Commentaria in Leviticum
11. AND WHEN HE HAD BLASPHEMED THE NAME OF THE LORD, AND HAD CURSED.—The Jews render, he pronounced that name (namely the tetragrammaton of God, which is called by antonomasia ha-shem, that is, the name), and cursed. Whence they think he committed two sins: first, that he pronounced the tetragrammaton name of God, which among the Jews is ineffable; secondly, that he cursed. But they err, for he had only one sin, namely blasphemy or cursing against God. Whence the Hebrew is to be rendered thus: he pierced, that is, blasphemed, that name (holy and august, of God), and cursed; for naqab, or qabab, signifies to hollow out, to pierce, and thence by metaphor to empty of honour, that is, to curse and blaspheme.
The Rabbis fable that this blasphemer was the son of that Egyptian whom Moses slew, Exod. 2:12, and that he first blasphemed God, then cursed Moses, wishing to avenge his father’s death; but God, caring for his own, willed rather to avenge the injury of Moses than his own, therefore he said: Bring forth the curser, and not, Bring forth the blasphemer; so these makers of fables. Allegorically, the blasphemer here signifies Antichrist, says Radulphus: for he was of the tribe of Dan, from which likewise Antichrist shall be born; whence all the Danites will adhere to Antichrist, as to their kinsman, and scarcely any of them will believe in Christ; and therefore in Apoc. 7, where those chosen from the single tribes are sealed and enumerated, the tribe of Dan alone is omitted, as Aretas, Bede, Haymo, Anselm, Rupert and Irenaeus, book 5, chap. 30, expound there. The mother of the blasphemer is called Salumith, that is, retribution, daughter of Dabri, that is, of speech, because the damnation to which Antichrist is destined will be a retribution for his blasphemies: all the people shall stone him, because all the elect in the day of his casting down will condemn him, and by their sentence cast him into the abyss.
14. LET ALL THAT HEARD HIM (blaspheme) PUT THEIR HANDS UPON HIS HEAD, AND LET ALL THE PEOPLE STONE HIM.—It was the custom among the Jews that witnesses should lay hands upon the head of the guilty, as if signifying that this is the impious head against which they bear testimony, and therefore that he is guilty of death. Lyranus adds that they were wont to say: “Thy wickedness has brought thee to death, not we”; as if they said: Impute thy death to thy own head, not to us. Whence to lay hands upon the head of anyone is to bear witness against him, as is plain Dan. 13:34. Oleaster gives another cause, namely that the ancients laid hands upon the head of the guilty as upon an expiatory victim; for on this hands were laid, because blasphemy, idolatry and like grave crimes, unless they be avenged, seem by their enormity to pollute the bystanders and neighbours, and so the whole region, and to render it liable to divine vengeance; which to avert, they give the guilty one over to God, and lay hands on him, as if by this rite they in fact prayed that God would turn upon him all the penalty of the sin, and not avenge the crime committed on the region or the people. In like manner God commanded hands to be laid on the idolater, Deut. 17:7. See also Theodoret, Quest. 33. God fitted to blasphemy the law of death and the penalty of homicide, and commanded the guilty to be stoned, because the blasphemer, since he cannot slay the Creator, strikes him with the tongue. Whence St. Augustine on that of Matt. 26:65, he hath blasphemed: “Not less,” he says, “do they sin who blaspheme Christ reigning in heaven than they who crucified him walking on earth”; so that it is no wonder that all civil, canonical and divine laws punish blasphemers so severely.
Notable also is the punishment of the blasphemer Sennacherib, who for blasphemy was slain with 185 thousand; so also Paul delivered a blasphemer to Satan, 1 Tim. 1, last verse.
