Commentaria in Leviticum
24. ALL THE COUNTRY OF YOUR POSSESSION (that is, all the possession of your country. It is a hypallage; we saw a like one, chap. 11:4) SHALL BE SOLD UNDER THE CONDITION OF REDEMPTION.—This law is another from the above; for it disposes and orders that in every alienation of land the power of redeeming it be understood as attached; this is plain from the Hebrew, which reads thus: And in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption to the land, and that in this way also the stability of the possessions of each tribe might be helped. So Cajetan, and it is plain from what follows.
29. HE THAT SELLETH A HOUSE,—as if to say: He who sells a house situated within a city may redeem it within the year on repayment of the price; but if he does not, he can never, not even in the jubilee, redeem it or recall it to himself. God ordained this, first, that in this way the cities might be made populous; for this entices buyers and inhabitants to the cities, if they can buy in them a stable and firm house for themselves. Secondly, that no one might easily and rashly sell his house in the city, since he would know that he would never recover it. Thirdly, because by the possessions or houses which were within cities, tribes and families were not distinguished: whence also the Levites could possess them, who nevertheless were said to have no possession in the promised land.
The houses of the Levites are excepted from this law: for these, if not redeemed, returned in the jubilee to their owners; because, as is said ver. 33: “The houses of the cities of the Levites are for their possessions among the children of Israel,” as if to say: The Levites have no other possession than houses, and so it is just that they return, as the other possessions of the laity return. But houses outside the cities, in villages, with their fields, were reckoned by the same right, and returned in the time of the jubilee to the first owner, whether they were of Levites or of others. See Abulensis, Quest. 20.
Tropologically, he who is in mortal sin can, in the time of this year, that is, of this life, redeem the house, that is, charity, by the price of the penitent; but if he omit it, he will not be able to redeem it in the future.
But if he has sold a house in a village, that is, has left perfection, to which he was not bound, he shall receive it in the jubilee, that is, in heaven he shall receive the merits which living in his perfection he acquired for himself. A like tropology holds of the Levites, who signify the perfect, and those endowed with notable charity. So from Radulphus and Rupert, Ribera, book 5 On the Temple, chap. 25.
WITHIN THE WALLS OF A CITY.—Hence it is plain that the Jews girded their cities with walls, and that this is not repugnant to confidence in God, nay the contrary would rather be to tempt God: for it has often happened that enemies far superior in number and strength invade citizens and cities, who unless they protect themselves with walls are unable to resist. Whence Aristotle, book 7 Politics, condemns the vain opinion of certain men who thought that cities should not be fortified with walls, but with the strength and courage of soldiers. And the counsel of Nestor was the safety of the Greeks, bidding a wall be drawn round the camp to ward off the sallies of the Trojans. Hence also the Jews, with the Lord’s approval, built the wall of Jerusalem, 2 Esdras, chap. 4.
32. THE HOUSES OF THE LEVITES.—In Hebrew, the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities. So also the Chaldee and Septuagint; but our Interpreter, under houses, left cities also to be understood. For if the houses of the Levites can always be redeemed, much more the cities.
34. BUT LET NOT THEIR SUBURBS BE SOLD, BECAUSE IT IS A PERPETUAL POSSESSION (of the Levites),—as if to say: I forbid the suburbs of the Levites to be sold, because these are their perpetual possession, and necessary for feeding their cattle, and the Levites have no other among the Jews.
Mystically and tropologically, in this was signified that the Levites ought above all to have leisure for themselves and for God, and therefore sometimes to withdraw outside the city and the noise of the people, and to give themselves to holy quiet, solitude and contemplation in the suburbs; wherefore they could sell city houses, not suburban ones. Hence let Religious and Clerics learn to prefer Mary to Martha, prayer namely to action. In which matter many err: for they so occupy themselves with studies and other business that they neglect prayer. Let them learn hence that it is better to sell the houses in the city than those in the suburbs; better to diminish studies, conversations and actions than the appointed prayers. Whatever business, therefore, occurs at the time of prayer, let all of it yield to prayer, let the morning meditation be kept unharmed: let action and study be hurt rather. Though they will not be hurt, because prayer will obtain light from God, that one may profit more in one hour than at other times one would have done in two. For wisdom is the gift of God; to be begged therefore from God by prayer, as St. James says, chap. 1, ver. 5. So St. Thomas Aquinas confessed that he had learned more by prayer than by study. Finally let us all hear and follow that of Christ: “Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
35 and 36. IF THY BROTHER BE WEAK OF HAND (some Jew, namely so that by the labour of his hands he cannot earn what is necessary for food, and is compelled to ask a loan of thee): TAKE NOT USURY OF HIM, etc., NOR EXACT OF HIM ANY INCREASE OF FRUITS,—as if to say: Thou shalt not exact for usury more fruits from him than thou hast given him, that is, lent.
