Homilies on Leviticus 2.1–3.2

The former discussion of the opening of Leviticus taught us the law of the sacrifices which are called gifts: that if a man offered a gift, he should offer it from animals, that is, from the cattle, or the sheep, or also the goats; but if from birds, he should bring a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. But if a soul offers a gift, it should offer fine flour from the oven, that is, unleavened loaves of fine flour, or fine flour mixed with oil from a frying pan or also from a griddle. And if anyone offers a sacrifice of first fruits, from the first fruits of the crops, he wishes the fine flour to be fresh, that is, new, and also roasted with fire and broken in the middle, so that it is not much crumbled, because it is first fruits, and well cleaned; and that oil and incense be put on it, and so it be offered. But if anyone offers a peace offering, he is commanded to offer from the cattle, or also from the sheep or goats, and apart from these no other kind of sacrifice is substituted among the peace offerings. For involuntary sins, the soul is commanded in general to offer, and after this the law goes through various and different persons, and it is commanded that if it is the high priest who has transgressed and offers a sacrifice for sin, he should offer a calf as a burnt offering, but not with the same rite with which he offered it as a gift. For from this one he shall lay on the altar of burnt offerings only the fat, and the two kidneys with their fat, and the fat that covers the inward parts. Of its blood also he dips his finger and sprinkles it seven times before the Lord, and smears some of it on the horns of the altar of incense. But the rest of the flesh, with the hide and the entrails and the dung, he commands to be burned with fire outside the camp in a clean place. It is certainly to be observed that in the case of the high priest's sin the lawgiver did not add that he had sinned through ignorance or unwillingly. For ignorance cannot befall one who was promoted in order to teach the others. And if it is the sin of the whole synagogue, the synagogue is likewise commanded to offer a calf as a burnt offering. But in the case of the synagogue's sin it is said: “If it was ignorant, and the matter was hidden from the eyes of the synagogue, and it did one thing out of all the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done.” From this it appears that the whole synagogue too can transgress through ignorance. The Lord also confirms this in the Gospels when he says: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” But if it is a ruler who offers a victim for sin, he is commanded to offer a he-goat from the goats, not as a burnt offering, but only so that the priest may put some of its blood on the altar and offer all its fat on the altar, while the rest remains for the priests to eat, only the blood being poured out at the base of the altar. “But if it is a single soul,” he says, that offers for sin, let it offer a female goat, with the same rite, namely, with which we said above the he-goat was sacrificed. “But if his hand is not able,” he says, “to provide a goat or a lamb, he shall offer a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” And if he cannot find even this, he is commanded to offer a tenth part of an ephah of fine flour, without oil and without incense. These things, one by one, were read to us in the earlier reading, but their explanation was omitted because we were shut out by the time. I do not think it absurd now to remind briefly all who are studious, and those also who remember the earlier readings, of that explanation, although we are pressed on toward what has just been read.

And first I would like to see what this difference is, that in one place he says a man offers, in another a soul, in another a high priest, in another the synagogue, in another a ruler, in another a single soul from the people of the land. And I think that the “man” ought to be understood as the one who, made in the image and likeness of God, lives rationally. This man offers a calf as a gift to God when he has conquered the pride of the flesh; a sheep, when he has corrected irrational and foolish impulses; a kid, when he has overcome wantonness. He offers also a pair of turtledoves when he is not alone, but has joined his mind to the word of God as to a true spouse, as this kind of bird is said to keep a single and chaste marriage. He offers also two young pigeons when he too has understood the mystery by which the bride's eyes are said to be like doves by the fullness of the waters, and her neck like a turtledove's. These, then, according to what we have expounded above, are the gifts of the man. But the gifts of the soul he describes as far inferior. This soul has neither a calf, nor a sheep, nor a kid to offer to God; it does not even find a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. It has only fine flour: from it it offers unleavened loaves from the oven, from it a work made in a frying pan, or mixed with oil on a griddle. Hence it seems to me that this one who is called “soul” is to be understood as that man whom Paul names the “natural” (literally “soulish”) man: one who, even if he is not pressed by sins nor headlong toward vices, nevertheless has nothing spiritual in himself, nothing that could figuratively be reckoned as the flesh of the Word of God. For so the apostle Paul himself says of him: “The natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, because they are spiritually discerned. But the spiritual man examines all things.” This one, then, who is called “soul”, cannot offer all things, because he cannot examine all things; but he offers only fine flour and unleavened loaves, that is, this common life, set, for example, in farming, or in sailing, or in some of the ordinary uses of common life. Yet he too offers a gift to God, although he is said to offer only fine flour sprinkled with oil. For every soul needs the oil of divine mercy, and no one can get through this present life unless the oil of heavenly compassion is with him. In the second place an offering of first fruits, that is, of the beginnings of the crops, is commanded. This, if you remember well, the law orders to be done on the day of Pentecost. In this, plainly, the shadow was given to them, but the truth was reserved