Commentaria in Leviticum
Statius, book 3 of the Thebaid:
“They keep watch in mind, and exercise by care the punishment of the crime committed; then fear, the worst augur, turns over many things in doubt.”
Euripides in the Orestes:
“O wretched Orestes, what sickness destroys thee? Orestes: Conscience: for I am conscious to myself of evils perpetrated.”
Menander: Conscience is a god to all mortals.
Pythagoras used to say that no one is so bold whom an evil conscience does not make most timid; for he is roused and shudders at every wind.
Plutarch, book On Tranquillity of Mind: “A criminal conscience,” he says, “like an ulcer in the body, leaves in the soul a repentance continually tearing and plucking.”
Seneca, epist. 97: “The evils of crimes,” he says, “are scourged by conscience, which has the most torments; because perpetual anxiety urges and lashes it, because it cannot trust the sureties of its own security.”
Isocrates used to say, “You must by no means hope, if you have done anything base, to lie hid. For though you lie hid from others, you will yet be to yourself ill-conscious.”
Epictetus: “Parents,” he says, “hand us over as boys to a tutor, but God hands us over now as men to the implanted conscience to be guarded.”
Nero, after killing his mother, confessed that he was harassed by his mother’s apparition, by the lashes of the furies and by burning torches. So Dio in Nero.
St. Basil in Antonius in the Melissa, p. 4, serm. 16: “As shadows follow bodies,” he says, “so sins follow souls, and present manifest images of the crimes.”
St. Chrysostom, hom. 22 On the Repelling of Wickedness: “As those,” he says, “who dwell in a prison, awaiting sentence of death and execution, even if they enjoy delights abundantly, lead a life most irksome and anxious; so are those troubled by an evil conscience.” For conscience is a thousand witnesses.
This is “the worm that shall not die,” continually gnawing the conscience, Isaias 66:24.
On the contrary, a good conscience begets confidence and exultation.
“As the herb praised by Homer, added to the cups, dispels all sadness of the banquet: so a good mind implanted in us abolishes all anxiety of life.”
Bias, asked “what thing is without fear?” answered, “A good conscience.”
Periander, asked “what was greatest in the soul,” answered: “A good mind in the human body.”
The same, asked “what liberty was?” said, “A right conscience.”
Socrates, asked “who live tranquilly?” said, “Those who are conscious to themselves of no absurdity.”
Finally Hugh of St. Victor, book 2 On the Soul, chap. 3: “A tranquil conscience,” he says, “is one that is sweet to all, grievous to none; using a friend to grace, an enemy to patience, all men to benevolence, those to whom it can to well-doing: to which God imputes neither its own sins, because it did not commit them; nor those of others, because it did not approve them; nor negligence, because it did not keep silent; nor pride, because it remained in unity.”
And again: “A good conscience is the title of religion, the temple of Solomon, the field of blessing, the garden of delights, a golden couch, the joy of angels, the ark of the covenant, the treasure of the king, the hall of God, the dwelling of the Holy Ghost, a book sealed and closed, and to be opened in the day of judgment.”
for their sins shall they be gradually consumed with wasting with them. So the Hebrew. These penalties the Jews actually experienced in the Babylonian captivity and in the destruction inflicted on them by the Romans, and namely that of ver. 29: “You shall eat the flesh of your sons and of your daughters,” as is plain Jerem. chap. 19, ver. 9: “I will feed them,” he says, “with the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege.”
41. UNTIL THEIR UNCIRCUMCISED MIND BE ASHAMED.—In Hebrew, until their uncircumcised heart be humbled, that is, wicked, luxuriating, and full of vain, superfluous and perverse thoughts. For by circumcision the Jews became holy and clean; but those having the foreskin and uncircumcised were counted profane, Gentiles, and unclean. Hence the name of foreskin and uncircumcised is transferred by metaphor to other things, and signifies the unclean, unpolished, unfit, rude, hard and intractable. So chap. 19, ver. 23, the first fruits of trees are called uncircumcised, that is, unclean and unfit for eating. So here the heart is called uncircumcised, that is, unclean, and not purged of its crimes, not cleansed; but hardened and intractable in them. So Exod. 6:12, Moses says he is uncircumcised of lips, that is, unpolished and inelegant in speaking. So the ears of the rebellious are called uncircumcised, that is, hard and unfit for hearing, because they themselves stop them that they may not hear, Jerem. 6:10, Acts chap. 7, ver. 51.