40. UNTIL THE YEAR OF THE JUBILEE HE SHALL WORK WITH THEE.—A Jew who had sold himself to another Jew as a servant could in the seventh year, which was the year of liberty and sabbatical, go out free from the servitude of his master’s house; but if he did not go out in this year, he went out in the jubilee, nor could he be detained in servitude beyond it. On which note from Exodus 21, ver. 9 and following: if the master had given the Jewish servant a Gentile maidservant (for he could not give a Hebrew daughter: for her, when bought, he himself or his son was bound to take to wife), and he had begotten sons of her, the servant could, if he wished, go out free in the seventh year, but alone, so that, namely, the children should remain with the mother to the master, and be servants to him: but if the servant, taken with love of his wife and children, was unwilling to go out alone free from his master’s house in the seventh year, he had to serve until the year of the jubilee, and then he led out with him into liberty his wife and sons. See Abulensis here, Quest. 21.
42. THEY ARE MY SERVANTS.—The Hebrews, namely, and that not only by creation, but also by redemption from the Egyptian servitude. Wherefore I will not that you sell them to anyone, ver. 45 and 46, on the condition of servants, that is, so that they be servants for ever; but rather that you hold them as hired servants, who, namely, for the price received from you hire out their labours to you up to a certain time, and serve until the jubilee. Here, says Radulphus, masters are admonished not to oppress their servants tyrannically, but to remember to have reverence for them as servants of God, and therefore to treat them kindly and mercifully.
Marcus Crassus, says Plutarch in his Life, kept at home a great crowd of servants, and took chief care of them, sometimes standing by as they learned, and teaching them, and said, “That this ought to be the chief care of a father of a family, to know how many animate instruments of the household he has.” Demonax, seeing a man cruelly beating his servant, said: “Stop, lest thou become like thy servant.” That most prudent man judged that he is in truth a servant who cannot command his passions. Diogenes used to say that between servants and bad masters there is no difference besides the names, save that the slaves serve masters, the masters their desires, that is, many masters, who are base and unmerciful. Laertius is witness, book 6. Hear also Seneca, epist. 47: “Think,” he says, “that he whom thou callest thy servant sprang from the same seeds, enjoys the same sky, breathes equally, lives equally, dies equally. For thou canst see him free-born, he can see thee a slave. I have seen Callistus’s master standing before his threshold, and shut out while others were admitted. By the Marian disaster fortune pressed down many most splendidly born: she made one a shepherd, another a keeper of a cottage. Thou knowest not at what age Hecuba began to serve, at what Croesus, at what the mother of Darius, at what Plato, at what Diogenes?” Finally Ecclesiasticus 7:23: “Let a wise servant be dear to thee as thy own soul: defraud him not of liberty, nor leave him in poverty.”
44. LET YOUR BONDMEN AND YOUR BONDWOMEN (who, namely, are absolutely a bondman and a bondwoman) BE OF THE NATIONS,—as if to say: Take bondmen and bondwomen from the Gentiles, and buy them of them; because I will not that you buy or hold Jews, who are my servants, as perpetual bondmen. Gentiles, therefore, even if they had been converted to Judaism, remained bondmen for ever; so also their children, as is said ver. 45. For God did not will that Gentile proselytes should be made equal to Jews by race and origin in these privileges of the jubilee, lest envy and sedition should arise among them. That this is so is plain: for otherwise all the servants of the Jews would have gone out free in the jubilee; which yet is here denied. For, as I said Exod. 12:44, every servant of the Jews, even if a Gentile, was bound to be circumcised and to become a proselyte.