for us. For on the day of Pentecost, when the sacrifice of prayers had been offered, the church received the first fruits of the Holy Spirit coming upon the apostles. And truly these were fresh, because it was new; hence they were also said to be filled with new wine. “Roasted with fire”: for tongues of fire settled on each of them. “And broken in the middle”: for they were broken in the middle when the letter was being separated from the spirit. “And well cleaned”: for the presence of the Holy Spirit cleanses all filth, granting the remission of sins. The oil of mercy also is poured on this sacrifice, and the incense of sweetness, through which we are made the good fragrance of Christ. After this he speaks of the peace offerings, which are offered from animals, that is, from the cattle, or goats, and sheep; and nothing beyond these is substituted for sacrifice, not even birds, which earlier had been substituted in the offering of gifts. For the one who offers peace offerings (literally “saving victims”) is no doubt already conscious of his salvation; and therefore one who has come to salvation must offer things that are great and perfect. For so the Apostle too says: “But solid food is for the perfect.” Next the order of sacrifices is directed to the victims to be offered for sins, in which it is said, for the second time: “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Any soul that sins before the Lord unwillingly.” Rightly he says “soul” of the one he describes as sinning. For he would not have called it “spirit” when he was to say that it would sin. But neither would he call it “man”, in whom, once sin has intervened, the image of God would by no means remain. It is not, then, the spirit that sins; for “the fruit of the Spirit,” as the Apostle describes, “is love, joy, peace, patience,” and the rest like these, which are also called the fruits of life. Indeed elsewhere too he says: “He who sows in the flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; and he who sows in the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life.” Since, then, the one who sows is one thing and that in which he sows is another, and one sows either in the flesh, when one sins, so as to reap corruption, or in the spirit, when one lives according to God, so as to reap eternal life, it is clear that it is the soul which sows either in the flesh or in the spirit, and that it is the soul which can either rush into sin or be converted from sin. For the body follows it to whatever it has chosen, and the spirit is its leader toward virtue, if it is willing to follow it.

But these things were said in general; now they are divided by kinds. “If the high priest,” he says, “who is anointed sins, so as to make the people sin, he shall offer for his sin a calf from the cattle without blemish to the Lord.” Terror and mercy at once are displayed in the divine laws. Is nothing safe, then, not even the high priest? And what high priest? He who is anointed, he who kindles the divine altars with sacred fire, who sacrifices gifts and peace offerings to God, who intervenes between God and men as a kind of mediating propitiator: not even he, I say, remains immune from the contagion of sin. But see the mercy of God, and learn it more fully with Paul as teacher. For he, writing to the Hebrews, says: “For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men to offer victims to God.” And a little later: “The law,” he says, “appoints as priests men who have weakness, so that they may offer as for their own weakness, so also for the people's.” You see, then, the dispensation of divine wisdom. He appointed as priests not those who could in no way sin (otherwise they would not be human beings), but those who ought indeed to imitate him “who did no sin,” yet “to offer sacrifices first for their own sins, then also for the sins of the people.” But what is especially to be admired in such a priest? Not that he does not sin, which is impossible, but that he recognizes and understands his sin. For he who does not think he has sinned never amends. At the same time, he who is stung by the awareness of some weakness of his own can also more easily pardon those who sin. And what is the priest's offering “for sin”? “A calf,” he says, “for a burnt offering.” For the second time we find a calf offered by the high priest for a burnt offering: once as a gift, once for sin. But the one that is offered as a gift is consumed on the altar of burnt offering; while the one offered for sin is commanded to be burned outside the camp, with the hide and the entrails and the dung, in a clean place, only the fat and the kidneys being offered on the altar. To distinguish each of these things, though it is beyond our strength and beyond your hearing, we shall nevertheless try to seek out some occasions for understanding and bring them forward for you. See, then, whether perhaps Jesus, whom Paul says made peace through his blood not only for the things on earth but also for those in the heavens, is himself that calf which in the heavens was offered not for sin but as a gift, while on earth, where sin reigned from Adam to Moses, he was offered for sin. And this is to have suffered outside the camp: outside, I think, that camp which Jacob had seen, the heavenly camp of the angels of God, of which it is written in Genesis: “And Jacob saw the camp of God drawn up, and the angels of God met him; and Jacob said when he saw them: This is the camp of God.” Outside that heavenly camp, then, is this whole earthly place in which we dwell, in which Christ suffered in the flesh. And as to his saying that it is burned with the dung and the entrails, see whether perhaps, in comparison with heavenly bodies, this body of human nature is figuratively called dung. For it is earth, and taken from earth. And that basket of dung too, which is put to the roots of the fig tree that was to be cut down, what else does it show but the mystery of the dispensation he took up in the body? Yet the entrails are not said to be lacking to it. For although he bore the lowly form of a servant, yet the fullness of divinity dwelt in him. These things, although they have been discussed boldly, nevertheless, since the hearing of all the faithful ought always to be nourished toward greater things, the same things are also to be understood concerning the calf of the synagogue.

