Homilies on Leviticus 6.1–6.6

The reason why these things that are read to us can be understood or not, the Apostle shows briefly, saying that the veil of the Old Testament can be removed from the eyes of one who has turned to God; from which he wished it to be known that the less plain these things are to us, the less is our turning to God. And therefore we must strive with all our strength, freed from the occupations of the world and from worldly affairs, and leaving behind, if it can be done, even the superfluous chatter of companions, to devote ourselves to the word of God and meditate on his law day and night, so that, turned with our whole heart, we may be able to look on the unveiled and open face of Moses; and especially in what has now been read, whether about the priestly garments or about the consecration of the high priest, in which such things are said as wholly to shut out even that fleshly Israel from a historical understanding. And therefore, to explain these things, we must strive not with the powers of human talent but with prayers and supplications poured out to God. In this we also need your help, so that God, the Father of the Word, may give us a word in the opening of our mouth, so that we may be able to consider the wonders of his law.

The beginning, then, of what was read today is in these words: “This is the anointing of Aaron and the anointing of his sons from the victims of the Lord, on the day on which he brought them near to sacrifice to the Lord, as the Lord commanded to give them, on the day on which he anointed them, from the children of Israel, a perpetual ordinance for their generations. This is the law of the burnt offerings, and of the sin offering, and of the offence offering, and of the consecration, and of the peace offering, as the Lord commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, on the day when he commanded the children of Israel to offer their gifts before the Lord in the desert of Sinai.” When the lawgiver had set out to say, “This is the anointing of his sons,” he did not add what the anointing was, nor explain how he anointed; he does this indeed in what follows, but now, after saying “This is the anointing of Aaron and of his sons,” he added nothing about the anointing. Surely this was to show that the things he had said above, that is, the breast of the laying-on and the shoulder of separation, were themselves the anointing of Aaron and his sons, so that we should not think those things were said about flesh, but so that he might teach that they too were included under the sacrament of the anointing. Indeed, in what follows he repeats what he had set out above, and says: “This is the law of the burnt offerings, and of the sacrifice, and of the sin offering.” “This”, that is, the one set out above; and it seems to be a recapitulation of the sacraments which had been related more fully above. After this he adds: “And the Lord spoke,” he says, “to Moses, saying: Take Aaron and his sons, and the robes, and the oil of anointing, and the calf for sin, and the two rams, and the basket of unleavened bread, and call the whole synagogue together at the door of the tabernacle of witness. And Moses did as the Lord commanded him, and called the synagogue together at the door of the tabernacle of witness. And Moses said to the synagogue: This is the word which the Lord commanded to do. And Moses brought Aaron his brother and his sons near, and washed them with water; and he clothed him with the tunic, and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the inner tunic, and put the ephod on him, and girded him according to the making of the ephod, and bound him with it; and he put the oracle on him, and on the oracle he put the manifestation and the truth; and he put the mitre on his head, and on the mitre, in front of his face, he put the golden plate, sanctified, holy, as the Lord had commanded Moses.” Hear with attentive ears and a watchful heart the consecration of the high priest or priest, because you too, according to God's promises, are priests of God: “for you are a holy nation and a holy priesthood.” Moses, it says, according to the Lord's command, took Aaron and his sons, and first he washes them, and afterwards he clothes them. Consider more carefully the order of the words: first he washes, afterwards he clothes. For you cannot be clothed unless you have first been washed. “Wash, then, and be clean, and take away wickedness from your souls.” For unless you have been washed in this way, you will not be able to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, according to what the Apostle says: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in its desires.” Let Moses, then, wash you; let him wash you himself, and let him clothe you himself. How Moses can wash you you have often heard. For we have often said that in his Scriptures Moses is put for the law, as was said in the Gospel: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” It is the law of God, then, that washes you; it rinses away your filth; it, if you listen to it, wipes away the stains of your sins. This is Moses, that is, the law which consecrates priests; and no one can be a priest whom the law has not established as priest. For there are many priests, but whom the law has not washed, nor the word of God made pure, nor the divine discourse cleansed from the filth of sins. But you too who desire to receive holy baptism and to merit the grace of the Spirit ought first to be purged by the law; you ought first, having heard the word of God, to cut back the shoots of vices and to set in order barbarous and savage habits, so that, having taken on gentleness and humility, you may be able also to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. For so the Lord says through the prophet: “On whom shall I rest, but on the humble and quiet, and one who trembles at my words?” If you are not humble and quiet, the grace of the Holy Spirit cannot dwell in you, if you do not receive the divine words with trembling. For the Holy Spirit flees a proud and stubborn and deceitful soul. You ought, then, first to meditate on the law of God, so that if perhaps your actions are intemperate and your habits disordered, the law of God may amend and correct you. Do you wish to see that Moses is always with Jesus, that is, the law with the Gospels? Let the Gospel teach you that when Jesus was transfigured into glory, Moses