Commentaria in Leviticum
I answer by denying the consequence; for those three, namely the holocaust, the peace sacrifice and that for sin, are only a division and species of the animal, or animate, victim, not of the inanimate. Therefore sacrifice in general is to be divided into animate and inanimate; the animate is then to be divided into holocaust, peace sacrifice, and that for sin; the inanimate was either solid, as of meal and loaves, or liquid, as the libation of oil and wine.
I add, however, that the fine flour which had always to be offered with the flesh victim was not a sacrifice distinct from it, but was as it were a libation, or an addition and ornament of the sacrifice, of which Numbers 15.
His offering shall be of fine flour—as if to say: He shall offer pure fine flour without bran, if, as has gone before, he wishes to offer the sacrifice called mincha.
Tropologically, fine flour is purity of conscience, says Radulphus, for this is a sacrifice most pleasing to God.
And he shall pour oil upon it.—God commanded oil to be poured on the fine flour as a certain seasoning of flavour; for oiled bread is more savoury; and the most savoury and choicest food is to be offered to God.
The allegorical reason was that the oil might signify the charity and mercy of Christ, which He showed in His own sacrifice, both of the cross and of the Eucharist, towards the world. So St. Bernard on that of the Canticle 1: “Thy name is as oil poured out.”
Tropologically, the same is to be imitated by us with cheerfulness (for oil makes the face cheerful); for it befits us to cleave to the Christian manner of life not sad and mourning, but glad and joyful, says Cyril, book 11 On Adoration, fol. 233, and book 15, fol. 315. For the olive and oil are a symbol, first, of reconciliation; second, of mercy; third, of peace and covenant; fourth, of cheerfulness, as I said on Genesis 8:11. The Gentiles imitated this, and their gods or demons. For, as Plutarch says in the Parallels, at the end: “When Hegesistratus of Ephesus, having committed a civil murder, had fled to Delphi, he asked the god where he should fix his abode. Apollo answered, where he should see rustics lead dances crowned with olive leaves. When he had found this in a certain region of Asia, he founded a city there, and from the olives called it Eleus (elaia in Greek being the olive); just as Ulysses, according to the oracle founding a city in Italy in the place where he had seen the country people crowned with holm-oak boughs, called it Prinistus (now called Praeneste); prinos in Greek being the holm-oak.” So Plutarch.
Leontius relates in the Life of St. John the Almsgiver that Mercy appeared to him at night in sleep, in the form of a most adorned maiden, more splendid than the sun, wearing on her head a crown of olive branches; and she said to him: “I am the first of the king’s daughters. If thou shalt have me for thy friend, I will lead thee into the presence of the Emperor. For no one has power with Him as I have. It was I who made Him become man on earth and save men.” To this he adds that the monk Sabinus saw that the same maiden, so resplendent and crowned with olive, received John at his death and led him to God, and that thence he knew that John had died at the same hour, and for his alms had been translated to the heavenly places.
And he shall put frankincense.—God commands frankincense to be laid upon the fine flour offered, that in this as it were banquet of God there may be present not only a pleasant taste but also a sweet odour. Second, because by the common sense of men incense is wont to be burnt to God, and almost to Him alone; and therefore God here commands the whole of it to be burnt to Himself. Hence Ovid, book 14 of the Metamorphoses:
“I will set up temples to thee, I will pay thee the honours of incense,” that is, divine honours, as if to say, “With incense I will worship and honour thee as God.” Hence also some derive thus (incense) from thyein, to sacrifice, because incense is wont to be burnt to God and used among His sacrifices. So the three Magi adoring Christ, Matthew 2:11, by offering incense to the Child Christ, signified and professed His divinity, as St. Ambrose, Basil, Gregory, Jerome teach, and Juvencus when he sings: “Incense, gold, myrrh, they bring as gifts to king, man and God.”