In the moral sense, this high priest can be seen as the sense of piety and religion in us, which through the prayers and supplications that we pour out to God performs, as it were, a kind of priesthood. If it offends in anything, it at once “makes” the whole “people” of good actions that is within us “sin.” For we do nothing of right action when the leader of good works, the mind, has turned aside to evil; and therefore for its amendment not just any victim is required, but the sacrifice of the fatted calf itself. Likewise also the fault of the synagogue, that is, the amendment of all the virtues within us, is restored in no other way than through the putting to death of Christ. “But if a ruler,” he says, “sins, he shall offer a he-goat from the goats.” This ruler can be seen as the power of reason which is within us. If it sins in us, and we do something foolish, we must fear that sentence of the Saviour which says: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its savour, it is good for nothing except to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by men.” This one too, then, has his victim. “And a single soul,” he says, “if it sins,” shall likewise offer a female goat, according to that substitution of victims which we mentioned above. But perhaps the hearers in the church will say: “Things went better for the ancients than for us, since for them, when sacrifices were offered by various rites, pardon was granted to those who sinned. With us there is only one pardon of sins, which is given at the beginning through the grace of the washing. After this no mercy, no pardon at all, is granted to one who sins.” It is indeed fitting that the Christian, for whom Christ died, should be under a stricter discipline. For them sheep, goats, oxen were slaughtered, and birds, and fine flour was sprinkled; for you the Son of God was slaughtered, and does it still delight you to sin? And yet, so that these things may not so much rouse your spirits to virtue as cast them down into despair: you have heard how many sacrifices for sins there are in the law; hear now how many remissions of sins there are in the Gospels. There is this first one, by which we are baptized for the remission of sins. The second remission is in the suffering of martyrdom. The third is that which is given for almsgiving. For the Saviour says: “But give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you.” A fourth remission of sins comes to us through our also forgiving our brothers their sins. For so our Lord and Saviour himself says: “If you forgive your brothers their sins from the heart, your Father also will forgive you your sins. But if you do not forgive your brothers from the heart, neither will your Father forgive you”; and as he taught us to say in prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” The fifth remission of sins is when someone turns a sinner from the error of his way. For so the divine Scripture says: “Whoever makes a sinner turn from the error of his way saves his soul from death and covers a multitude of sins.” A sixth remission also comes through abundance of love, as the Lord himself too says: “Truly I say to you, her many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much.” And the Apostle says: “For love covers a multitude of sins.” There is yet also a seventh, though hard and laborious: the remission of sins through penance, when the sinner washes his bed with tears, and his tears become his bread day and night, and when he does not blush to make known his sin to the priest of the Lord and to seek a remedy, according to him who says: “I will declare my injustice against myself to the Lord, and you forgave the ungodliness of my heart.” In this is fulfilled also what the apostle James says: “If anyone is sick, let him call the presbyters of the church, and let them lay their hands on him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and if he is in sins, they will be forgiven him.” You too, then, when you come to the grace of baptism, have offered a calf, because you are baptized into the death of Christ. When you are led to martyrdom, you have offered a he-goat, because you have slaughtered the devil, the author of sin. When you give alms and with anxious devotion lavish a merciful affection on the needy, you have loaded the holy altar with fat kids. For if you forgive your brother his sin from the heart, and, having laid aside the swelling of anger, gather within yourself a gentle and simple spirit, be confident that you have sacrificed a ram or offered a lamb in sacrifice. Further, if, instructed by the divine readings, meditating like a dove and keeping watch in the law of the Lord day and night, you turn a sinner from his error, and, his wickedness cast off, call him back to the simplicity of the dove, and by attaching him to the saints make him imitate the companionship of the turtledove, you have offered to the Lord a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. And if that love which is greater than hope and faith abounds in your heart, so that you love your neighbour not only as yourself but as he showed who said, “No one has greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends,” know that you have offered loaves of fine flour kneaded in the oil of love, without any leaven of malice and wickedness, in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. But if in the bitterness of your weeping you are worn out with grief, tears, and lamentation, if you chastise your flesh and make it dry with fasts and much abstinence, and say, “My bones are parched like a frying pan,” then you will know that you have offered the sacrifice of fine flour from the frying pan or from the griddle. And in this way you are found to offer more truly and more perfectly, according to the Gospel, the sacrifices which Israel can no longer offer according to the law.

