Homilies on Leviticus 8.11–9.4

But notice also how, when he said above, “This is the law of the leper on the day on which he is cleansed,” he now adds to all these things and says, “and he shall be clean.” For if, having once cast off the leprosy, he has been cleansed, how shall he still be clean? But see that even if someone is cleansed from sin and is no longer in the work of sin, yet the very traces of the crime committed need purification, both that which we have expounded and the others which are commanded in what follows. For we observed that, after what is written of the leper, “on the day on which he is cleansed”, among the other things commanded it is said a third time, “and he shall be clean,” and again at the end it is written, “and he shall be cleansed.” Hence it seems to me that there are certain differences in purification itself, and, so to speak, certain advances of purgation. For it can be said even of one who ceases from sin, “and he shall be clean”; but he will not at once seem so clean as to have reached the summit of purity. Indeed he adds to what he had said, “on whatever day he is cleansed”: “and the living bird,” it says, “shall be sent out into the field, and he who is being purified shall wash his garments.” And after this: “he shall shave,” it says, “all his hair.” And he adds: “and he shall be washed in water.” And after this it is added: “And he shall be clean.” For it would not have sufficed that he had said in the response, “he shall be clean,” had he not added these things too. This one, then, who is being purified from leprosy had filthy garments until now, even after the sprinkling, and now he is commanded to wash them. Yet these garments do not seem to me to have been of altogether bad weave. Otherwise he would have commanded them to be thrown away rather than washed. In this it is shown that his way of life was neither altogether estranged from God, nor kept entirely pure and whole; for he would not wash the garments unless they had been filthy, nor again use them once washed if they had been of a weave wholly foreign. And as to his being commanded to shave all his hair, I think he is commanded to cast off whatever of dead work sprang up in the soul while it was placed in sins (for this is now called hair). For it is fitting for the sinner, if he truly wishes to be purified, to shave off and cast away everything that was born in him, whether in counsel, or in word, or in deed, and not allow anything to remain. But the saint ought to keep all his hair, and, if possible, a razor ought not to come up on his head, lest it cut off any of his wise thoughts, or words, or works. Hence indeed it is said of Samuel too that a razor did not come up on his head; and so of all the Nazirites, who are righteous; because the righteous man, as it is written, “whatever he does shall prosper, and his leaf shall not fall.” Hence too the hairs of the head of the Lord's disciples are said to be numbered: that is, all their actions, all their words, all their thoughts are kept with God, because they are righteous, because they are holy. But every work, every word, every thought of sinners must be cut off. And this is what is said: “That all the hair of his body be shaved, and then he shall be clean.” But observe this too, that it is not enough for him after purification to have washed his garments or shaved all his hair, unless he has also been washed in water. For he must cast off all filth, all uncleanness, not only from his garments but also from his own body, so that no stain of the extinguished leprosy may remain in him. Purified now, then, a third time, he is at last made worthy to enter the camp of the Lord; yet he is not at once permitted to enter his own house, but it is said that he shall remain outside his house seven days, and shave all the hair of his head and beard and eyebrows; as if it had not sufficed that he had earlier shaved all his hair, it is now added that he shave all the hair of his head and beard and eyebrows. For the same thing seemed to have been said in his saying that all the hair was to be shaved. But this repetition does not seem to me empty. For he wishes to admonish the sinner, after he has become clean, after he has received the remission of sins through penance, about the purging of his head, beard, and eyebrows, as if he were saying to him: “Behold, now you have been made well; see that you do not again contract a fault of the head.” For it is a sin of the head to think about the divine doctrines otherwise than the faith of the church holds. In the beard, that he may remember that he has laid aside the sins of manly age, and, converted, become as an infant. In the eyebrows, that he may cast down arrogance and bend the wrongly raised eyebrow to the humility of Christ. In this way, then, all the hair of the body is shaved a second time. And just as these things are doubled, so it is not enough to have washed the garments once in the first purification, but he is commanded a second time to wash his garments and his body with water, and then, a fourth time, it is added: “and he shall be clean.” These things are done while he is now placed within the camp, yet still outside his own house. For it says: after seven days, on the eighth day, he shall take for himself two lambs. Now another does not take them, but he takes them for himself. “Two lambs,” it says, “without blemish, and one ewe a year old without blemish, and three tenths of fine flour mixed with oil, and one cup of oil”; after this, purified by a fifth purification, he