and Elijah too appeared together with him in glory, so that you may know that the law and the prophets and the Gospel always agree in one and remain in one glory. Indeed, Peter too, when he wished to make three tabernacles for them, is censured for lack of understanding, as one who did not know what he was saying. For the law and the prophets and the Gospel have not three but one tabernacle, which is the church of God. Moses, then, first washes the priest of the Lord, and when he has washed him and rendered him clean from the filth of vices, after this he clothes him. But let us consider what these garments are with which Moses first clothed his brother Aaron, the high priest, in case it is possible for you too to be clothed with the same garments and to be a high priest. There is indeed one great high priest, our Lord Jesus Christ; but he is not only a priest but the priest of priests, and not only a high priest but the high priest of high priests, not a chief of priests but the chief of the chief priests. Just as he is called king not of a people but King of kings, and Lord not of servants but Lord of lords. It may be, then, if you too have been washed by Moses, and have become so clean, as one whom so great and so excellent a Moses has washed, that you may be able to attain even to these garments which Moses brings out, and these robes with which he clothed Aaron his brother and his sons. But for the priestly insignia there is need not only of garments but also of girdles. But before we begin to speak of the kind of garments itself, I should like to compare those unhappy garments with which the first man was clothed when he had sinned with these holy and faithful garments. And indeed God is said to have made those: “For God made,” it says, “tunics of skin, and clothed Adam and his wife.” Those tunics, then, were of skins taken from animals. For with such the sinner had to be clothed, with tunics of skin, I say, which were a sign of the mortality which he had received because of sin, and of the frailty which came from the corruption of the flesh. But if you have now been washed from these and purified through the law of God, Moses will clothe you with the garment of incorruption, so that your shame may nowhere appear, and that this mortal may be swallowed up by life.

Let us see, then, in what order the high priest is appointed. “Moses,” it says, “called the synagogue together, and says to them: This is the word which the Lord commanded.” Although, then, the Lord had given commands about appointing the high priest, and the Lord had chosen him, yet the synagogue too is called together. For in ordaining a priest the presence of the people also is required, so that all may know and be certain that the one who is more excellent than all the people, more learned, holier, more eminent in every virtue, is the one chosen for the priesthood; and this with the people standing by, so that afterwards no one might have any reconsideration, and no scruple might remain. This is what the Apostle too commanded in the ordination of a priest, saying: “But he must also have a good testimony from those outside.” I, however, see something more in his saying that Moses called the whole synagogue together; and I think that to call the synagogue together is to collect all the powers of the soul and gather them into one, so that, when discourse is held about the priestly sacraments, all the powers of the soul may be awake and attentive, no wisdom, no knowledge, no diligence lacking in them, but the whole multitude of the senses present, the whole assembly of holy thoughts present, so that, comparing within the sanctuary of his heart, one may perceive what the high priest is, what the anointing, what his garments. He washed him, then, and clothed him. With what garment? “With a tunic,” it says, “and he girded him with a girdle, and again clothed him with the tunic reaching to the ankles,” or, as we read elsewhere, “the inner one”. With two tunics, as I see, the high priest is clothed by Moses. But what shall we do about Jesus forbidding his priests, the apostles, to use two tunics? We had said that Moses and Jesus, that is, the law and the Gospels, agree with one another. Someone might perhaps say that Jesus' command not to have two tunics is not contrary to the law but more perfect than the law; as also when the law forbids murder, Jesus cuts off even anger, and when the law forbids adultery, Jesus cuts off even the desire of the heart. So it will seem that he clothed the high priest there with two tunics and the apostles here with one. Let this sense too stand, if it seems probable; I, however, do not confine the high-priestly sacraments within the narrowness of this understanding. Something more seems to me to be shown by this pattern: the high priest is one who holds the knowledge of the law and understands the reasons of each mystery, and, to explain it briefly, who knows the law both according to the spirit and according to the letter. That high priest whom Moses was then ordaining knew, then, that there was a spiritual circumcision, yet he also kept the circumcision of the flesh, because an uncircumcised man could not be high priest. He had, then, two tunics: one of the fleshly ministry, and another of spiritual understanding. He knew that spiritual sacrifices too ought to be offered to God, yet he nonetheless offered fleshly ones as well. For he could not be the high priest of those who then lived unless he sacrificed victims. So, fittingly, that high priest is said to be clothed with two tunics. But the apostles, who were to say, “If you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing,” and who were to say, “Let no one judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come”: these, then, so that they might utterly repudiate such observances of the law according to the letter, and not occupy the disciples with Jewish fables, and lay on them a yoke which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear, are rightly forbidden to have two tunics; one suffices them, and that the inner one. For that tunic which is outside and which appears on top, the tunic of the law, they do not want. For Jesus permits them to have one, and that the inner one. Moses, however, also puts on the high priest the ephod, which is a kind of ornament of the shoulders formed by wrapping a garment around them. And the shoulders bear the figure of works and are signs of labour. He wishes, then, the high priest to be adorned also with works; knowledge alone does not suffice, because “whoever does and teaches, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

