Commentary on Leviticus

Contents

Reading pages: 1.0 · 1.1 · 1.2 · 1.3 · 1.4 · 1.5 · 1.6 · 2.6 · 2.7 · 2.8 · 2.9 · 2.10–3.0 · 3.11 · 3.12–4.0 · 4.13 · 4.14 · 5.0 · 5.15 · 5.16 · 5.17 · 5.18 · 6.0 · 6.19 · 6.20 · 6.21 · 6.22 · 6.23 · 7.24 · 7.25 · 7.26 · 7.27

1. 1.0In his preface to the deacon Eutychianus, Hesychius explains that he has been asked to interpret all of Leviticus in order according to the Spirit, and argues from Christ's parables, Ezekiel and Paul that the law must be read by anagogy to be seen as useful.
2. 1.1Hesychius expounds Lev 1: the burnt offerings of the herd, the flock and the birds stand for the doer of the law's righteousness, the simple and innocent (including converted sinners), and the contemplative, and every rite of the sacrifice is read of self-offering in imitation of Christ, who is the altar.
3. 1.2Hesychius reads the grain offerings of Lev 2 as offerings of the knowledge of God: the fine flour as the gentiles' faith, oil and frankincense as almsgiving and prayer, the oven, pan and gridiron as Christ's birth from the Mother of God, his cross and his death, leaven and honey as foreign and pagan teaching, and salt as apostolic wisdom.
4. 1.3On the peace offerings of Lev 3, Hesychius distinguishes the middling way of life, including chaste marriage, from the perfect self-offering of the burnt offering, and reads the fat, kidneys, liver and loin as desire, anger, pleasure and strength to be offered to God; fat and blood are not eaten.
5. 1.4Hesychius reads the sin offering of the anointed priest (Lev 4) as a figure of Christ's sacrifice: the calf is his flesh, the blood carried into the tabernacle his entry into heaven, the burning outside the camp his passion at Golgotha; the offerings of the multitude, the ruler and the common people teach repentance, confession, mutual prayer, and the forgiveness given through priests.
6. 1.5On Lev 5, Hesychius explains the sacrifices for sharing in others' sins, rash oaths and offences against holy things as different ways of repentance suited to different persons, including the weak and those who have often relapsed, and teaches that no repentance gains forgiveness without the sacrifice of Christ, the ram.
7. 1.6On the guilt offering for fraud and false oaths (Lev 6:1–7), Hesychius teaches that perjury, like sacrilege, wrongs God himself, that restitution with a fifth means consecrating the tongue to God, and that Christ is both the priest and the one who suffers injustice with us; Book 1 closes with a doxology.
8. 2.6Opening Book 2 with Lev 6:8–30, Hesychius reads the perpetual fire as the Spirit kept alive by meditation on Scripture, the grain offering eaten by Aaron's sons as theology kept within what Christ revealed and practised in the church, the priest's offering as Christ's passion, and the sin offering as repentance, whose 'blood' is baptism.
9. 2.7On Lev 7, Hesychius treats the guilt offering as repentance for sins against God, which needs part of Christ's sacrifice; the priest's portions as patience, theology and good works completed by grace; the ban on eating peace offerings on the third day as a rebuke of those who expect an earthly thousand-year kingdom after the resurrection; and the bans on fat and blood as the offering of desire to God and the refusal to harm one's neighbour.
10. 2.8On the consecration of Aaron and his sons (Lev 8), Hesychius reads the assembly as the church, the washing as baptism, the high priest's vestments as Christ's incarnation and divinity, the anointing as the incarnation shared by Christians through the Spirit, the second ram as the mystical Passover of the Last Supper, and the seven days at the tabernacle door as the days until Pentecost.
11. 2.9On the eighth day of Aaron's ordination (Lev 9), Hesychius reads the whole scene as Pentecost and the church at worship: the elders are the order of presbyters, the sacrifices are preaching of Christ's sacrifice, repentance and theology, the word Moses commands is the eucharist, the priest's blessing comes from heaven, and the fire from the Lord is the Spirit descending on the apostles.
12. 2.10On the death of Nadab and Abihu (Lev 10), Hesychius reads their strange fire as heretical teaching that blasphemes the Spirit and misreads Scripture; the priests must keep to the doctrine of Christ, confess both his divinity and humanity, abstain from wine when ministering, and teach the people, while those who sin wilfully against the Spirit lose the offering of repentance; Book 2 ends with a doxology.
13. 3.0In the preface to Book 3, Hesychius compares the variety of the law's precepts to the variety of creation, which reveals its Maker, before turning to the words of the law.
14. 3.11On the clean and unclean animals of Lev 11, Hesychius argues that nature is not unclean, since God made all things good, but that the animals figure kinds of people: those who chew the cud and divide the hoof meditate on the law, practise it and distinguish letter from spirit; fish with fins and scales are converted gentiles; the forbidden birds are false contemplatives; the creeping things are the earthly-minded; and the carcasses are sinful actions, from which one is cleansed by repentance.
15. 3.12Hesychius reads the impurity of childbirth in Leviticus 12 as a sign of the uncleanness inherited from Adam, and the eighth-day circumcision and the forty and eighty days as figures of the resurrection and of the image of God.
16. 4.0The scan text of this preface also holds the end of the commentary on Leviticus 12 (the purification sacrifice read as meditation on the law and knowledge, with a doxology); the preface itself contrasts true and false festivity and introduces the law of leprosy.
17. 4.13On Leviticus 13 Hesychius reads leprosy as sin and transgression, the man partly leprous as the Jewish people and the man wholly covered as the Gentile freed from the letter of the law, and the leprosy of head, beard, and garments as errors in doctrine and pride or vainglory spoiling the virtues.
