Commentaria in Exodum
15. BUT IF THE OWNER BE PRESENT, HE SHALL NOT MAKE RESTITUTION—because the owner of the animal being present (for the discourse here is of him) who borrowed the animal, that is, to speak legally and exactly, received it on loan for use, since the owner when present ought to have care of his own property: if then he himself let it perish, let it be imputed to him. But if he himself, with all his care and endeavour, could not preserve the thing, but it perished by chance, of this chance let him himself be witness, and let him see that the borrower is innocent. If, finally, the thing perish by the borrower’s fault, which the owner could not prevent, let the judges judge whether and how much he is bound to restore; for equity and justice demand this.
ESPECIALLY IF IT WERE HIRED, AND CAME FOR THE HIRE OF HIS WORK. The Hebrew is, if it was a hireling, that is, hired, coming for his own wages; that is, if the borrower, or rather the hirer, did not receive the animal for nothing, but hired the use of it for a price, and the animal die in the presence of the owner, he shall be bound to nothing. But if the animal was lent freely, for the favour of the borrower, it might be that he was bound to restitution; for a lighter fault would have bound the borrower, at least to make good some part of the thing lost, which would not have bound the hirer, who entered into such a contract not for his sole advantage but also for that of another, namely the lessor; just as the civil laws also now require a graver fault in the hirer than in the borrower for him to be bound to restitution; in the former they require a slight fault, in the latter only the slightest. Yet this our law does not answer in all respects to that old one; for there are here many merely positive provisions of that time, as that which is here repeatedly urged concerning the presence of the owner when the thing perishes; for that is now irrelevant, and helps neither borrower nor hirer.
For a tropology like the former see Rabanus.
17. HE SHALL PAY MONEY ACCORDING TO THE DOWRY WHICH VIRGINS ARE WONT TO RECEIVE—as if to say: He shall give to the virgin whom he deflowered as great a dowry as she would have received from her father according to her condition; for to the richer a greater dowry had to be assigned than to the poor.
You will say: In Deuteronomy 22:29 he who deflowered a virgin is condemned precisely to fifty shekels, that is, florins; therefore an equal dowry had to be given to all.
I answer: Deuteronomy speaks of another case, namely if injury and violence were done to the girl, and consequently to her father; for then, for the injury done to the parent, the ravisher had to pay fifty shekels not to the girl but to the father, and was moreover bound to take the dishonoured girl to wife, and to keep her without any hope of divorce, as is said there. So Abulensis. There, therefore, the question is of rape and violence, here of simple fornication.
18. WIZARDS THOU SHALT NOT SUFFER TO LIVE. The Hebrew is, a sorceress thou shalt not keep alive, that is, thou shalt not suffer her to live, or preserve her in life, but shalt take away her life; for the female sex is more liable to sorceries or poisonings than the male; yet by parity understand by the sorceress also the sorcerer.
25. IF THOU LEND MONEY TO ANY OF MY PEOPLE THAT IS POOR, THAT DWELLETH WITH THEE, THOU SHALT NOT BE HARD UPON THEM AS AN EXTORTIONER, NOR OPPRESS THEM WITH USURIES. The Hebrew is, thou shalt not be to him as an exactor or lender at interest, and shalt not lay upon him a biting, that is, usury: for the Hebrews call usury nesech, that is, a biting, because usury bites and gnaws the poor more than a dog.
26. IF THOU TAKE OF THY NEIGHBOUR A GARMENT IN PLEDGE, THOU SHALT GIVE IT HIM AGAIN BEFORE SUNSET. For garment the Hebrew is covering; for most plainly the law is given concerning night coverings, whether they be garments or bed-clothes. This is a law not of strict justice but of charity and mercy; it commands creditors to have pity on poor debtors, and to give back in the evening the pledge received from them, that they may use it by night and cover themselves, to take it again in the morning, if they wish, as a pledge. So Cajetan. Tropologically, St. Gregory, Moral. book 16, chap. 11, says: We are commanded to restore the pledge before sunset, because before the sun of justice sets in us through sorrow of heart, we ought to render to Him the confession of pardon, from whom we have received the confession of guilt.