Learn here how great a crime blasphemy is, and how sharply God punishes it, even in this life. For as to the future life, the sentence of Christ stands: “Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men; but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.” So the blasphemer Pharao, saying: “I know not the Lord,” was drowned in the Red Sea. So the Syrians saying: “The Lord is God of the hills, and not God of the valleys,” were many of them slain by a few Israelites in the valley in battle, 3 Kings 20. So the blasphemous Antichrist shall be cast down. Gregory of Tours relates, book 2 Hist. chap. 7, and Sidonius, book 8, epist. last but one, that when the Goths besieged Orleans, Anianus, bishop of the city, with his clergy was chanting litanies along the walls; hearing this a priest held captive among the Goths cried out: “Thou art led by a vain hope, Anianus, if thou believest that adversaries can be driven off by words; the same prayers have not profited other cities.” The Saints heard, and at once stripped the blasphemer of life.
Julian the Apostate in the Persian war, struck by a divinely sent lance between the ribs, flung his blood with his hand toward heaven, saying: “Be satisfied in thy wrath, Galilean (so he called Christ), thou hast conquered, thou hast conquered.” So Sozomen, Rufinus, Eutropius.
Arius, a blasphemer against the Son of God, going to relieve his bowels, poured out his entrails and expired.
The tongue of Nestorius was eaten by worms, because he had said that the Blessed Virgin was the Mother of Christ, not of God.
Olympius, an Arian bishop, bathing at Carthage in the bath of the Elyanenses, when he publicly blasphemed the Trinity, was struck by three darts like thunderbolts and consumed, in the year of Christ 510. Paul the Deacon is witness, book 15, in Anastasius.
The Emperor Frederick II used to say: “There were three notable impostors who seduced the human race: Moses, Christ, Mahomet”; whence he was condemned by Innocent IV in the Council of Lyons and deprived of the empire. Lipsius relates this blasphemy of his, book 1 Monit. politic. chap. 4. These are ancient instances; the following are of our own age and place.
Heretics planned to seize Halle (a town near Brussels, famous for a miraculous statue of the Blessed Virgin). One of them, approaching the town, said: “With my own hands I will cut off the nose of the little woman of Halle” (so he called the statue of the Blessed Virgin). The Virgin heard, and procured that the nose of this same man be carried off by a great leaden ball sent from the town. That wretch lived, Johann Zwick by name, and for many years was a constant laughing-stock to the Dutch themselves, and perhaps is still alive: the thing is most notorious.
It is ten years since the Dutch plundered the chapel of the Blessed Virgin of Sichem: from that time they lost Ostend, and all things went unfortunately for them (whereas before they went fortunately). There was among them a horseman who had a blind horse, who coming to the chapel said in mockery: “If Mary works miracles here, let her give sight to my horse.” The Virgin heard the blasphemy, and at once restored sight to the horse, but blinded the blasphemous horseman himself. This his companion confessed before his death and at his death, who for another crime was put to the last punishment at Weert, as the praetor of Weert himself, who presided at the punishment and the examination, wrote to me, who was then at Sichem on a mission, and by the wonderful help of the Virgin escaped the hands of the Dutch.
15. SIN,—the penalty of sin.
16. HE THAT BLASPHEMETH THE NAME OF THE LORD, DYING LET HIM DIE, etc., WHETHER HE BE A NATIVE OR A STRANGER,—even a Gentile and uncircumcised. For he, by the custom and law of nations, comes under the Jewish jurisdiction by reason of the crime committed there, as the blasphemer here, though an Egyptian, was nevertheless put to death by Moses and the Jews.
18. HE SHALL MAKE IT GOOD, THAT IS TO SAY, LIFE FOR LIFE,—namely a living animal in place of the animal killed by him.
19. HE THAT GIVETH A BLEMISH,—that is, a scar, or mutilation, as follows.
20. BREACH FOR BREACH,—so that if he has broken another’s foot or hand, his foot or hand shall be broken.
21. HE THAT STRIKETH (killeth) A MAN, SHALL BE PUNISHED.—In Hebrew, shall die, namely be slain; for he here repeats in general the law of retaliation proposed in ver. 17, which up to now he has illustrated by various examples. It is probable, says Abulensis, as some Doctors assert, that the penalty of retaliation had to be inflicted by the judge if the injured party demanded it; but if he did not demand it, but preferred money, the judge was not bound, nay could not inflict the penalty of retaliation.