Homilies on Leviticus 7.4–8.2

But let us now look at some of the things that were read about the clean and unclean, whether foods or animals; and just as in explaining the cup we ascended from the shadow to the truth of the spiritual cup, so also from the foods that are spoken of through the shadow let us ascend to those which through the Spirit are true foods. But to investigate these things we need the testimonies of the divine Scripture, lest anyone think (for men love to sharpen their tongues like a sword), lest anyone, I say, think that I do violence to the divine Scriptures, and drag to human beings the things related in the law about clean or unclean animals, four-footed beasts, or also birds or fish, and claim that these things were said about human beings. For perhaps one of the hearers will say: “Why do you do violence to the Scriptures? Animals are spoken of; let animals be understood.” So that no one may believe these things are distorted by human ingenuity, then, apostolic authority must be called upon for them. Hear first of all how Paul speaks of them: “For all,” he says, “passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” Paul says this, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, according to the law a Pharisee, and taught at the feet of Gamaliel, who certainly would never have dared to call it spiritual food and spiritual drink unless he had learned that this was the sense of the lawgiver through the knowledge of the truest teaching handed down to him. Hence he adds this too, as one confident and certain about the meaning of clean and unclean foods, that they are to be observed not according to the letter but spiritually, and he says: “Let no one, then, judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come.” You see, then, how all that Moses says about food or drink Paul, who had learned these things better than those who now boast that they are teachers, says is all a shadow of things to come. And therefore, as we said, we ought to ascend from this shadow to the truth. The discourse is from Christians to Christians, to whom the authority of the apostolic sayings ought to be dear. But if anyone, swollen with arrogance, despises or spurns the apostolic sayings, that is his concern. But for me it is good to cleave, as to God and our Lord Jesus Christ, so also to his apostles, and to take understanding from the divine Scriptures according to their tradition. There will perhaps be a suitable time, if it is God's will and circumstances are calmer (for we do not know what the coming day will bring forth), for us to show also from the Old Testament, according to what seemed good to the apostles, the meaning of clean and unclean foods, and the understanding, to be referred to human beings, of the animals, birds, and fish about which the law writes. But now, since there is no time to use a wider explanation, let us be content with two lights of the apostles as witnesses, Peter and Paul. And what Paul thought we have already brought forward. But the apostle Peter, when he was in Joppa and wished to pray, went up to the upper room. I, however, take it that this very thing, that he would not pray below but went up to the upper part, is not said in vain. For it was not superfluously that the counsel of so great an apostle chose the upper part for praying, but, as I think, so that it might be shown that Peter, because he had died with Christ, was seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, and not the things on earth. He went up there, to those roofs, to those heights of which the Lord too says: “Let him who is on the roof not go down to take anything from the house.” Indeed, so that you may know that we do not say this of Peter's going up to the upper part on mere suspicion, you will find it proved from what follows. “He went up,” it says, “to the upper part to pray, and he saw heaven opened.” Does it not yet seem to you that Peter had gone up not only in body but in mind and spirit? “He saw,” it says, “heaven opened, and a certain vessel let down like a sheet to the earth, in which were all four-footed beasts, and reptiles, and birds of the sky, and he heard a voice saying to him: Rise, Peter, kill and eat”: commanding him, no doubt, to eat the four-footed beasts and serpents and birds which, placed on the sheet, had been brought down to him from heaven. But he said: “Lord, you know that nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” And the voice, it says, came to him a second time: “What God has cleansed, do not call common”; and this happened three times. “And after this,” it says, “the sheet was taken up into heaven.” The question here is about clean and unclean animals. Concerning these the apostle is taught the knowledge of the matter from heaven, since indeed he had no one more eminent and greater than himself on earth; and he is taught not by one voice nor by one vision but by three. Nor do I take this very fact, that these things are said three times, as said idly. It is said to him a third time, and through him to all of us: “What God has cleansed, do not call common.” For the things he has cleansed are not cleansed under one name, nor under a second; but unless a third name also is named, no one is cleansed. For unless you have been cleansed in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, you cannot be clean. Therefore, then, the things that were shown for cleansing are shown not once, nor twice, but a third time, and are commanded a third time. There were, then, on that sheet all the four-footed beasts and reptiles and birds of the sky. “And after this,” it says, “Peter was pondering within himself what this might be. And while he was still pondering there came,” it says, “those who had been sent by Cornelius the centurion from that city,” that is, from Caesarea to Joppa. For Peter was there, and was lodging with a certain Simon, a tanner. And it is well that Peter stays with a tanner, perhaps that one of whom Jacob says: “You have clothed me with skin and flesh.” But let these things be said in digression. Meanwhile those who had been sent from Cornelius to Peter arrive; receiving them, he hears from them what Cornelius sends to him. And going down from the upper part, he came to Cornelius. “He went down,” it says: for Cornelius was still below and remained in the lower parts. He came, then, to Caesarea, found many gathered at Cornelius's house, and said to them, after many things: “And God has shown me,” he says, “to call no man common or unclean.” Does it not seem to you that the apostle Peter clearly transferred all those four-footed beasts and reptiles and birds to man, and understood as human beings the things which had been shown to him on the sheet let down from heaven?