18. 4.14Hesychius reads the cleansing of the leper in Leviticus 14 as Christ's work: the two sparrows are his humanity and divinity, the rites figure baptism, repentance and the Trinity, the poor man's offering is meditation on the law, and the leprous house is a church infected by false doctrine.
19. 5.0The scan text of this preface also holds the end of the commentary on Leviticus 14 (the summary of the law of leprosy, with a doxology); the preface itself praises meditation on Scripture as the way to fruitfulness and salvation.
20. 5.15On Leviticus 15 Hesychius reads the man with a flow of seed as a teacher who corrupts doctrine, the emission of intercourse as teaching the Jewish letter, and the woman's flow of blood as idolatry and pagan teaching, with repentance and Christ's grace as their cleansing.
21. 5.16On Leviticus 16 Hesychius reads the Day of Atonement as the sacrifice of Christ: the veil is his flesh, the calf and the slain goat his humanity offered for Israel and all mankind, the scapegoat his impassible divinity, and the prohibition of entering at all times a warning against prying into God's substance.
22. 5.17On Leviticus 17 Hesychius argues that confining sacrifice to the tabernacle showed the law's rites to be temporary, ending with the temple's destruction, and reads the prohibition of blood as a ban on murder, hatred and harming one's neighbour, with Christ's blood as the true expiation.
23. 5.18On Leviticus 18 Hesychius explains the forbidden degrees of marriage as guarding the order of generations, and reads them spiritually as forbidding the exposure of a brother's sins; he condemns adultery, Molech worship, sex between males and bestiality, and warns against mixing church and synagogue rites or pagan philosophy and doctrine.
24. 6.0In the short preface to Book 6 Hesychius praises meditation on the law, which makes us more truly human, and says that Moses' commandments, rightly interpreted, agree with the Gospel.
25. 6.19On Leviticus 19 Hesychius expounds the holiness code: holiness, honour of parents and the spiritual Sabbath, care for the poor and hired workers, honest judgment and weights, love of neighbour as the fullness of the law, and warnings against augury, sorcery, mixing church and synagogue, and burdening Gentile converts.
26. 6.20On Leviticus 20 Hesychius explains the penalties for Molech worship, sorcery, cursing parents, adultery, incest and other sexual sins, and reads them spiritually as warnings against corrupting disciples, spiritual adultery against Christ's bride the church, exposing others' sins, and pagan wisdom.
27. 6.21On Leviticus 21 Hesychius reads the priest's defilement by the dead as his responsibility for his household's and people's sins, the high priest as Christ, who weds the virgin church and not the harlot, widowed and divorced synagogue, and the bodily blemishes that bar priests from service as defects of soul, matching Paul's qualifications for a bishop.
28. 6.22On Lev 22, Hesychius applies the laws on priestly purity to the clergy and to communion: the unclean must not approach the holy things until cleansed by the tears of repentance; foreigners, sojourners and hirelings stand for unbelievers, heretics and self-seeking ministers; the 'fifth part' is Christ's word spoken over the mystery; blemished animals are those unfit to be ordained; the seven days under the mother are the present life, and the ban on sacrificing a beast with its young separates the Jewish Pascha from the Lord's.
29. 6.23On the feasts of Lev 23, Hesychius reads the six working days and the Sabbath as good works now and rest in the age to come; Passover and unleavened bread as Christ's passion and a life free of the old leaven; the sheaf offered on the day after the Sabbath as the risen Christ and the lamb with it as the eucharistic sacrifice of the intelligible Melchizedek; Pentecost, kept on the Lord's day, as the coming of the Spirit; and the feasts of trumpets, atonement and tabernacles as resurrection, humility, and life lived as sojourners.
30. 7.24On Lev 24, Hesychius reads the lamp oil as almsgiving and the lamp as the Holy Spirit on Christ the lampstand; the twelve loaves of presence as the eucharistic table and its memorial; the blasphemer born of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father as one who mixes Scripture with pagan learning and blasphemes Christ by calling the Son less than the Father; and the laws of retaliation as the judgment awaiting those who lead others into impiety.
31. 7.25On Lev 25, Hesychius reads the sabbatical year and the jubilee as the rest of the age to come, when no more work is possible, and the jubilee trumpet as the trumpet of the resurrection; the laws of sale and redemption become rules for teachers and disciples, for restoring a fallen brother by repentance, and for the synagogue, sold for good after rejecting Christ, and the church of the nations, always redeemable; slavery and lending laws teach mildness toward penitents and the weak, with Zacchaeus and the Ninevites as models of full repentance.
32. 7.26On Lev 26, Hesychius reads the ban on idols as a ban on the hidden idolatry of greed, the Sabbath as rest from evil, and fear of the sanctuary as chastity and careful self-examination before communion; the thirty blessings are spiritual goods of the gospel; the curses describe the fate of the Jews who rejected Christ, read both of the Roman destruction (with Josephus) and of their loss of the spiritual sense of Scripture; the chapter ends with the promise that a remnant will be saved and that 'all Israel will be saved' (Rom 11).
33. 7.27On Lev 27, Hesychius reads the valuations of vowed persons by age and sex as degrees of the spiritual life (the hundredfold of virginity and poverty, the sixtyfold of continence, the thirtyfold of chaste marriage, down to the newly baptized and the penitent), the vowed animals, houses and fields as disciples, households made into churches, and a share in Scripture placed under a priest's guidance, redeemable by adding one's own understanding; the 'accursed' things are spoils won from the devil; the tithes passing under the rod are those numbered under the cross; the book closes with an exhortation to seek the wisdom hidden in the law.