Homilies on Leviticus 3.3–4.1

After this another law is promulgated. “Any soul,” he says, “that touches any unclean thing, or the carcass of unclean beasts, and it was hidden from him, and he is defiled; or if he touches any uncleanness of a man, any uncleanness by which he may be defiled,” and so on. These things are observed among the Jews unbecomingly enough and uselessly. For why should one be held unclean who has touched, for example, a dead animal, or the body of a dead man? What if it is the body of a prophet? What if of a patriarch, or even the body of Abraham himself? What if he has touched the bones of Samuel: will he be unclean? What if he touches the bones of Elisha, which even raise the dead? Will the one who touches them be unclean, and do the bones of the prophet make unclean even the very man whom they raise from the dead? See how unfitting the Jewish understanding is. But let us see first what touching is, and what touch it is that makes one unclean. The Apostle says: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” This touch is unclean; for this is what the Lord said in the Gospel: “If anyone looks at a woman to desire her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” For the vice of desire has touched his heart, and his soul has become unclean. If, then, anyone touches anything in this way, that is, either through desire for a woman, or through greed for money, or through any other longing for sin, he has touched the unclean and is defiled. If you touch any such thing, then, you must know how to offer the sacrifice, according to what we mentioned earlier, so that you may be made clean. Do you wish me to show you a soul that touched the unclean and became unclean, and again touched the clean and became clean? She who suffered a flow of blood and spent all her substance on physicians and could gain nothing had sunk into this through the uncleanness of sin. For she had touched sin, and therefore had received a scourge in the flesh. But after, full of faith, she touched the fringe of Jesus, the flow of her blood stopped, and suddenly she who had lived unclean for so long a time was made clean. And just as, when she had touched the Lord and Saviour, he himself said, “Who touched me? For I felt power go out from me” (that power, no doubt, which had healed the woman and made her clean), so we must understand that if anyone touches sin, a kind of evil power goes out from that sin which makes unclean the one who has touched it; and this is truly to have touched the unclean. By similar reasoning we must speak also of the carcass of a man, or the carcass of a clean or unclean beast. For he touches the carcass of a man who follows or imitates someone dead in his sins. But since the differences between the several cases must be examined, let us go through them one by one. The carcass of a man, as we said above, we can call that of which the Apostle speaks to the Corinthians: “I wrote to you in the letter,” he says, “not to associate with the sexually immoral; not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy, or robbers, or idolaters, since then you would have had to go out of this world. But now I have written to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother if he is sexually immoral, or unclean, or greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a robber; not even to eat with such a one.” This, then, is to touch the carcass of a man: to make oneself his companion even at table, one who, made a man in Christ, is again dead in sins. For that widow too of whom the Apostle speaks, who “living in pleasures is dead,” can be called the carcass of a man. But we must also look for the animal carcasses which are in the church. If certain simpler people, besides having acted without any prudence, also wallow in the filth of sins, then if anyone follows them or touches them with that touch which we explained above, he has touched the carcass of animals. And that the church has animals too, hear how it says in the Psalms: “Men and beasts you will save, O Lord.” Those, then, who pursue the study of the word of God and of a rational way of life are called men. But those who live without such studies and do not seek the exercises of knowledge, yet are faithful, are called animals indeed, but clean ones. For just as there are some men of God, so there are also some sheep of God. For it is written that Moses was not a sheep of God but a man of God. And Elijah was not a sheep of God but a man of God. For so he himself says: “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Do you wish to hear of the sheep of God? It is said through the prophet: “My sheep are holy sheep, says the Lord.” And again the Saviour says in the Gospel: “My sheep hear my voice.” And I do not think he would have said of men, “Men hear my voice,” but “sheep.” But let him who has ears to hear hear these things: how sheep hear the voice, but men hear his word. These, then, are animals clean indeed because of Christ, but carcasses because of sin. If anyone touches them, that is, if anyone follows them in sin, he will be unclean. And if anyone touches the carcass of such a man, that is, of one who at first lived according to reason and exercised himself in the word of God, and afterwards fell into sin, if anyone follows or imitates him, he touches the carcass of a man and will be unclean. But if you touch what was caught by a wild beast, you will be unclean. What is the wild beast? Is it a lion, or a wolf, which seizes men or cattle? That, I believe, is the wild beast of which the apostle Peter says: “Your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, firm in faith.” And again those of whom the apostle Paul says: “After my departure savage wolves will come in, not sparing the flock.” If, then, you see anyone caught by these wild beasts, do not follow him, do not touch him, lest you too be made unclean. There are besides other unclean animals, whose carcass he forbids to be touched. The unclean animals are people who are outside Christ, in whom there is neither reason nor any religion. If, then, you see the carcasses of all these, that is, their sins, the lawgiver tells you: do not touch, do not be defiled, do not handle. And these are the uncleannesses which are rightly to be fled. But do not shrink from touching a man, or a dead body, to which burial should rather be devoutly given. These are Jewish and useless fables, having the appearance of piety but denying its power. The first law, then, was given concerning uncleannesses: if anyone was a witness of some oath or offence and did not make it known, and through this became himself unclean in a way by sharing in the sin. The second law, by which it is forbidden to touch anything unclean or a carcass.

