Homilies on Leviticus 5.12

After this: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, saying: He who offers the sacrifice of his peace offering to the Lord shall bring his gift to the Lord from the sacrifice of his peace offering. His hands shall offer the victim to the Lord: the fat which is on the breast, and the lobe of the liver; he shall offer them so that the gift is placed before the Lord. And the priest shall lay the fat which is on the breast on the altar, and the breast shall be Aaron's and his sons'; and the right shoulder you shall give as a portion set apart for the priest from your peace offerings. He among the sons of Aaron who offers the blood of the peace offering and the fat, to him shall belong the right shoulder as a portion; for the breast of the laying-on and the shoulder of the taking-away I have taken from the children of Israel from your peace offerings, and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons, a perpetual ordinance for the children of Israel.” This is the sacrifice which is called the peace offering. This sacrifice no one offers to the Lord except one who is healthy and, conscious of his salvation, gives thanks to the Lord. No one, then, who is sick in soul and feeble in works can offer the peace offering. Do you wish to see that no one sick and feeble can offer that sacrifice? The leper whom the Lord is described in the Gospel as having cured could not offer a victim while he was held by the sickness of leprosy. But when he approached Jesus and was cleansed, then he is commanded by the Lord to offer gifts at the altar, “which Moses commanded,” he says, “as a testimony to them.” You have heard who it is that ought to offer the peace offering; hear now how he ought to offer it. “His hands,” it says, “shall offer the victim to the Lord.” Does not the lawgiver clearly cry out that it is not the man who offers the victim, but his hands, that is, his works? For it is works that commend the victim to God. For if your hand is drawn back from giving and stretched out to receive, your leprosy is still within you, and you cannot offer the peace offering. His hands, then, shall offer the peace offering, and his hands shall offer what is to be offered to the Lord, that is, the fat which is on the breast, and the lobe of the liver. In this place, where we have “his hands shall offer the victim to the Lord,” in the Greek there is, instead of “victim”, a word which is understood as “the whole fruit”: by which he shows that one who is fruitless cannot offer the whole fruit to the Lord, one who does not bring the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of mercy, or also the fruits of the Spirit which the Apostle enumerates: love, joy, peace, patience, unanimity, and the rest like these. Hence in another place too the prophet says: “And may your burnt offering be fat.” He offers, then, the fat which is on the breast, and the lobe of the liver, to be laid on the altar. Of fat we have often spoken already. And as to his saying “the fat which is on the breast”, understand your breast to be your heart, from which all evil thoughts must be removed from you; for from there they proceed; and they must be given to the fire of the altar, so that your heart, made clean, may see God. And he commanded the lobe of the liver also to be offered. We explained before too that the lobe of the liver is the seat of anger or of desire; for he offers the lobe of the liver who cuts out of himself every vice of anger and fury. The fat, then, which is on the breast is laid on the altar, but the breast itself is Aaron's and his sons'. And he commanded the right shoulder too to be set apart, and to be for them in place of a gift from the peace offering. See with what gifts the priest is honoured. He receives the breast and the shoulder, but the right shoulder. Do we think there is no reason why, out of all the members of the animals that are slaughtered in sacrifices, these members especially were chosen? I think that if anyone says he is a priest of God, unless he has a breast chosen out of all the members, he is not a priest; and unless he has a right shoulder, he cannot go up to the altar of the Lord nor be called a priest. What, then, is the priest's breast, or of what kind? I think it is such that it is full of wisdom, full of knowledge, full of all divine understanding; and why do I say full of understanding? Rather, that it is full of God. Such too is the shoulder of the priest which the children of Israel offer him for their salvation, by which they are saved. Each of these things that are written in the law are forms of what ought to be done in the church. Otherwise it would not have been necessary for these things to be read in the church, unless some edification were offered from them to the hearers. If, then, the priest of the church, by words and teaching and his great solicitude and the labour of vigils, has been able to convert a sinner and teach him to follow a better way, to return to the fear of God, to think of the hope to come, to cease from evil deeds and turn to good ones; if, I say, he has done such a work, it follows that the one who is saved by his labour should give thanks to God and offer the peace offering, because he has obtained salvation. In this victim the priest's portion becomes the breast and the right shoulder: so that it may be a sign that his breast and heart, which before thought evil things, converted by the priest's labour, has received good thoughts and has been so cleansed that it can even see God. Likewise in that shoulder there is a sign that he has turned his evil and left-handed works, which were certainly depraved and not good, into right-handed ones, so that they might be according to God; and this is the right shoulder, in which the priest's portion is said to be. And we beseech you too who hear these things: give your breasts, offer your hearts to the priests of God, so that they may remove from them all that is gross and make them the priestly portion. Give us also your shoulders, but it is right shoulders we ask of you: we want nothing left-handed; we require right-handed works of you. And what he adds, that it is called the breast of the laying-on and the shoulder of the taking-away, does not seem to me said without reason. And so I should like to ask what it is that must be laid on the breast, so that it becomes the breast of the laying-on. After all that is gross has been removed from your heart, and it has been cleansed from every covering or defilement which is to be given to the fire, it remains that the grace of the Holy Spirit be laid on it, and then it will become the breast of the laying-on; and also the shoulder of separation, or of taking-away. How will it also be the shoulder of separation? If you know and understand how to discern what are the works of light and what the works of darkness, and separate your actions from darkness, so that your works are in the light, your shoulder becomes the shoulder of separation; or when you separate yourself from every brother who walks disorderly; or certainly when, according to the prophet, those who carry the vessels of the Lord separate themselves and go out from the midst of sinners. Indeed, by a certain native usage of Scripture, what is unclean is called “common”. As the voice too says to Peter: “What God has cleansed, do not call common.” Consequently, then, if what is unclean is called common, what is holy will be named separated. And we add this too. If anyone is the servant of God alone, he cannot be called common. But if anyone is common, there is no doubt that he belongs to many, and is therefore called common. There is a great mystery in this word, which Israel according to the flesh has in use and in feeling, but does not have in understanding. They too call an unclean man common, but why he is called common they do not know. Let them learn, then, from the church that he who is holy belongs to God alone, and has communion with no one. But he who is a sinner and unclean belongs to many. For many demons possess him, and therefore he is called common. Indeed, that man too who was cured by the Lord in the Gospels, when he was asked, “What is your name?” said: “Legion, for we are many.” These things, though in something of a digression, nevertheless seemed necessary to add, so that we might discuss the mystery of the breast of the laying-on and the shoulder of separation, why it was written; which is the eternal portion given to the priests, in which may he deign to make us worthy, so that through purity of heart and uprightness of works we may deserve to have a share in the divine sacrifice, through the eternal high priest, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through whom to God the Father with the Holy Spirit is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.