But let us see how we should understand the things that were read differently: “But if,” he says, “a single soul from the people of the land sins unwillingly, by doing one thing out of all the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done, and transgresses, and the sin which it sinned becomes known to it, it shall bring as its gift a goat from the kids, a female without blemish it shall bring for the sin which it sinned.” And after this he recounted the whole rite of the sacrifice, as we expounded above. How we should understand the soul which he says offers after falling under sin, we explained in what preceded as best we could; but what he added in this place, saying, “If a soul from the people of the land sins,” does not seem to me idle. For who would doubt that what the law says was said to souls, or to the people, who are on the earth? What need was there, then, to add to his words “If a single soul sins” the words “from the people of the land”? But we must see whether perhaps this soul that has sinned is said to be from the people of the land to distinguish it from another people which is not from the land. For this saying cannot fit him who said: “But our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus.” How, then, could I rightly call that soul “from the people of the land” which has nothing in common with the earth, but is wholly in heaven, and has its citizenship there where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, whither it also desires to return and be with Christ, for that is far better, but considers it necessary to remain in the flesh for our sake? For this soul that sins is from the people of the land, doing one thing out of all the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done. For a long time a kind of amazement held me astonished at this saying. For I do not see that it follows logically that a soul has sinned and done one of the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done. For if it is a commandment of the Lord, how ought it not to have been done, since surely the commandments of the Lord are given in order to be done? And how is the soul said here to have sinned which did one of the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done? And perhaps to some it will seem that an error of expression was made by the translators; but on inquiring more carefully I found that all the translators rendered it alike, and therefore it is not an error of expression, but the sense of a deeper understanding must be sought. As far, then, as it can occur to us, this seems to me the solution. Some commandments of the Lord were given in order to be done, others in order not to be done. But human necessity required that those which ought to be done should be set forth with those inserted among them which ought not to be done. For example, to bring forward an instance from these very sacrifices which we now have in hand, a lamb is commanded to be sacrificed at the Passover, not because God truly required the victim of a lamb every year, but because it signified that that Lamb must be sacrificed who takes away the sin of the world. This, then, he willed to be done; that he did not will. For so he says through Isaiah: “What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? says the Lord. I am full of burnt offerings of rams, and I do not want the fat of lambs and the blood of goats and bulls.” Have you heard how he does not want the victim of rams nor the fat of lambs? Yet he gave a command how the victim of bulls or of lambs ought to be offered. But he who understands the law spiritually seeks to offer these things spiritually. But if anyone has offered according to the outward form of the fleshly commandment, this is the single soul from the people of the land, which sinned unwillingly by doing one thing out of all the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done, and transgressed; and therefore he adds in what follows: “And when the sin which it sinned becomes known to it, it shall bring its gift before the Lord.” For the soul ought to offer its gift when it has come to know that God does not seek a fleshly sacrifice, because “a sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit.” Its sin becomes known to it, then, when it has learned from the Lord, who says, “I desire mercy rather than sacrifice,” and when it has learned to offer the sacrifice of praise in the church and to pay its vows to the Most High, through Christ our Lord, to whom be praise and glory for ages of ages. Amen.