A third law is now promulgated, of this kind: “And the soul,” he says, “which swears, declaring with its lips to do evil or to do good, according to all that a man may say with an oath, and it was hidden from him, and he comes to know it, and sins in any one of these things, let him declare the sin which he sinned, and he shall offer to the Lord for what he transgressed, for the sin which he sinned, a female from the sheep,” and so on. How I am guilty of sin if I declare with my lips or swear to do good and do not do it is not difficult to show; but how I have sinned if I swear or declare that I will do evil and do not do it is hard to explain in words. For it seems absurd, for example, that if in anger I said I would kill a man, and did not do it, I should be forced, so as not to seem to perjure myself or deceive, to carry out the deed which I rashly and unlawfully promised. Let us seek, then, what the thing is in which, if we promise to do evil and do not do it, we sin, but if we do it we are excused from sin, so that the truth of the precept may stand rationally. As far as seems to be understood in this place, to do evil is to oppose someone and not allow him to do what he wishes. We too, then, when we come to God and vow to serve him in chastity, declare with our lips and swear that we will chastise our flesh, or do evil to it, and bring it into subjection, so that we may save the spirit. For so he too said that he had sworn, who says: “I have sworn and determined to keep all your precepts.” Since, then, it is the voice of the flesh that says, “For I do not do what I want, but what I hate, that I do,” it is no doubt afflicted and constrained by the spirit; for it resists and fights against the spirit, and unless evil is done to it, so that it is afflicted and weakened, the spirit cannot say: “When I am weak, then I am strong.” If, then, anyone has sworn and declared to do evil to the flesh that resists and fights against the Spirit, and to afflict and chastise it, and has not done so, he is guilty of sin, in that he swore to torment his flesh and bring it into subjection, and did not do it. And by the same oath he resolves also to do good to the spirit. For in doing evil to the flesh he does good to the spirit. If, then, anyone has sworn this and not done it, he is made guilty of sin. And do you wish to know that good cannot be done to one of them unless you do evil to the other? Hear also the Lord himself saying: “I will kill, and I will make alive.” What does God kill? The flesh, surely. And what does he make alive? The spirit, no doubt. And again in what follows he says: “I will strike, and I will heal.” What does he strike? The flesh. What does he heal? The spirit. So that the one may fail and the other advance; so that he may make you put to death in the flesh, made alive in the spirit. But lest perhaps you too serve the law with your mind and have not been able to keep it, hear what the order of the law prescribes: “If he sins,” he says, “in any one of these things, let him declare the sin which he sinned.” There is a wonderful secret in this, that he commands the sin to be declared. For in every way all that we do must be declared and brought out into public. If we do anything in secret, if we have committed anything in speech alone, or even within the secrets of our thoughts, all must be made public, all brought out: brought out, moreover, by him who is both the accuser and the instigator of sin. For he now incites us to sin, and he also accuses us when we have sinned. If, then, in this life we anticipate him and are ourselves our own accusers, we escape the wickedness of the devil, our enemy and accuser. For so the prophet says elsewhere: “Tell your iniquities first,” he says, “so that you may be justified.” Does he not clearly show the mystery we are treating when he says, “Tell first”? To show you that you ought to anticipate him who is ready to accuse. You, then, he says, tell first, so that he may not anticipate you; because if you tell first, and offer the sacrifice of penance according to what we said above was to be offered, and hand over your flesh to destruction so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, it will be said to you too: “You too received evil things in your life, but now rest here.” David too speaks in the same spirit in the Psalms and says: “I made my iniquity known, and did not hide my sin. I said: I will declare my injustice against myself, and you forgave the ungodliness of my heart.” See, then, that declaring one's sin merits the remission of sin. For the devil, anticipated in accusation, will no longer be able to accuse us; and if we are our own accusers, it profits us for salvation; but if we wait to be accused by the devil, that accusation will turn to our punishment; for he will have as companions in Gehenna those whom he convicts as companions in crimes.