He had already said above that he girded him with a girdle over the tunic, and now again he is girded according to the making of the ephod. What is this double girdle with which he wishes the high priest to be bound on every side? Let him be bound in word, bound in deed, ready for everything, having nothing slack, nothing loose. Let him be girded with the virtues of the soul, bound against bodily vices; let him fear no fall of the soul, none of the body; let him always use both girdles, so as to be holy in body and spirit. And it is well that he is girded according to the making of the ephod. For according to his deeds and according to his works he uses the girdle of virtue. “And after this,” it says, “he put on him the oracle,” which is the rational, “and on the oracle he put the manifestation and the truth, and he put the mitre on his head.” But let us see what the oracle, which is the rational, signifies. After the nakedness has been covered and the shame veiled by garments, after he has been protected by works and strengthened by both girdles, then the oracle, that is, the rational, is handed to him. The oracle is a sign of wisdom, because wisdom consists in reason. But the power of this wisdom and reason shows what kind it is. For he puts on the rational the manifestation and the truth. For it is not enough for the high priest to have wisdom and to know the reason of all things unless he can also make manifest to the people what he knows. Therefore, then, manifestation is put on the rational, so that he may be able to answer everyone who asks him for a reason concerning faith and truth. And truth is put on it as well, so that he may not assert what he can devise by his own talent, but what the truth holds, and never depart from the truth, so that in all his speech truth may always remain. This, then, is to have put on the rational the manifestation and the truth. Unhappy are those who, reading these things, pour out all their understanding on the sense of a bodily garment! Let them tell us what kind of garment manifestation is, or what kind of clothing truth is. If anyone has ever seen, if anyone has heard manifestation and truth named as garments, let them tell us who the women are who wove these things, in what weaving shop these were ever made. But if you wish to hear the truth, it is wisdom that made garments of this kind. She wove the manifestation of hidden things, she wove the truth of all things. Let us pray, then, to the Lord that we may deserve to receive her, and she herself will surround us with such garments. But look also at how holy and how wonderful the very order of things is. Not first the oracle and afterwards the ephod, because not wisdom before works; but works ought to be had first, and afterwards wisdom is to be sought. Then next, not manifestation before the rational, because we ought not to teach others before we ourselves are instructed and rational. And truth is added over these, because truth is the highest wisdom. Indeed the prophet keeps this same order when he says: “Sow for yourselves unto righteousness, reap the fruit of life, light for yourselves the light of knowledge.” You see how he does not say first, “light for yourselves the light of knowledge,” but first, “sow for yourselves unto righteousness”; and it is not enough to sow, but “reap,” he says, “the fruit of life,” so that after this you may be able to fulfil what follows, “light for yourselves the light of knowledge.” So too here the ornament of the ephod is put on, and the ornament alone is not enough, but he is also bound with the girdle. But not even this is enough: he is girded a second time, so that only then the rational may be put on, and after this the manifestation and the truth may follow. Let the high priest use these garments. With such adornment ought he to be clothed who bears the priesthood.

But he has not yet finished, and still another adornment must be added: he must receive also a crown. Therefore he receives first the cidaris, which is either a kind of covering of the head or an ornament. And after this the mitre is put on over it. Before his face, that is, on the forehead of the high priest, a golden plate, sanctified, on which the name of God is said to be engraved. This adornment of the head, where the name of God is said to be placed, is put on over all those things with which the lower members of the body had been adorned. In this it seems to me to be indicated that the knowledge of God, as of the author of all things, is more eminent than everything that can be thought or understood about the world or the other creatures. And because he is the head of all things, therefore this adornment too is put on the head above all things. For nothing is added after this to the high priest's head. And therefore wretched are those of whom the Apostle says that they do not hold fast to the head, from which the whole body, joined and knit together, grows with the growth of God in the Spirit. But we, if we have well understood what the priest's adornment is, and what the honour of his head is above all things, searching the depths of the divine mysteries, should desire not only to know and hear these things but also to fulfil and do them, because not the hearers of the law will be justified before God, but the doers. For you too can, as we have often said already, if by your studies and vigils you prepare for yourself such garments, if the word of the law has washed you and made you clean, and the anointing of the chrism, and the grace of baptism in you has lasted undefiled; if you are clothed with the double garments of the letter and the spirit; if you are also doubly girded, so as to be chaste in flesh and mind; if you shine with the ephod of works and the rational of wisdom; if also the mitre and the golden plate, the fullness of the knowledge of God, crowns your head: know that, even if you are hidden and unknown among men, yet before God you exercise the high priesthood within the temple of your soul. For you are the temple of the living God, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. After this, the things that are said about his consecration and anointing have been discussed by us here and there and often.

