Homilies on Leviticus 1.1–1.5

Just as in the last days the Word of God, clothed with flesh from Mary, came forth into this world, and what was seen in him was one thing and what was understood was another (for the sight of his flesh lay open to all, but the knowledge of his divinity was given to few, and to the elect), so also when the word of God is brought forth to human beings through the prophets or the lawgiver, it is not brought forth without fitting garments. For as there it is covered with the veil of flesh, so here with the veil of the letter: so that the letter is seen as the flesh, while the spiritual sense hidden within is perceived as the divinity. This, then, is what we find now as we unroll the book of Leviticus, in which are described the rites of sacrifices, the variety of victims, and the ministries of the priests. But these things according to the letter, which is as it were the flesh of the Word of God and the garment of his divinity, the worthy perhaps may see or hear, and the unworthy as well. But blessed are those eyes which see the divine Spirit covered within by the veil of the letter; and blessed are those who bring to the hearing of these things the clean ears of the inner man. Otherwise in these words they will plainly feel the letter that kills. For if, following some even of our own people, I adopt the simple understanding, and receive the voice of the lawgiver without any of what they are accustomed to mock in us as verbal trickery and the cloud of allegory, then I, a churchman living under the faith of Christ and placed in the midst of the church, am compelled by the authority of the divine precept to sacrifice calves and lambs, and to offer fine flour with incense and oil. For this is what they do who force us to be slaves to the literal account and to keep the letter of the law. But it is time for us to use against wicked presbyters the words of holy Susanna, which they indeed reject, and so have cut the story of Susanna out of the catalogue of the divine books. But we both accept them and fittingly bring them forward against them, saying: “I am hemmed in on every side. For if I consent to you to follow the letter of the law, it will be death to me; but if I do not consent, I shall not escape your hands. But it is better for me to fall into your hands without any act than to sin in the sight of the Lord.” Let us also, then, fall into your disparagements, if it must be so, provided only that the church, now turned to Christ the Lord, may recognize the truth of the word of God covered under the covering of the letter. For so the Apostle says: “If anyone turns to the Lord, the veil will be taken away; for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” The Lord himself, then, the Holy Spirit himself, must be entreated by us to deign to take away every mist and all the darkness which, thickened by the filth of sins, obscures the sight of our heart, so that we may be able to behold the spiritual and wonderful understanding of his law, according to him who said: “Unveil my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law.” Let us therefore touch briefly, as best we can, on a few things out of many, not striving after the explanation of individual words (for that is the task of one who writes at leisure), but bringing forward what pertains to the building up of the church, so as to give our hearers occasions for understanding rather than pursue expositions at length, according to what is written: “Give an occasion to a wise man, and he will be wiser.”

The beginning of Leviticus, then, says that the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tabernacle of witness, so that he might promulgate to the children of Israel the laws of sacrifices and gifts, and he says: “If a man offers a gift to the Lord, he shall offer it from the cattle or the flocks,” that is, lambs or kids. “But if from birds, turtledoves or young pigeons. But if not a man but a soul offers a gift to God, from fine flour,” he says, “let it bring unleavened loaves baked in an oven,” or else fine flour mixed with oil from a frying pan, or kneaded likewise with oil from a griddle. Then next we are taught that nothing leavened at all may be offered at the altar of God, nor may honey ever be mixed with the sacrifices, but every sacrifice or gift must be salted with salt. In the second place he gave commands about the sacrifices of first fruits, which he orders to be offered to the Lord fresh, roasted, and well cleaned. After this, under the same body of law, instructions are given concerning the sacrifices of peace offerings: first from the cattle, second from the sheep; among which, however, whether lambs or kids, it is permitted to offer either females or males; and he decrees that nothing besides these animals is to be offered in the peace offerings. But let us go back a little, and see first of all what it means when he says: “If a man of you offers a gift,” as if anyone other than a man could offer. And surely it would have sufficed to say, “If any of you offers a gift”; but as it is he says: “If a man of you offers a gift.” And in what follows he says: “But if a soul offers a gift.” Further on, when the Lord now speaks a second time to Moses and gives commands about the sacrifices to be offered for sin, he speaks thus: “If the high priest sins, let him offer this and that”; or “if the whole synagogue sins,” or “if a ruler sins,” or “if a single soul sins”: each is commanded what to offer. What then? Do we think this distinction of persons is empty, so that one thing is commanded to be offered under the name of “man”, another under that of “soul”, another under that of “high priest”, another under that of “synagogue”, another again under the title of “ruler” or of “a single soul”? For my part, in the meantime, within the smallness of my understanding, I think that the “man” whom he named in this place, and placed first of all to offer a gift to God, is to be understood as the whole human race, and that it is this that is called the “man” who offers as a burnt offering a calf from the cattle without blemish. And this calf without blemish, see whether it is not that fatted calf which the father slaughtered for the son who had returned and been restored to him, the one who had been lost and had squandered all his substance, and made a great feast and had rejoicing, so that the angels in heaven rejoiced over one sinner doing penance. This man, then, who “was lost and is found,” since he had nothing of his own substance to offer (for he “had squandered everything, living riotously”), found this calf, sent indeed from heaven, but coming from the order of the patriarchs and from the connected succession of generations from Abraham; and therefore he did not say “a calf” and stop, so that any calf whatever might seem to be commanded, but “a calf from the cattle,” that is, coming by descent from the patriarchs. “And it shall be a male without blemish.” He is truly a male who does not know sin, which belongs to feminine frailty. He alone, then, is the male, he alone is without blemish, “who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth,” and who, accepted before the Lord, is offered at the door of the tabernacle. “At the door of the tabernacle” is not inside the door but outside the door. For Jesus was outside the door, because “he came to his own, and they did not receive him.” He did not, then, enter that tabernacle to which he had come, but was offered as a burnt offering at its door, because “he suffered outside the camp.” For those wicked tenants too cast out the son of the householder when he came, outside the vineyard, and killed him. This, then, is what is offered at the door of the tabernacle, accepted before the Lord; and what is so acceptable as the victim of Christ, who offered himself to God?