It would be a great task now to go through the differences of the victims and the rites and varieties of the sacrifices, and a work far other than that word which the crowd receives in a common audience. But, so that we may appear to touch on some things in passing: almost every victim that is offered has something of the form and image of Christ. For every victim is summed up in him, so much so that after he himself was offered, all the victims ceased which had preceded him in type and shadow; and concerning these we showed above, as best we could, how the calf offered by the high priest, whether as a gift or for sin, bore his form. The fat which is offered in the gift, covering the inward parts and clinging to the kidneys, can be understood as that holy soul of his, which veiled the inward parts, that is, the secrets of his divinity, while it clung to the kidneys, that is, to the bodily matter which had been chastely taken from us; and placed midway between the flesh and God, it lays the nature of the flesh on the sacred altars, to be deified and sanctified, and to be illumined by the divine fires and preserved with itself for heaven. As for the kidneys given to the fire, who would doubt that they indicate that there were no stirrings of the genital parts in Christ? And when the priest is said to sprinkle the blood of the victim seven times before the Lord, plainly the power of the Holy Spirit of sevenfold grace is designated under a mystery. The four horns of the altar, which are smeared with blood, indicate that the passion of Christ is related by the four Gospels; and the lobe of the liver is offered. In the liver anger is slaughtered; in the lobe is shown the swift and roused force of fury. And the rest of the blood, which is poured out at the base of the altar, I think designates the form of that grace by which in the last days, after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, all Israel that remains, placed last as at the base of the altar, will itself also receive the outpouring of the blood of Christ. Of the lambs and kids, the turtledoves and doves, and also of the fine flour mixed with oil or baked in unleavened loaves, enough has been said above, as far as the matter allowed.

Let us now see what law is set forth for offering victims for sin. “And the Lord spoke to Moses,” he says, “saying: If any soul is unaware and sins unwillingly in the holy things of the Lord, let it offer for its offence a ram without blemish from the sheep, bought at the price of silver by the holy shekel; and what it has transgressed and sinned in the holy things, it shall restore, and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to the priest, and the priest shall make entreaty for him with the ram of the offence, and it shall be forgiven him.” In the earlier laws, which concerned the sacrifices for uncleanness, wherever he said that, for example, a sheep or a kid was to be offered, he added: “But if his hand is not sufficient for a kid or a lamb, let him offer a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” And again: “But if he is not sufficient even for this, let him offer fine flour.” But in this law, where he discusses the sin committed in the holy things, he has substituted no second or third inferior victim, but has decreed that only a ram is to be offered; and he shows that the sin committed in the holy things cannot be loosed otherwise than if one slaughters a ram: and not simply a ram, but a ram bought at a price, and a fixed price, “by the holy shekel”, he says. What then? If someone is poor and does not have a holy shekel with which to buy a ram, will his sin not be loosed? Must riches then be sought by each person, so that his sin can be absolved? But if the Lord deigns to open either our eyes to see or your ears of the heart to hear, we shall inquire what the sense of the lawgiver, covered by mysteries, means. And first let us see what this very passage that was read is like according to the letter. For it seems to speak of those into whose hands holy things have been entrusted, that is, the things offered among the gifts of the Lord: for example, the vows and gifts which are offered by devout and religious minds in the churches of God for the use of the saints and the ministry of the priests, or for the needs of the poor. If anyone has taken any of these away through some presumption, the law decrees that if he remembers that he has sinned and of his own accord receives compunction of heart (for for one who is not compunct of his own accord but is convicted at another's pressing, the remedy is harder), this man, then, who remembers his sin of his own accord, will restore, it says, the very thing he had taken away, and will add a fifth to it, and will offer a ram for the sin, bought at the price of the holy shekel. As for his saying, “he will add a fifth to it,” the simpler sort think it is said in such a way that, for example, if five coins were taken away, one is added, so that he is seen to return six for five. But those who have skill in the discipline of numbers reckon the number of this word far otherwise. For in the Greek too it does not have what simply makes “a fifth”, but has what we might call “over-fifths”: unless one were to say that this is among them the word for a special number, by which it is indicated that for five, another five are to be given and one over; so that, for example, it is understood that one who has stolen five coins restores those five, and another five with one added. Yet these things are not at once to be understood of thefts or frauds; but even if anyone has taken money from the holy things for his own necessary uses and delayed in restoring it, he is bound by a law of this kind. This law, even according to the letter, ought to build up its hearers. For it is a very useful and necessary observance, especially for those who preside over the church's administrations, that they may know that they must be more careful and diligent with what has been offered for the use of the saints.