But perhaps someone will say: “You have given an account of the four-footed beasts, reptiles, and birds, that they should be understood as human beings; give one also of the things that are in the waters.” Since the law designates some of these too as clean and others as unclean, I ask that nothing in this matter be believed on my word unless I produce suitable witnesses. I will give you our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ himself as witness and author of these things, how fish are said to be human beings. “The kingdom of heaven,” he says, “is like a net cast into the sea, which gathers fish of every kind; and when it is full, sitting on the shore they put the good into vessels, but the bad are thrown out.” He clearly taught that the fish said to be gathered in the nets are either good or bad people. These, then, are the ones who according to Moses are named clean or unclean fish. These things having been proved from apostolic and Gospel authority, then, let us see how each human being can be shown to be clean or unclean. Every human being has in himself some food which he offers to the neighbour who comes to him. For it cannot happen that, when we human beings come to one another and join in conversation, we do not either take or give some taste among ourselves, whether from a reply, or a question, or some gesture. And if the person from whom we take a taste is clean and of good mind, we take clean food. But if the one we touch is unclean, we take unclean food, according to what was said above. And therefore, I think, the apostle Paul says of such people, as of unclean animals: “Not even to eat with such a one.” But so that what we say may become clearer to your understanding, let us take an example from greater things, so that, descending gradually from there, we may come down to the lesser. Our Lord and Saviour says: “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in yourselves. My flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink.” Jesus, then, because he is wholly and entirely clean, his whole flesh is food and his whole blood is drink; because every work of his is holy and every word of his is true. For this reason, then, his flesh too is true food and his blood true drink. For with the flesh and blood of his word, as with clean food and drink, he gives drink to and refreshes the whole human race. In the second place, after his flesh, Peter and Paul and all the apostles are clean food. In the third place, their disciples; and so each one, according to the measure of his merits or the purity of his understanding, becomes clean food to his neighbour. He who does not know how to hear these things may perhaps twist them and turn away his hearing, like those who said: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Who can listen to him?” And they went away from him. But you, if you are children of the church, if you are steeped in the Gospel mysteries, if the Word made flesh dwells in you, recognize what we say, that these things are the Lord's, lest perhaps he who does not know be not known. Recognize that the things written in the divine volumes are figures, and therefore examine and understand what is said as spiritual and not as fleshly people. For if you take these things as fleshly people, they harm you and do not nourish you. For there is in the Gospels too a letter that kills; not only in the Old Testament is a killing letter found. There is also in the New Testament a letter that kills him who does not perceive spiritually what is said. For if you follow according to the letter this very saying, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood,” this letter kills. Do you wish me to bring forward from the Gospel another letter that kills? “He who has no sword,” he says, “let him sell his tunic and buy a sword.” Behold, this too is a letter of the Gospel, but it kills. But if you take it spiritually, it does not kill, but there is in it a life-giving Spirit. And therefore, whether in the law or in the Gospels, take spiritually what is said, because “the spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one.” As we said, then, every human being has in himself some food; and if he is good, and brings forth good things from the good treasure of his heart, he offers clean food to his neighbour who takes from it. But if he is evil and brings forth evil things, he offers unclean food to his neighbour. For someone innocent and upright of heart can seem a clean animal, a sheep, and offer to him who hears him clean food, as a sheep, which is a clean animal. And likewise in the other cases. And therefore every human being, as we said, when he speaks to his neighbour, and either profits or harms him by his words, becomes to him a clean or an unclean animal, of which we are commanded either to use the clean or to abstain from the unclean. If according to this understanding we say that the supreme God promulgated laws to human beings, I think the legislation will seem worthy of the divine majesty. But if we sit by the letter, and take what is written in the law according to this, or according to what seems right to the Jews or to the crowd, I blush to say and confess that God gave such laws. For the laws of men would seem more elegant and reasonable, for example those of the Romans, or of the Athenians, or of the Spartans. But if the law of God is taken according to this understanding which the church teaches, then plainly it surpasses all human laws, and will truly be believed to be the law of God. And so, these things having been set out first, let us touch on a few points about the clean and unclean animals with a spiritual understanding, as we have urged.