THEN SHALL THEY PRAY FOR THEIR IMPIETIES.—The Interpreter rightly renders “they shall pray,” if you point the Hebrew otherwise, and read iartsu in the active conjugation hiphil, not jirtsu in qal, as the Hebrews now point and read: for iartsu signifies, they shall appease, or make to please; but jirtsu signifies, they shall please; whence the Chaldee, reading iartsu, renders, then they shall appease for their iniquities; for in the Hebrew the preposition be’ad, that is, for, is understood as usual. The Septuagint read jirtsu: for they render, then they shall have their sins pleasing, that is, the penalties which they shall suffer for their sins they shall accept peacefully and humbly, as penitents. So Hesychius and Vatablus. The word could also be taken by antiphrasis and ironically, as if to say:
Then their sins shall displease them, then they shall hold them hateful and abominate them.
43. THE LAND SHALL ENJOY ITS SABBATHS,—as if to say: Then the land shall enjoy its rest; see what was said
44. AND YET WHEN THEY WERE IN THE LAND OF THEIR ENEMIES, I DID NOT CAST THEM OFF ALTOGETHER, NEITHER DID I SO DESPISE THEM.—These past tenses are to be taken for futures in the prophetic manner: “when they were,” that is when they shall be, “I did not cast off, nor despise,” that is I will not cast off, nor despise. For in this whole chapter there is continual prophecy, and threatening for the future. So Vatablus.
At this place the Jews wonderfully exult, promising themselves deliverance from the so long servitude under which they are pressed. And because the first word of this period is aph, that is, yet, but aph among the Germans signifies an ape, they therefore call this period the golden ape, and as often as they read it in the synagogues they wonderfully exult and rejoice. Hence the Emperor Frederick III said that the Jews have in their Bibles an ape, which they would deserve to write in golden letters. So these wretches feed themselves with vain and erroneous hope. For Moses speaks of the time of the duration of the law and Judaism; but now the law and Judaism have been abolished through Christ, and the commonwealth and Synagogue of the Jews have been overthrown by the Romans.
45. I WILL REMEMBER MY FORMER COVENANT,—because although that covenant made by God with the Hebrews was then recent, being ratified in Sinai in the preceding year, yet for the future sinning generations of which I speak it will be ancient.
THESE ARE THE JUDGMENTS (the just punishments which God in just judgment will inflict on those who violate his laws) AND PRECEPTS AND LAWS,—that is, covenants, says the Chaldee. For the condition of the covenants entered into with God by the Jews were the laws. Whence follows: “which the Lord gave between him and the children of Israel.” And so we shall here distinguish laws from precepts.
Secondly, these things can be so explained as if in this verse were the epilogue, and general summing-up of Leviticus, and of all the laws given by God in Leviticus as well as in Exodus. For the Hebrew reads thus: These are the statutes (that is, the ceremonial precepts), and the judgments (that is, the judicial precepts), and laws or decrees (namely moral and natural, such as those of the Decalogue), which the Lord gave between himself and the children of Israel, in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.
WHICH THE LORD GAVE BETWEEN HIM AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL IN MOUNT SINAI,—the Israelites, namely, abiding at mount Sinai, to ratify the covenant between himself and them; for these laws were not given to Moses on mount Sinai itself (as the Decalogue was given on that mountain, Exod. 19 and 20), but in the tabernacle, as is plain from the beginning of this book. All the law, therefore, or almost all, was given to Moses at Sinai, namely at the foot of mount Sinai; for what are enumerated here and there in Numbers and Deuteronomy are either explanations or additions of laws already heard, and were given together with the laws already heard. But all these things were done and said at the beginning of the second year of the going out of the Hebrews from Egypt, as I said in the preface.
BY THE HAND OF MOSES,—by Moses. From this chapter it is plain how truly the Psalmist said, Psalm 118: “Thou hast commanded thy commandments to be kept exceedingly.” In Hebrew me’od, that is, exceedingly, namely with the greatest diligence, zeal and care: and that first, because God promises here exceeding great rewards to those who keep them; secondly, because to those who violate them he threatens exceeding bitter punishments; thirdly, because God, who commands them, is to be worshipped, feared and obeyed exceedingly; fourthly, because he wills that all dangers and death itself be undergone, that not one of his commandments be broken, nor sin be committed; fifthly, because he wills all to be kept, so that you violate not one, not even the least: here also a hair casts a shadow, as is commonly said; sixthly, because he commands them to be kept the whole of life, from boyhood and the use of reason to death. Truly, says St. Augustine, great is thy wisdom and charity, O Lord, who dost compel us to the love of thee and our own good; for unless we do this, thou threatenest us with hell; if we do it, thou promisest immense and eternal crowns.