And yet, he says, “he shall lay his hand on the head of the victim, and they shall slaughter the calf before the Lord, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall offer the blood, and they shall pour out the blood on the altar round about, which is at the door of the tabernacle of witness.” It may indeed seem to have been said on this account, that Annas and Caiaphas were of the sons of Aaron, and all the others who took counsel against Jesus and pronounced him guilty of death, and poured out his blood around the base of the altar of the tabernacle of witness. For there the blood is poured out where the altar and its base were, as the Lord himself said: “It cannot be that a prophet perish outside Jerusalem.” He laid his hand, then, on the head of the calf; that is, he laid the sins of the human race on his own head. For he is the head of his body, the church. But perhaps this too is not done without reason: that whereas earlier he had said, “he shall bring it to the door of the tabernacle of witness,” afterwards he repeats it and says again, “to the altar which is at the door of the tabernacle of witness,” as though it were not enough to have designated the same place once in the same narrative. Unless perhaps he wished this to be understood: that the blood of Jesus was not only poured out in Jerusalem, where the altar was, and its base, and the tabernacle of witness, but that this same blood also sprinkled the altar above, which is in the heavens, where the church of the firstborn also is; as the Apostle too says that “he made peace through the blood of his cross, whether the things on earth or the things in the heavens.” Rightly, then, does he name a second time the altar which is at the door of the tabernacle of witness, because Jesus was offered as a victim not only for earthly but also for heavenly beings; and here, for human beings, he poured out the very bodily substance of his blood, while in the heavens, for the priests ministering there, if there are any such, he sacrificed the life-giving power of his body as a kind of spiritual sacrifice. Do you wish to know that there was a twofold victim in him, suited to earthly beings and fitted to heavenly ones? The Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says: “Through the veil, that is, his flesh.” And again he interprets the inner veil as heaven, which Jesus passed through, so as now to appear before the face of God for us, “always living,” he says, “to intercede for them.” If, then, two veils are understood, through which Jesus entered as high priest, consequently the sacrifice too must be understood as twofold, by which he saved both earthly and heavenly things. Indeed, what follows also seems to fit the heavenly sacrifice rather than the earthly.