will be brought to completion. Of these two lambs, one is sacrificed and is said to be for offence, “in the place,” it says, “in which the sin offering is slaughtered and where the burnt offerings are made, in a holy place.” Behold, he who has been able to reach the fifth purification is now made worthy to offer a sacrifice, and his victim becomes holy of holies. The other lamb becomes a burnt offering, in which the priest is also said to make propitiation for him, so that he may be purged. The first lamb, then, which is for offence, seems to me to hold the form of that very virtue which he who was in sins took up, by which he could drive away from himself the inclination to sin and bear repentance for his old evils; and the second lamb to hold the figure of that virtue now recovered, by which, all vices cast away and put to flight far off, he offered himself whole and entire to God, and became worthy of the divine altars. The ewe, which is taken after the lambs, as far as we can conjecture in such difficult places, I think signifies the fruitfulness of one who has turned from sin and offered himself wholly to God, who after all things abounds in the offspring of good works and is strong in the fruits of innocence. The meaning of this purification, then, that is, of conversion from sin, is divided into three. The first is the victim by which sins are loosed. The second, that by which the soul is turned to God. The third is that of fruitfulness and the fruits which he who is said to be converted shows in works of piety. And because these victims are three, therefore he adds that three measures of a tenth of fine flour are also to be taken, so that we may understand everywhere that purification cannot happen without the mystery of the Trinity. And see that here, in the fifth purification, coarse flour is not taken, but this one who is being purified from sins now has fine flour; fine flour is assigned to him, from which he may now have clean bread, and this is mixed with oil. And his oil too is divided for two uses: one with which the fine flour is mixed, the other of which the priest takes the whole measure of the cup, as it says. In this, as I think, both his bread is made rich through mercy, and the oil by which the true light and the fire of knowledge is kindled is put on his head by the hands of the priest. For so it says: “And the priest who cleanses him shall set him before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of witness.” You see that it belongs to the priest to set firm the one who is converted from sin, so that he may be able to be stable and no longer waver nor be moved by every wind of doctrine. He sets him, then, not only within the camp, but at the very door of the tabernacle of witness before the Lord. And after the victims have been offered for purification, according to what was said above, he applies, it says, also the cup of oil, and sets it apart before the Lord. “And the priest,” it says, “shall take some of the blood and put it on the tip of his right ear, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot.” And after this, it says, the priest shall take not the cup of oil itself but some of it: “And he shall pour it into his left hand, and the priest shall dip his finger in the oil that is in his left hand, and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord”; and again: “Of what remains in his left hand he shall put on the right ear of the one who is being purified, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot.” And after this: “What is left of the oil,” it says, “the priest shall put from his hand on the head of the one who is being purified.” You see how it belongs to the last and highest purification for the ear to be purified, so that the hearing may be kept pure and clean; and the right hand, so that our works may be clean and nothing unclean and filthy be mixed with them. And the feet too must be purified, so that they may be directed only to good work and no longer incur the falls of youth. And the priest sprinkles some of the oil seven times before the Lord. For after all the things that were celebrated for the one purified, after he was converted and reconciled to God, after the victims were sacrificed, it was in order that he should also invite upon him the sevenfold power of the Holy Spirit, according to him who had said: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and strengthen me with a guiding spirit.” Or certainly, since the Lord in the Gospel testifies that the hearts of sinners are besieged by seven demons, the priest fittingly sprinkles seven times before the Lord in the purification, so that the expulsion of the seven evil spirits from the heart of the one purified may be declared by the oil shaken from the fingers seven times. So, then, to those converted from sin purification is given through all the things we said above; but the gift of the grace of the Spirit is signified by the image of the oil, so that the one who is converted from sin may not only obtain purgation but also be filled with the Holy Spirit, by whom he may receive again the first robe and the ring, and, reconciled to the Father in every way, be restored to the place of a son, through our Lord Jesus Christ himself, to whom be glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen. [Heading of the next homily:] On the sacrifices of propitiation, and on the two goats, of which one is the Lord's lot and one is for the sending away, which is sent into the desert, and on the high priest's entrance into the Holy of Holies.