The discourse is about the sacrifices which are offered by those who have sinned through ignorance or unwillingly. Hence also earlier, when we were speaking of the sacrifices of the high priest, we observed that it is not written of him that he was ignorant. But if anyone remembers well what was said, he can say to us that we set down the sacrifice which we said the high priest offered for sin as holding the figure of Christ; and it will not seem fitting that Christ, who knew no sin, should be said to have offered a sacrifice for sin, even though the matter is carried out in a mystery, and the same one is set down as both high priest and victim. See, then, whether we can meet this too in this way: that Christ indeed did not commit sin, yet he was made sin for us; while he who was in the form of God deigns to be in the form of a servant; while he who is immortal dies, and the impassible suffers, and the invisible is seen; and since for us human beings both death and all the remaining frailty in the flesh have been brought about by the condition of sin, he too, who was made in the likeness of men and found in appearance as a man, no doubt offered to God as a victim, for the sin which he had taken from us, because he bore our sins, a calf without blemish, that is, undefiled flesh. But what shall we do about what is joined in what follows? For where he says, “If the high priest who is anointed sins,” there is added: “so as to make the people sin, he shall offer for his sin.” How then will it fit that, because Jesus himself was made sin through his flesh which he took from us, he made the people sin? Listen to this too, in case we can answer with some consistency. The passion of Christ brings life to those who believe, but death to those who do not believe. For although salvation and justification come to the Gentiles through his cross, yet to the Jews it is destruction and condemnation. For so it is written in the Gospel too: “Behold, this one is born for the fall and the rising of many.” And in this way, through his sin, that is, through his flesh driven to the cross, in which he had taken up our sins, he freed us who believe from sin; but the people who did not believe he made to sin, since to the evil of unbelief there was added for them the impiety of sacrilege as well. And in this way this high priest made the people sin through his sin, since, placed in the flesh, he could both be seized and be killed. For let us suppose, for example, that if the Lord of majesty had not come in the flesh, had not rebuked the Jews, had not been a burden to them even to behold, he certainly could not have been seized, nor handed over to death; never, without doubt, would his blood have come upon them, “his blood upon them and upon their children.” But because he came in the flesh and was made sin for us, and could suffer these things, therefore he is said to have made the people sin, he who made it possible for them to sin against him.

But let us now see what this soul does too, which hears the voice of an oath and is a witness, or which has seen something and is aware of it, and does not make it known; from which it too receives, no doubt, the sin of the one who either did something wickedly or swore. This builds us up even according to the literal account, and teaches us never to pollute our consciences with another's sins, nor to give consent to those who do evil. And by consent I mean not only acting together, but also keeping silent about things done unlawfully. Do you wish to know that these things agree also with the Gospel precepts? The Lord himself says: “If you see your brother sin, rebuke him between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take with you two or three others. And if he does not listen to them either, tell the church. But if he does not listen even to the church, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector.” But the Gospel precept is given more perfectly in that it established the manner and discipline of making known a sin. For it does not want you, if perhaps you see your brother sinning, to fly off at once to the public and proclaim it everywhere and spread abroad another's sins: that would certainly be not the act of one who corrects but rather of one who defames. Alone, he says, between you and him alone, rebuke him. When the one who sinned sees that confidentiality is kept for him, he too will keep the modesty that leads to amendment. But if he sees himself defamed, he will at once turn to the shamelessness of denial; and you will not only not have amended the sin, but will even have doubled it. Learn, then, the order from the Gospels. First, he says, alone between you and him. Second, take with you two or three others. Why two or three? “For at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand.” Since indeed he commands that the rebuke be brought to the church the third time, he wants two or three witnesses to be brought in the second time, so that if the one rebuked in their presence will not amend himself, when his sin has been brought to the church he can be refuted with the two witnesses who were present. For it often happens that someone who fulfils the Gospel commandment seems to be a slanderer if he brings the charge to the church and lacks witnesses. So that this may not happen, therefore, he ordered two or three witnesses to be brought in at the second meeting. Since, then, such is the commandment of the Gospel, and the law prescribes that if one keeps silent he will receive the other's sin, it must be known that if anyone either does not make known what he sees in his neighbour's fault according to the rule given above, or, called as a witness, does not say what is true, he himself will take on the sin which the one he conceals committed, and the penalty of the deed will roll back upon the one who was aware of it. In this chapter, then, the text of the literal account itself has built us up sufficiently. Yet I think that that soul too, which reads written in the law of God, “The Lord has sworn and will not repent: you are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek,” hears the voice of an oath, as the scribes and Pharisees do who are always meditating on these things; but they keep silent and are unwilling to announce it to the people, so as not to bear witness to the coming of Christ. Therefore they will receive the sin, in that by not announcing to the people what is true they make Israel sin.