“And when they have flayed the burnt offering,” he says, “they shall divide it limb by limb, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar, and they shall pile wood on the fire, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall lay the divided limbs, and the head, and the fat, on the wood which is upon the altar. But the entrails and the feet they shall wash with water, and the priest shall lay all of it on the altar; it is a victim and a sacrifice, an odour of sweetness to the Lord.” How the flesh of the Word of God, which is here called a calf, is flayed, and how it is divided limb by limb by the priests, is worth considering. I think that the priest who strips the hide from the calf offered as a burnt offering, and draws off the skin by which its limbs are covered, is the one who removes the veil of the letter from the word of God and lays bare its inner parts, which are the limbs of spiritual understanding; and he places these limbs of the inner knowledge of the word not in some low place, but in a high and holy one, that is, he sets them upon the altar, when he opens the divine mysteries not to unworthy people who lead a low and earthly life, but to those who are the altar of God, in whom the divine fire always burns and flesh is always consumed. On such as these, then, this calf of the burnt offering, divided limb by limb, is placed. For he divides the calf limb by limb who can explain in order, and discuss with fitting distinction, what progress it is to have touched the fringe of Christ; what, to have washed his feet with tears and wiped them with the hair of the head; and how much more than these it is to have anointed his head with ointment; and what eminence it has to have reclined on his breast. To discuss, then, the reasons for each of these, and to fit some to beginners, others to those who are already making progress in the faith of Christ, and others to those who are already perfect in knowledge and in love of him: this is to divide the calf limb by limb. And he too who knows how to show what were the beginnings of the law, what progress was added in the prophets, and what fullness of perfection is found in the Gospels; or who can teach with what milk of the word the little ones in Christ are to be fed, and with what vegetables of the word those who are weak in faith are to be refreshed, and also what is the solid and strong food with which the athletes of Christ are to be fattened: whoever knows how to divide each of these things by spiritual reasoning, such a teacher can be seen as that priest who lays on the altar the burnt offering divided into its limbs. He also adds wood to the altar, by which the fire may be kindled and burn, he, that is, by whom discourse is woven not only about the bodily powers of Christ but also about his divinity. For the divinity of Christ is from above, where this fire hastens. Fittingly, then, the heavenly fire consumed all these things that were done by the Saviour in the body, and restored them all to the nature of his divinity. Yet this fire is kindled when wood is applied. For the passion of Christ in the flesh extended as far as the wood. But when he was hung on the wood, the dispensation of the flesh was ended. For rising from the dead he ascended into heaven, whither the nature of fire shows his course. Hence the Apostle too said: “Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer.” For the burnt offering of his flesh, offered through the wood of the cross, joined earthly things to heavenly and human things to divine. The word of the precept commands that the entrails together with the feet be washed with water, announcing the sacrament of baptism under a figurative proclamation. For he washes the entrails who cleanses the conscience. He washes the feet who receives the fulfilment of the sacrament and knows that “he who is clean needs only to wash his feet,” and that no one can have part with Jesus unless he has washed his feet.

But if you wish to turn these things also to the moral sense, you too have a calf that you ought to offer. Your flesh is a calf, and a very proud one: if you wish to offer it as a gift to the Lord, so as to keep it chaste and pure, bring it to the door of the tabernacle, that is, where it can receive the hearing of the divine books. Let your gift be male; let it not know the female, let it reject desire, let it flee frailty, let it seek nothing loose or soft. Lay your hand also on your victim, so that it may be acceptable to the Lord, and slaughter it before the Lord; that is, put on it the bridle of continence, and do not take the hand of discipline away from it, as he laid his hand on his own flesh who said: “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become reprobate.” And slaughter it before the Lord, putting to death, no doubt, your members which are on earth. And let the sons of Aaron the priest offer its blood. The priest is in you, and his sons: the mind that is in you and its senses, which are rightly called the priest and the sons of the priest; for they alone understand God and are capable of the knowledge of God. The divine word, then, wishes you to offer your flesh to God in chastity with a rational sense, according to what the Apostle says: “a living victim, holy, pleasing to God, your rational service.” And this is to offer the blood at the altar through the priest or the sons of the priest: when someone becomes chaste in both body and spirit. For there are others who do indeed offer their flesh as a burnt offering, but not through the ministry of the priest. For they do not offer knowingly, nor according to the law which is in the mouth of the priest; they are indeed chaste in body, but in mind they are found unchaste. For either they are stained with the desire for human glory, or polluted by the greed of avarice, or soiled by the misery of envy and spite, or tormented by the savagery of raging hatred and anger. Whoever, then, are such, though they are chaste in body, nevertheless do not offer their burnt offerings through the hands and ministry of the priest. For there is not in them counsel and prudence, which exercises priesthood before God; but they are of those five foolish virgins who were virgins indeed and kept chastity of body, but did not know how to store in their vessels the oil of love and peace and the other virtues, and therefore were shut out of the bridegroom's chamber; since continence of the flesh alone cannot reach the Lord's altar if it is abandoned by the other virtues and the priestly ministries. And therefore let us who read or hear these things devote our effort to both sides: to be chaste in body, upright in mind, clean in heart, reformed in conduct, advancing in works, watchful in knowledge, faith, and actions, perfect in deeds and understanding, so that we may deserve to be conformed to the likeness of the victim of Christ, through our Lord Jesus Christ himself, through whom to God the Father almighty with the Holy Spirit is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.