All who have sinned need the Day of Atonement, and therefore among the festivals of the law, which contain figures of heavenly mysteries, one is kept which is called the Day of Atonement. What has just been read, then, is the legislation of that festival, which, as we said, is named the Day of Atonement. But let us first see what the content of the letter itself means, so that, while you pray (if indeed you so entreat the Lord as to deserve to be heard), we may receive the grace of the Spirit by which we may be able to explain the mysteries contained in the law. The two sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, died when they offered strange fire at the altar of the Lord. It was necessary that Aaron be instructed by heavenly teaching how he ought to approach the altar, and by what rite of supplication he should make God propitious, so that he himself might not incur what his sons had incurred when they approached the altar of God incautiously and unfittingly, offering strange fire and not the fire that had been given from God. For this reason the law concerning these things was set forth in this way: “And the Lord spoke to Moses after the two sons of Aaron had died while they were offering strange fire before the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses: Speak to Aaron your brother, that he not enter at every hour into the inner holy place, which is within the veil before the face of the mercy seat that is upon the ark of the testimony, and he will not die.” From this it is shown that if he enters the holy place at any hour unprepared, not clothed in the high-priestly garments, without having prepared the prescribed victims, and without first making God propitious, he will die. And justly so, as one who has not done what ought to be done before one approaches the altar of God. This word touches all of us; what the law says here pertains to all; for it commands us to know how we ought to approach the altar of God. For there is an altar on which we offer our prayers to God, and we must know how we ought to offer them, namely by laying aside the soiled garments, which are the uncleanness of the flesh, the vices of conduct, the defilements of lust. Or do you not know that the priesthood has been given to you also, that is, to the whole church of God and to the people of believers? Hear how Peter speaks of the faithful: “A chosen race,” he says, “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession.” You have, then, a priesthood, because you are a priestly race, and therefore you ought to offer to God a sacrifice of praise, a sacrifice of prayers, a sacrifice of mercy, a sacrifice of chastity, a sacrifice of righteousness, a sacrifice of holiness. But to offer these worthily you need clean garments, set apart from the common garments of other people, and you need the divine fire, not some fire alien to God but the fire that is given to men by God, of which the Son of God says: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish that it be kindled.” For if we use not this fire but another, contrary to it, the fire of him who transforms himself into an angel of light, we shall without doubt suffer what Nadab and Abihu suffered. The divine command therefore orders that Aaron not enter the holy place at the altar at every hour, but only when he has first done what is commanded to be done, lest perhaps he die.