But let us too, to whom perhaps these things do not happen, see in what respect the word of the law builds us up. I too today, though I am a sinner, yet because the dispensing of the Lord's word has been entrusted to me, seem to have the holy things of God committed to me. And not now for the first time, but often already and long since, we exercise this dispensing toward you. If, then, any of you receives from me the Lord's money, and, as usually happens, going out of the church and carried off by the various occupations of the world, gives over to oblivion what he had heard, and fulfils no work from the word which he received, this is the one who has not returned the money received from the holy things. Let him, then, at least on hearing this, recall to memory that he neglected what had long ago been entrusted to him in the word of God. Let him return, then, what he received, and add to it the “fifths” in the way we have already described: that is, so that there are twice five, and one is added over. Let us see, then, how these five are returned. The number five is often, indeed almost always, taken for the five senses. We should know, then, that these five senses can be restored to holy actions in this way: that if perhaps we presumed to misuse them in worldly actions, and spent their use on things which we did not do according to God, we should now restore those five to holy actions and religious ministries, and add to these five others, which are the senses of the inner man: by which, made clean of heart, we see God; or have ears to hear what Jesus teaches; or catch that fragrance of which the Apostle says, “For we are the good fragrance of Christ to God”; or also take that taste of which the prophet says, “Taste and see that the Lord is sweet”; or that touch of which John says, “what we have looked upon with our eyes, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life.” And to all these let us add one more, so that we refer all these things to the one God. And let this be said about restoring the things that were taken from the holy things by any fault.

But what shall we say of the sacrifice of the ram bought at a price, and at the price of the holy shekel, which is commanded to be offered for the expiation of sin? He will need to be rich who can purge his offences at the price of a ram. Let us inquire what these riches are. The most wise Solomon teaches us, saying: “The redemption of a man's soul is his own riches.” Do you hear how the words of wisdom express the force of each expression with the necessary precision? He speaks of riches fit for the redemption of the soul, and riches not another's, nor common, but one's own riches. By this he shows that there are some riches that are one's own, and some that are not one's own. But the Lord declared this more clearly in the Gospels when he said: “And if you have not been faithful in what is another's, who will give you what is yours?” showing by this that the riches of this present age are not our own but another's. For they pass, and go by like a shadow. But those riches are one's own of which the prophet says: “And to you I will gather the riches of the nations.” With these riches perhaps Abraham too was made very rich, in gold and silver and flocks and goods. Do you wish me to show you from what treasures these riches come down? Hear the apostle Paul saying of the Lord Jesus Christ: “In whom,” he says, “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And in the Gospels too the Lord says that the rich scribe “brings out of his treasures things new and old.” Of these the apostle Paul too says that “in everything you were made rich in him, in all speech and in all knowledge.” From these riches, then, which are brought out of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, we must buy this ram which ought to be offered for those sins, namely, which have been committed in the holy things; and it must be bought by the counting out of the holy shekel. We have already said above that every victim bears the type and image of Christ, much more the ram, which once was substituted by God to be sacrificed in place of Isaac. With the holy shekel, then, we must acquire Christ, who dissolves our sins. The holy shekel holds the form of our faith. For if you offer faith as the price, you will receive the remission of sins through Christ, given as a victim like a ram without blemish. I feel that in explaining these things the greatness of the mysteries surpasses our strength. But although we are not able to discuss everything, yet we perceive that everything is full of mysteries. And so let it suffice to have set down indications for all who are studious, by which, roused, they may reach the higher and deeper sense of these things, and understand from what flocks a calf is sought for the victim, from what sheep a ram is to be provided. “For I have,” says Jesus, “other sheep too, which are not of this fold, and I must bring them also, so that there may be one flock and one shepherd.” Let them know too where turtledoves, where doves are to be sought. “Your eyes,” it says, “are like doves upon the fullness of the waters.” We must hasten, then, to the fullness of