As to what he says, “And Moses brought the sons of Aaron near, and clothed them with tunics, and girded them with girdles, and put caps on them, as the Lord commanded Moses,” we must attend to what difference there is between these priests and the higher priesthoods. To these neither double garments are given, nor the ephod, nor the rational, nor the adornment of the head, but only the cap and the girdles which bind the tunic. These too, then, receive the grace of the priesthood, and these too perform the office, but not like him who is adorned with the ephod and the rational, who shines with manifestation and truth, who is decorated with the ornament of the golden plate. Hence I think it is one thing among priests to perform the office, another to be equipped and adorned in all things. For anyone can perform the solemn ministry to the people, but few are those who are adorned in conduct, equipped in teaching, trained in wisdom, thoroughly fit to make manifest the truth of things, and who bring out the knowledge of the faith not without the adornment of thoughts and the brilliance of assertions; which the adornment placed on the head, the golden plate, designates. One, then, is the name of priesthood, but not one the dignity, whether by the merit of life or by the virtues of the soul. And therefore in what the divine law describes, as in a mirror, each of the priests ought to look at himself and gather from it the degree of his merit: if he sees himself placed in all these things which we have expounded above, adorned with the high-priestly ornaments; if he is conscious that he is so great and of such a kind in knowledge, in actions, in teaching, let him know that he holds the highest priesthood not only in name but also in merits. Otherwise let him know that a lower rank is set for him, even if he has received the name of the first. Indeed this too ought not to escape us, which can be brought forward by a studious reader, and about which I myself have often hesitated within myself. For reading in Exodus, where commands are given about the priestly garments, I find that there are eight kinds which are prepared for the high priest. But here only seven are counted. I ask, then, what it is that has been omitted. The eighth kind is set down there as the drawers, or, as we read elsewhere, linen breeches, about which he has been silent here among the other garments. What, then, shall we say? Shall we attribute forgetfulness to the words of the Holy Spirit, so that, when he has related all the others a second time, one kind mentioned above should have escaped him? I do not dare think such things of the sacred words. But let us see, since we said above that this kind of garment seems to be a sign of chastity, by which either the thighs are covered or the kidneys and loins are bound, whether perhaps, I say, he means that these parts were not always bound in those who were priests then. For sometimes indulgence is given concerning the posterity of the family and the succession of offspring. But I would not introduce an understanding of this kind among the priests of the church. For I see another matter that meets the sacrament. For in the church too priests and teachers can beget sons, like him who said: “My little children, with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” And again elsewhere he says: “For though you have many thousands of tutors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I begot you.” These teachers of the church, then, in procreating such offspring, sometimes use bound breeches and abstain from begetting, when they find hearers in whom they know they cannot have fruit. Indeed in the Acts of the Apostles too it is related of certain ones that they could not “speak the word of God in Asia”: that is, that they had put on the breeches and restrained themselves from begetting sons, because, namely, the hearers were such that in them the seed would perish and there could be no succession. So, then, let the priests of the church, when they see incapable ears, or when they discern pretending and hypocritical hearers, put on the drawers, use the breeches, so that the seed of the word of God may not perish; because the Lord too commands the same and says: “Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest perhaps they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you.” Therefore, then, if anyone wishes to be a high priest not so much in name as in merit, let him imitate Moses, let him imitate Aaron. For what is said of them? That they do not depart from the tabernacle of the Lord. Moses, then, was unceasingly in the tabernacle of the Lord. And what was his work? Either to learn something from God, or himself to teach the people. These are the two works of the high priest: either to learn from God by reading the divine Scriptures and meditating on them often, or to teach the people. But let him teach what he himself has learned from God, not from his own heart or from human sense, but what the Holy Spirit teaches. There is also that work which Moses does: he goes to wars, he does not fight against the enemies. But what does he do? He prays; and while he prays, his people conquer. If he relaxes and lets down his hands, his people are conquered and put to flight. Let the priest of the church too, then, pray unceasingly, so that the people under him may conquer the invisible enemies, the Amalekites, who are the demons attacking those who wish to live godly in Christ. And therefore let us, meditating on these things and calling them to memory day and night, and persevering in prayer and keeping watch in it, beseech the Lord that he himself may deign to reveal to us the knowledge of what we read, and to show us how we may observe the spiritual law not only in understanding but also in actions, so that we may deserve to obtain spiritual grace, enlightened through the law of the Holy Spirit, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.