But first of all let us show how these things that we say about the sacrifices are figures and forms whose truth is shown in other things, lest perhaps our hearers think us presumptuous and suppose that we violently bend the law of God into a sense other than the one in which it is written, as though we had no apostolic authority going before us for what we assert. Paul, then, writing to the Hebrews, that is, to those who had the law read and meditated and well known but needed understanding of how they ought to think about the sacrifices, speaks thus: “For Jesus did not enter a holy place made with hands, copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, to appear now before the face of God for us.” And again he says of the victims: “For this he did once for all by offering himself as a victim.” But why do we seek testimonies about these things one by one? If anyone reviews the whole Epistle written to the Hebrews, and especially the place where he compares the high priest of the law with the high priest of the promise, of whom it is written, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek,” he will find how this whole passage of the Apostle shows that the things written in the law are copies and forms of living and true things. We must therefore seek the high priest who once a year, that is, throughout this whole present age, offered sacrifice to God, clothed in a garment whose character, with the Lord's help, we shall show. “He shall put on,” it says, “a sanctified linen tunic.” Linen springs from the earth; the true high priest, Christ, therefore puts on a sanctified linen tunic when he takes the nature of an earthly body. For of the body it is said that it is earth and will go into the earth. My Lord and Saviour, therefore, wishing to raise up what had gone into the earth, took up an earthly body, so that, lifting it from the earth, he might carry it to heaven. And what is written in the law, that the high priest be clothed with a linen tunic, holds the figure of this mystery. But the added word “sanctified” is not to be heard idly. For the tunic of Christ's flesh was sanctified: it was not conceived from the seed of a man but begotten of the Holy Spirit. “And let linen breeches,” it says, “be upon his body.” Breeches are the garment by which the private parts of the body are usually covered and bound. If, then, you observe that my Saviour indeed took a body and, placed in the body, did human acts, that is, eating and drinking and the like, but did not do that one work which pertains to the private parts of the body, and that his flesh was open neither to marriage nor to the procreation of children, you will find in what way he had sanctified linen breeches, so that it may truly be said of him that “our less honourable parts have more abundant honour.” Consider also the very dress of the high priest: since what by nature seems less honourable in him is covered with the linen breeches and bound with the girdle, it is fitting, even according to the letter, to say of him that “our less honourable parts have more abundant seemliness.” So, then, everyone who, living in chastity, imitates Christ, who knew nothing of this one among human acts, is himself also clothed with sanctified linen breeches and has surrounded his less honourable parts with more abundant seemliness. He is clothed, then, with a sanctified linen tunic, and the linen breeches are upon his body. But lest these breeches by which the private parts are covered should perhaps come loose and slip down and reveal or uncover his shame, it adds (for it says, “You shall not make steps up to the altar, lest your shame be revealed on them”): lest your shame be revealed by the breeches slipping down, the breeches, it says, are to be bound with a girdle. At one time, when we were expounding John the Baptist, and at another Jeremiah, since Jeremiah is said to have had a girdle and John a leather girdle around his loins, we showed sufficiently how these signs declare that in such men that part of the body was so mortified that not even a slight movement, nor any other, was believed to have been in their loins, but only chastity and pure modesty. The high priest, then, is girded with a linen girdle and puts a linen turban on his head: all of linen. What is called a turban is an ornament placed on the head, which the high priest, and the other priests also, use in offering victims. But each of us ought to adorn his head with priestly ornaments. For since the head of every man is Christ, whoever acts so as to bring glory to Christ by his deeds has adorned his head, which is Christ. The adornment of the head can also be understood in us in another way. Since what is first and highest in us, and the head of all, is the mind, a person has adorned his head for the high-priestly dignity if he has adorned his mind with the disciplines of wisdom. These, then, are the things with which the high priest is commanded to be clothed, and only so may he enter the holy place, lest, not having them, he die.