the waters, for in them the beauty of the bride is described. “And your neck,” it says, “is like a turtledove's.” In doves the eyes are praised. For as to his saying, “doves upon the fullness of the waters”: they say that this kind of bird, when it comes to the waters, because there it usually suffers the ambush of the hawk, catches sight of the enemy coming from above by looking in the water at the shadow of the one flying, and by the sharpness of its eyes escapes the snare of the threatening danger. If you too can thus foresee and guard against the ambushes of the devil, you will have offered to God the sacrifice of a dove. And let those who care about such things inquire also from what fields the fine flour should be offered. I think, from the crops of that land which yields fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Let them inquire also, unless it seems more curious than it should, by what grinders this fine flour is prepared for the sacrifices. And let it not escape them that there are two women grinding, of whom one will be taken and the other left. From the mill of the one who is to be taken, then, the fine flour will have to be offered. And as for the holy shekel, which is said to be needed for the price of the ram, see from where and how it is to be sought. The shekel is a name for the Lord's money, and in many places of the Scriptures the Lord's money is mentioned under various names. But some is called approved, and some rejected. Approved was that money which the householder, about to set out abroad, gave to his servants when he had called them, to each according to his ability. Approved too was that money called a denarius, which he agreed on with the hired labourers, and which was given from the last to the first. You must know, then, that there is also another, rejected money. Hear the prophet saying: “Your silver is rejected.” Since, then, there is some that is approved and some that is rejected, therefore the Apostle says, as to approved moneychangers: “Testing all things, holding fast what is good.” For our Lord Jesus Christ alone can teach you such an art, by which you may know how to discern which money holds the image of the true king, and which is counterfeit and, as people commonly say, struck outside the mint, having indeed the king's name but not holding the truth of the royal figure. For there are many who have the name of Christ but do not have the truth of Christ. And because of this the apostle Paul says: “For there must also be heresies, so that those who are approved may be made manifest among you.” Therefore in the present reading too the lawgiver, looking wholly to the mystical and spiritual sense, added that this ram, which is acquired for this purpose, that it may absolve sin, should be acquired not with any shekel whatever, that is, not with any money whatever, but with the holy shekel. If he were not looking to the mystery, what reason would there seem to be that a ram should be bought to be offered as a victim, and at a fixed price? And it was not enough to have named the money “shekel”; he added “holy shekel” too. What if someone had in his flocks excellent rams worthy of the divine sacrifices? Or what if someone was so poor that he could not have a holy shekel? Is this, then, the lawgiver's moderation, that unless someone has a fixed sum of money his sin cannot be absolved? This plainly seems absurd according to the letter; but according to the spiritual understanding it is certain that no one receives remission of sins unless he brings a whole, approved, and holy faith, by which he can buy the ram whose nature is this: to wipe away the sins of the believer. And this is the holy shekel: an approved, as we said, and sincere faith, that is, one in which no deceit of faithlessness, no perversity of heretical cunning, is mixed, so that, offering a sincere faith, we may be washed by the precious blood of Christ as of an unblemished victim, through whom to God the Father almighty with the Holy Spirit is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

If, according to the faithfulness of the divine law, these things that are read to us, “The Lord spoke to Moses,” are the Lord's, I think that, as words of God, they ought to be understood not according to the incapacity of the hearers but according to the majesty of the speaker. “The Lord,” he says, “spoke.” What is “the Lord”? Let the Apostle answer you, and learn from him that “the Lord is spirit.” And if the Apostle's word does not suffice you, hear the Lord himself speaking in the Gospels, that “God is spirit.” If, then, both the Lord and God are spirit, we ought to hear spiritually what the Spirit speaks. I say something more still: that what the Lord speaks must be believed to be not only spiritual but also spirit. I shall prove this not from my own sense but from the Gospels. Hear our Lord and Saviour saying to his disciples: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” If, then, we have learned from the voice of the Saviour himself that the words he spoke to the apostles are spirit and life, we ought by no means to doubt that the words he spoke through Moses too must be believed to be spirit and life.