Some think that of old the primitive men offered to God in sacrifice the evaporation of fragrant trees, which the Greeks call thymiasis; whence thysia, that is, sacrifice, is derived, because the first thysia, or first sacrifice, was thymiasis, that is, a burning of incense and perfumes. But Arnobius denies that incense was used in sacred rites by the most ancient; for we read that among the Etruscan heroes, Romulus and Numa, incensing was unknown, but the entrails were observed, and then roasted or boiled were usually burnt to the gods, and Giraldus teaches this from Apuleius, Syntagma 47. Nor is that strange, since they were so far distant from Arabia, which alone produces incense. The invention, therefore, of offering incense to God is to be ascribed to Moses, nay to God here commanding it: for Moses was dwelling with the Hebrews in Arabia. So Hieronymus Prado on Ezechiel, page 119.
Note: Incense agrees with fine flour and the mincha in colour; for incense is white; hence it is called by the Hebrews lebonah, and by the Greeks libanos, that is, white and shining; hence Scripture calls incense pure and most bright, Exodus 30:34; and hence, both for its evaporation and for its light, it is most fitting that it be burnt to God, to whom all the brightest things are pleasing. Pliny notes, second, book 12, chapter 14, that incense grows in Arabia Felix, and as it were ripens and is cooked in summer by the summer heats, and is gathered in autumn already cooked, white and most pure. For that which is gathered in winter, or in spring, from the cut bark of the incense-bearing tree, is red, and not comparable to the former, which flowed from the heat of summer.
Hence, tropologically, incense and incensing signify holy works, as it were melted and fuming with the fervour of charity, which in the fire of the same charity are burnt to God, and therefore give forth an odour most sweet and most pleasing to God. First, it signifies charity.
Second, incense signifies the virtue of religion and prayer, Psalm 140:2: “Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight.” Hence in sacred rites incensing is used, that those present may be reminded of devotion and interior prayer. So Hesychius, Radulphus, Bede and others.
Third, incense signifies the odour of a good life. “Incense,” says St. Cyril, book 12 On Adoration, “and fine flour steeped in oil, hint at that fragrant and shining life.”
Verse 2. He shall take a handful of the flour and oil—that is, a handful of fine flour tempered with oil, or oiled fine flour; it is a hendiadys.
And shall put it for a memorial upon the altar.—The Hebrew is, he shall kindle, or burn, its memorial, that is, the handful of fine flour which he took he will burn with all the incense, that it may be as a memorial and sign that this fine flour, as a mincha, that is, a meal sacrifice, has been offered not to the priest but to God. Second, that this mincha of fine flour may renew before God the memory of the offerer, and obtain from Him what he asks; for so our interpreter explains this phrase in chapter 5, verse 12. This handful, then, of the fine flour was burnt to God; but the remaining flour fell to the priest. Hence follows:
Verse 3. And the remnant of the sacrifice (the mincha, or fine flour) shall be Aaron’s and his sons’, the holy of holies of the offerings of the Lord.—The Hebrew is: “the holiness of holinesses shall be from the firings,” that is, from the offerings burnt to the Lord; as if to say: The remainder of the fine flour offered to God shall be, and shall be held, most holy, because it is a part of the thing, namely of the fine flour sacrificed to God by fire. Hence it could not be eaten except by sacred persons, namely by the family of the priest, as is plain from Leviticus 22:10 and 14.
Verse 4. But when thou offerest a sacrifice baked in the oven, of flour,—Supply, thou shalt offer it. So Vatablus. Thus far Moses has described the mincha, or sacrifice of pure and uncooked fine flour; here he turns to the baked kinds.
Moreover, victims of the pan, literally, were the seven Machabee brothers, fried in a pan by Antiochus for the faith and the law of God, 2 Machabees 7. Victims of the oven were the three children, cast into the furnace by Nabuchodonosor for the worship of the one God, Daniel 3. Likewise St. Eustace, put into a white-hot brazen bull, which was the torment of the tyrant Phalaris. Likewise Antipas, Bishop of Pergamus, whom St. John mentions, Apocalypse 2:13, who under the Emperor Domitian, likewise thrown into a brazen bull, died a glorious martyrdom, whose memory the Church celebrates on the eleventh of April. Likewise the three hundred Martyrs who leapt into a lime-kiln for the faith of Christ at Carthage under Valerian, and thence are called the White Mass, in the Martyrology on the 24th of August.