews: “Anyone who sets aside the law of Moses dies without any mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses; how much greater punishment will he be thought worthy of who has trampled on the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a defiled thing, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?” But listen to why I have mentioned this scripture. According to the law the adulterer and the adulteress were put to death, and they could not say, “We ask for repentance and we beg for pardon.” There was no place for tears, nor was any opportunity of amendment granted, but whoever had fallen foul of the law had to be punished in every case. And this was kept also in each of the crimes to which the penalty of death was attached. Among Christians, however, if adultery has been committed, there is no command that the adulterer or adulteress be punished by bodily death; nor has power been given to the bishop of the church to condemn the adulterer to present death, as was then done according to the law by the presbyters of the people. What then? Shall we say that the law of Moses is cruel, which orders the adulterer or adulteress to be punished, and that the Gospel of Christ by its indulgence loosens its hearers for the worse? Not so. For this is why we cited above the word of Paul, who says, “How much worse punishment does he deserve who has trampled on the Son of God?” and so on. Hear, then, how neither was the law cruel then, nor does the Gospel now seem lax because of the abundance of pardon, but in both the kindness of God is maintained by a different dispensation. The adulteress was punished by present death, and by this very fact she bore the penalty of her sin and paid the due punishment for the crime committed. What will there be after this that threatens their souls with vengeance, if they have committed no other offence, if there is no other sin to condemn them, but they committed this alone, and only then when they were punished and bore the punishment of the law for it? The Lord will not punish twice for the same thing; for they have received for their sin, and the penalty of the crime has been used up. And therefore this kind of commandment is found to be not cruel, as the heretics assert who accuse the law of God and deny that it contains anything of humanity, but full of mercy, because by it the people were purged of their sins rather than condemned. But now no penalty is inflicted on the body, nor does the purging of sin take place through bodily punishment, but through repentance; and whether anyone carries this out worthily, so as to be able to merit pardon for it, you must see. For there are many who are not even inclined to this nor seek the refuge of repentance, but when they have fallen they no longer wish to rise, and delight to wallow in the mud in which they are stuck. Yet we do not forget that commandment which says: “With the measure with which you measure, it will be measured back to you.” For we also say to God: “You have given us the bread of tears and given us tears to drink in measure.” These, then, are the sins which are called “unto death”; hence it also follows that as often as anyone commits such a sin, so often he dies. For the apostle Paul too indicates that there are many deaths of sin when he says: “Who delivered us from such great deaths, and delivers us, in whom we hope that he will deliver us still.” What many deaths does he mention here, if not those of sins? For if he were not saying this of the deaths of sins, Paul would seem by his own statement to be going to remain immortal, exempt from this common death, since he says, “who delivered us from such great deaths, and delivers us, in whom we hope that he will deliver us still.” For if he delivered and will deliver, when will the one die whom the Lord will always deliver? And therefore, according to what we have discussed, we must see whether perhaps it may at some time be more grievous for us, who are not punished at all by this common death for sin, than for those whom the sentence of the law condemned bodily: because for us vengeance is laid up for the future, whereas they were absolved by the punishment paid for their offence. And if there is anyone who has perhaps been overtaken in sins of this kind, let him, now admonished by the word of God, flee to the help of repentance: so that if he has committed it once, he may not do it a second time; or if he has been overtaken a second or even a third time, he may add no more. For with a just judge the measure of punishment is set not only by the quality but also by the quantity.

Among the other sins which are punished by death, the divine law states that whoever curses his father or mother is to be put to death. The name of father is a great mystery, and the name of mother is a hidden reverence. Your father according to the spirit is God; your mother is the heavenly Jerusalem. Learn this from the testimonies of the prophets and apostles. Moses himself writes in the song: “Is not he himself your father who acquired you?” And the Apostle says of the heavenly Jerusalem that “she is free, who is,” he says, “the mother of us all.” First, then, your father is God, who begot your spirit, who also says: “I have begotten sons and exalted them.” And the apostle Paul says: “Let us obey the Father of spirits and we shall live.” Second, your father is the father of your flesh, by whose ministry you were born in the flesh and came into this world, who carried you in his loins, as it is said of Levi that he was still in the loins of Abraham when Melchizedek met him, returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him and received tithes from him. Since, then, the name of father is so sacred and so venerable, therefore whoever curses his father or mother shall die. Similar things are to be thought of the mother, by whose labour, care, and ministry you were born and nourished. And therefore, according to the Apostle, you must make a like return of gratitude to your parents. For if you dishonour your fleshly father, the insult returns to the Father of spirits; and if you wrong your fleshly mother, the wrong overflows to that mother, the heavenly Jerusalem. So also a slave, if he is irreverent to his master, through this bodily master hurls an insult at the Lord of majesty; for he gave his own name to this fleshly master. And therefore in no way is any quarrel to be had, not even in word, against father or mother, nor any contradiction raised. He is your father, she is your mother: let them act, do, and speak as seems good to them; they themselves will answer for it. However much deference we show, we do not yet repay the favour by which we were begotten, carried, by which we drew in the light, were nourished, perhaps also educated and trained in honourable arts. And perhaps through them we came to know God, came to the church of God, and heard the word of the divine law. For all these reasons, then, whoever curses his father or mother shall die. But if these things are decreed concerning bodily parents, what will become of those who assail God the Father with cursing words, who deny that he is the creator of the world, or who, understanding the prophetic sayings in an unworthy sense, reduce the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all, to the condition of some earthly city? It is good, then, to take care that we never venerate either our fleshly father or the heavenly one with less worthy honour, and likewise our mother; and to observe also every commandment that commends modesty and chastity to us, so that neither in the present life are we liable to death according to the law, nor, according to the spiritual law, does the future penalty of eternal fire await us; from which may our Lord Jesus Christ grant us all to flee and escape, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.