As for the victims, some are commanded to belong to the high priest himself, others are to be taken from the people. To him belongs the calf, which among animals is the more precious and stronger; and as the second animal the ram, which among sheep is without doubt the more precious. From the people gifts are ordered to be offered: a ram from the leaders and two goats from the people, one to be sent away into the wilderness, which is also called apopompaeus, and one to be offered to the Lord. If the whole people of God were holy and all were blessed, there would not be two lots over the goats, one goat bearing the lot to be sent into the wilderness and the other to be offered to the Lord; there would be one lot and one victim for the Lord alone. But now, since in the multitude of those who approach the Lord there are some who are the Lord's and others who must be sent to the wilderness, that is, who deserve to be cast out and separated from the Lord's victim, therefore of the part of the victim offered by the people only one goat is sacrificed to the Lord, while the other is cast out and sent away into the wilderness and is called apopompaeus. Yet the lot falls upon both; and of the one sent into the wilderness it is said that he carries upon himself the sins of the children of Israel, their injustices and their iniquities. For it is not the goat called the Lord's lot, but the one whose lot it is to be sent into the wilderness, that is said to carry them away, in accordance, I believe, with what is written: “I gave Egypt as your exchange, and Ethiopia and Soene in your place, since you became honourable in my sight.” The sins, then, of those who have repented and abandoned wickedness are received upon their own heads by those who have become the lot of the one sent into the wilderness, who have made themselves worthy of such a ministry or of such a lot. What was said can also be fitted to them, as it were in reverse: “To him who has, it will be given.” For as to him who has righteous deeds it will be given, so also to him who has sins, so many that he is found in the lot of the apopompaeus, the one sent out into the wilderness, there will be added what is wiped away from the saints, so that in them also what is written is fulfilled: “But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away,” that it may be added to him who has many minas of sins. But since the one who is in the Lord's lot bears his hope not in the present age but in the age to come, and he whose lot is the Lord dies daily, therefore the one upon whom the Lord's lot has fallen is slaughtered and dies, that by his blood he may purify the people of God; but the one who has fallen into the contrary lot is not worthy to die. For the one who is in the Lord's lot is not of this world, while the one sent away into the world is of this world, and the world loves its own. Therefore he is not killed, nor is he worthy to be slaughtered at the altar of God, nor does his blood deserve to be poured out at the base of the altar.

But let us see who it is that receives the goat on which the lot of the apopompaeus has fallen, to cast him out into the wilderness. “A ready man,” it says, “will receive the goat that has come into its lot,” the one on which the lot of the apopompaeus has fallen, “and will lead him into the wilderness.” The end of that lot is the wilderness, that is, a deserted place: deserted of virtues, deserted of God, deserted of righteousness, deserted of Christ, deserted of every good. For each of us too one of the two lots awaits. Either by acting well we are the Lord's lot, or by acting badly our lot leads us to the wilderness. Do you want me to show you plainly how these two lots are always at work, and how each of us becomes either the Lord's lot or the lot of the apopompaeus, that is, of the wilderness? Consider in the Gospels that rich man living splendidly and luxuriously, and Lazarus lying at his gate, full of sores and longing to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table: what end is marked out for each? “Lazarus died,” it says, “and was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom. Likewise the rich man too, and he was carried away to hell, into the place of torment.” You notice plainly that the places of the two lots are distinct. See also who they are that carry them away: angels, it says, who are always ready to carry away. For they are ministers of God appointed for this very purpose, to fulfil the lot that you have prepared for yourself. For if you live well, if you break your bread to the hungry from the heart and clothe the naked, judge right judgment, resist the unjust man in his injustice, and do not join your counsel with those who lay snares for the innocent, you will make the Lord your lot. But if you serve lust, are a lover of pleasure rather than of God, love the world, and do not hate wickedness, you have made your lot that of the apopompaeus, to be led away into the wilderness by the hand of the minister of God who has been appointed by God for this very purpose. And he is called “ready” because he respects no one's person, neither of the rich, nor of the powerful, nor of a king, nor of a priest. Do you want to know that what is said pertains to us? Notice that the animals that receive these lots are not unclean nor foreign to the altars of God, but are clean and such as are customarily offered in sacrifices, so that you may know that they hold the figure not of those who are outside the faith but of those who are in the faith. For the goat is a clean animal, consecrated to the divine altars. And you, then, through the grace of baptism have been consecrated to the altars of God and have become a clean animal. But if you do not keep that command of the Lord which he spoke, “See, you have been made well; sin no more, lest something worse happen to you,” but, though you were clean, have again stained yourself with the defilement of sin and have turned aside from virtue to lust, from purity to uncleanness, then by your own fault, though you were a clean animal, you have handed yourself over to the lot of the apopompaeus and of the wilderness.