28. THOU SHALT NOT SPEAK EVIL OF THE GODS.—The Hebrew has Elohim, that is, judges: thou shalt not despise them, or make them contemptible by thy words. So the Chaldee. Likewise Ecclesiastes chap. 10, verse 20: “Detract not the king, no not in thy thought, and speak not evil of the rich man in thy bedchamber,” because nothing is hidden from the great; “for even the birds of the air will carry thy voice, and he that hath wings will tell what thou hast spoken,” as if to say: Rumour will carry thy curses to his ears; for such things easily get out. For, as Juvenal says, Satire 9, Dost thou think that any secret of the rich man is hidden? Though the servants be silent, the beasts of burden will speak, and the dog, and the doorposts, and the marble.
“Many,” says Xenophon, book 8 of the Cyropaedia, “are the ears and many the eyes of a prince; and everywhere men fear to say what is not expedient for the prince, as though he himself were listening, and fear to do what is not to his advantage, as though he himself were present.”
And Vegetius, book 2, chap. 5, says: “To the emperor, when he receives the name of Augustus, faithful devotion is to be shown as to a present and bodily God, and watchful service is to be rendered; for whether in private life or in the army, a man serves God when he faithfully loves him who reigns by God’s authority.”
29. THOU SHALT NOT DELAY TO PAY THY TITHES AND THY FIRST-FRUITS.—The Interpreter has clearly expressed what the Hebrew says generally and obscurely: Thou shalt not delay to offer thy fullness and thy tear, that is, thy full ears of corn, and thy wine, and every liquid which, when pressed, distils a tear, that is, a liquor; that is, as the Chaldee, the Septuagint and our version render it, thou shalt offer thy tithes and first-fruits. For God does not command all the fruits to be offered, but only the tithes and first-fruits of them, as the Hebrew text states elsewhere; and this for the reason, says Philo, book On the Honours of Priests, that while the Hebrews grow accustomed always to set apart a portion of their food for God, they may never come to forget Him, but remember that these things were given them by God; and to testify this, they give, nay rather restore, to God the tithes and first-fruits of His fruits.
30. LET IT BE SEVEN DAYS WITH ITS DAM: ON THE EIGHTH DAY THOU SHALT GIVE IT ME.—Here God commands that the firstborn of oxen and sheep be offered to Him on the eighth day from their birth, not before; because before the eighth day the offspring is too tender, and as it were immature and imperfect, and not fully formed. So St. Thomas.
Anagogically, we remain seven days in this life with our mother the Church, but on the eighth day of the resurrection we shall be presented to the Lord, to receive from Him the reward of the good. So Rabanus.
31. YE SHALL BE HOLY MEN UNTO ME—both in soul and in body, namely by keeping my precepts, and by avoiding all uncleanness, even of flesh devoured by beasts, as follows.
THE FLESH THAT HATH BEEN TASTED BY BEASTS YE SHALL NOT EAT.—God commands this, first, that He may teach the Hebrews a certain outward and bodily decency and holiness. Secondly, that He may teach them to live a life according to reason, and one that shows nothing of savagery or barbarism, says Theodoret. Thirdly, that He may keep them farther from slaughter and theft, and instil in them an aversion and horror of them. So Cajetan.
Tropologically, it is not lawful to eat flesh tasted by beasts, that is, a Christian may not imitate a carnal conversation and doctrine, torn by heretical or diabolical work. So Rabanus. Again, a man taken captive by the devil, or by men of savage manners and strangers to the worship of piety, is not to be eaten, that is, is not to be imitated, but to be rebuked. So Radulphus on Leviticus chap. 11, and Rabanus.