“Every beast,” he says, “that divides the hoof and has hoofs and brings up the cud among the cattle, these you shall eat. Besides these, you shall not eat of those which bring up the cud and do not divide the hoofs, and have hoofs. The camel, because it brings up the cud and does not divide the hoof, shall be unclean to you. And the hare, because it brings up the cud and does not divide the hoof, shall be unclean to you; and the hedgehog, because it brings up the cud and does not divide the hoof, is unclean to you; and swine,” and so on. He decrees, then, that such animals not be eaten as seem clean in part and unclean in part: as the camel seems clean in that it chews the cud, but is called unclean in that it does not have divided hoofs. After this he names the hare and the hedgehog, and of them too he says that they chew the cud but do not divide the hoofs. And he makes another class of those which, on the contrary, divide the hoof but do not chew the cud. First, then, let us see who these are who chew the cud and divide the hoof, whom he calls clean. I think that he is said to chew the cud who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night. But hear how it is said: “He who divides,” it says, “the hoof and brings back the cud.” He brings back the cud, then, who brings back what he reads according to the letter to the spiritual sense, and ascends from the lowest and visible things to the invisible and higher. But if you meditate on the divine law and bring back what you read to a subtle and spiritual understanding, but your life and your actions are not such as to make the distinction between the present life and the future, between this age and the age to come; if you do not discern and divide these things with fitting reason, you are a crooked camel; for when you have received understanding from meditating on this divine law, you do not divide nor separate the present and the future, nor do you distinguish the narrow way from the broad way. But let us explain what is said still more clearly. There are those who take up the covenant of God in their mouth, and though they have the law of God in their mouth, their life and actions are far at odds with their words and speeches. For they say and do not do; of whom the prophet too says: “But to the sinner God said: Why do you recount my righteous deeds and take up my covenant in your mouth?” You see, then, how he chews the cud who has the covenant of God in his mouth. But what is said to him in what follows? “But you have hated discipline, and have cast my words behind you.” In this he clearly shows that this one chews the cud but does not divide the hoof; and therefore whoever is such is unclean. And again there is another, either of those who are outside our religion or of those who are with us, who divide the hoofs and so walk in their ways as to prepare their actions for the age to come. For many even of the philosophers think in this way and believe that there will be a judgment. For they hold that the soul is immortal, and acknowledge that a reward has been laid up for all good people. Some of the heretics also do this, and, as far as it concerns them, bear the fear of the coming judgment, and temper their actions more carefully, as things to be examined at the divine scrutiny. But neither of these chews the cud or brings back the cud. For on hearing what is written in the law of God, one does not meditate on it and bring it back to a subtle and spiritual understanding; but as soon as he hears anything, he either scorns or despises it, and does not seek what precious sense lies hidden in humble words. And these have the hoof divided, but do not bring back the cud. But you, who wish to be clean, have a fitting life, consonant with your knowledge, and actions with your understanding: so that you may be clean in both, so that you may both bring back the cud and divide the hoof, and also grow out, or cast off, the hoofs. Let us seek a testimony of this matter too, how we grow out, or, as is read elsewhere, cast off the hoofs. It is written in Deuteronomy: “If,” it says, “you go out to war against your enemies and see there a woman of beautiful appearance and desire her, you shall take her, and shave all the hair of her head and her nails, and clothe her in mourning garments; and she shall sit in your house mourning her father and her mother and her father's house, and after thirty days she shall be your wife.” But it is not now our purpose to explain these things which have been called as testimony; we have mentioned it because here too mention is made of nails. Yet I too have often gone out to war against my enemies, and have seen there among the spoil a woman of beautiful appearance. For whatever we find said well and reasonably among our enemies, if we read anything said wisely and knowingly among them, we must cleanse it, and from the knowledge that is among them remove and cut off everything that is dead and empty: for this is all the hair of the head and the nails of the woman taken from the spoils of the enemies; and only then make her our wife, when she has nothing of those things which are called dead through unbelief, has nothing dead on her head, nothing on her hands, so that she bears nothing unclean or dead either in her thoughts or in her actions. For the women of our enemies have nothing clean, because there is no wisdom among them with which some uncleanness is not mixed. Yet I should like the Jews to tell me how these things are observed among them. What cause, what reason is there for the woman to be shaved bald and her nails removed? For example, let us suppose that he who is said to have found her found her such that she had neither hair nor nails: what did she have that the law would command to be removed? But we, whose warfare is spiritual, and whose weapons are not fleshly but powerful through God for destroying counsels, if a beautiful woman is found among the enemies, some rational discipline, will purify her in the way we said above. He who is clean, then, must not only divide the hoofs, and not only discern the actions and works of the present age and of the future, but also grow out, or, as we read elsewhere, cast off the hoofs, so that, purifying ourselves from dead works, we may remain in life.

Let these things be said in general about the animals. As for those in the waters, which are said to be clean if they have fins and scales, but unclean, and not to be eaten, if they do not: this is shown in them, that if anyone is in these waters, and placed in the sea of this life and in its waves, he ought nevertheless to strive not to lie in the depths of the waters, like those fish which are said to have neither fins nor scales. For their nature is said to be such that they always stay in the depths and around the very mud, like eels and things like them, which cannot rise to the surface of the water nor reach its upper parts. But those fish which are helped by fins and protected by scales rise more to the upper parts and come nearer to this air, as if seeking the freedom of the spirit. Such, then, is every saint, who, enclosed within the nets of faith, is called a good fish by the Saviour, and is also put into the vessel, as having fins and scales. For he would not have had fins, would not have risen from the mud of unbelief, nor come to the net of faith, unless, helped by fins, he had come to the upper parts. And what is it that he is said to have scales too? As one ready to lay aside old garments. For those which have no scales are as it were wholly flesh and entirely fleshly, unable to lay anything aside. If, then, anyone has fins with which to strive toward the upper parts, he is clean. But he who has no fins, but remains in the lower parts and always turns about in the mud, is unclean. And likewise of birds. “You shall not eat,” it says, “these, because they are unclean: the eagle, and the vulture,” and the rest like these. For the food of these birds is always dead bodies, and they live on dead carcasses. All, then, who lead such a life are to be held unclean. I think that those too are named in these who brood over others' deaths and by some art or fraud substitute wills. For men of this kind are rightly called vultures and eagles, as gaping after the carcasses of the dead. I know other birds too, which live by plunder. These are souls which, in that they are rational and imbued with liberal studies or rational disciplines, seem to be birds. For they read and inquire either about the reason of the heavens or how the world is governed by God's providence; in this respect, then, they are named birds. But if men of this kind act wickedly and do contrary to the law, plunder their neighbours, so that while heavenly learning seems to be in their words, in their actions they do fleshly and dead works, they are rightly to be called vultures or eagles, which swoop from the heights onto dead and stinking flesh. To this must be referred also the rapacity of the hawk and of all the others; of which some birds are devoted to rapacity, while others love not so much rapacity as obscurity and darkness. “For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light,” like the owls and bats and the rest which the law has declared unclean. Guarding ourselves from all these with spiritual observance, and seeking food from clean animals, we too shall be made pure and clean, through Christ our Lord, through whom to God the Father with the Holy Spirit be glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

That our Lord Jesus Christ is called a physician in the divine Scriptures we shall be led to see even by the Lord's own saying, as he says in the Gospels: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. For I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Every physician composes from the juices of herbs or trees, or from the veins of metals, or from the natures of animals, medicines that will benefit bodies. But if someone happens to see these herbs before they are compounded according to the method of the art, if they are in the fields or on the mountains, he treads on them and passes them by as cheap hay. But if he sees them arranged in order within the physician's surgery, although they give off a gloomy, strong, and harsh smell, he will nevertheless suspect that they contain something of cure or remedy, even if he does not yet know what or what kind of power of healing and remedy there is. This we have said of ordinary physicians. Come now to Jesus the heavenly physician; enter this station of his medicine, the church; see lying there a multitude of the sick. There comes a woman who has been made unclean by childbirth; there comes a leper who has been separated outside the camp because of the uncleanness of leprosy; they seek from the physician a remedy, how they may be healed, how they may be cleansed. And because this Jesus who is the physician is himself also the Word of God, he procures medicines for his sick not from the juices of herbs but from the sacraments of words. If anyone sees these medicines of words scattered rather roughly through the books, as through fields, not knowing the power of each saying, he will pass them by as cheap and having no polish of speech. But he who has learned in any measure that the medicine of souls is with Christ will surely understand that from these books which are read in the church, as from fields and mountains, each one ought to take healing herbs, at least the force of the words, so that if there is any sickness in his soul, he may be healed not so much by the outer leaf and bark as by drawing out the power of the inner juice. Let us see, then, against the uncleanness of childbirth and the contagion of leprosy, how diverse and how various are the medicines of purification which this present reading prepares.

“And the Lord spoke,” it says, “to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: Any woman who has conceived seed and borne a male shall be unclean seven days.” First let us consider according to the literal account whether it does not seem added as it were superfluously, “a woman who has received seed and borne a male,” as if she could bear a male otherwise than by conceiving seed. But it is not added superfluously. For to distinguish her who conceived and bore without seed, the lawgiver added this expression for the other women: so as not to designate as unclean every woman who had given birth, but her who had given birth after conceiving seed. To this can be added also that this law, which is written about uncleanness, pertains to women. But of Mary it is said that a virgin conceived and bore. Let women, then, bear the burdens of the law, but let virgins be held exempt from them. But if some clever person meets us and says that Mary too is called a woman in the Scriptures (for so the Apostle says: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law”), we shall answer him that in this the Apostle named “woman” not to indicate the loss of integrity but as a sign of sex; so that, since he was saying that the Son of God had been sent, he might at the same time explain that he had come into this world by the entrance common to all. Further, this word also denotes an age: namely that in which the female sex passes beyond the years of puberty and comes to the time when she seems fit for a husband. Just as, conversely, he is called a man who has passed the time of adolescence, even if he does not yet have a wife whose man he could be called; by which name even those are usually called whom no stain of union with a woman has touched. If, then, he too is rightly called a man by reason of manly age alone who has known union with no woman, how by the same consequence is not a virgin who has remained undefiled also named a woman by reason of maturity of age alone? Indeed Abraham too, when he sent his servant to Mesopotamia to the house of Bethuel to take from there a wife for his son Isaac, and the servant inquired rather carefully, said to him: “But if the woman will not follow me, shall I bring your son back there?” And he did not say, “if the virgin will not follow me.” Let this, then, be said by us about what we observed written, that the lawgiver did not add superfluously, “a woman if she has conceived seed and borne a son”; but that it is a mystical exception which set apart Mary alone from the other women, whose childbearing was not from the conception of seed but from the presence of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High.