Commentaria in Leviticum
That God, therefore, here willed that the Jews should not vow the firstlings, due to him by precept and to be immolated, was a peculiar ordinance: the reason of which was that they were already devoted and wholly consecrated to God by the law of God; whence God would not have them vowed, lest a vow should derogate in some way from the prior consecration, as if that had not been full and perfect, so that it could be perfected and confirmed by a vow.
27. AND IF IT BE AN UNCLEAN BEAST, HE THAT OFFERETH IT SHALL REDEEM IT.—It is plain from the preceding verse that it could neither be vowed, because a firstling, as preceded; nor be immolated, because unclean: God therefore commands it to be redeemed, or sold. Abulensis understands this of an animal unclean only accidentally, as if a firstborn ox were without tail or ears: because, he says, among animals unclean by species God commanded only the firstborn of the ass to be offered to him, and a sheep to be given in its place, of which matter I spoke Exod. 13:13, and shall speak again Num. 18:15.
IF HE WILL NOT REDEEM IT, IT SHALL BE SOLD TO ANOTHER.—“It shall be sold,” that is, it may be sold: for if the owner would not redeem, the priest could keep for himself the unclean firstborn animal, as one offered by vow, as I said ver. 9.
28. NOTHING THAT IS DEVOTED TO THE LORD, WHETHER MAN OR BEAST OR FIELD, SHALL BE SOLD, NEITHER MAY IT BE REDEEMED.—This law speaks of that which is only consecrated, that is, vowed to God, by a vow and consecration altogether absolute and perfect; for otherwise from ver. 14 and following it is plain that an animal and a field simply and bare vowed could be redeemed.
Whence note: For consecrated, or what is consecrated, the Hebrew is cherem, that is, cutting off, anathema, and as it were destruction of the thing; for the root charam signifies to kill, to cut off, to cut down: hence the vow of cherem was called the greatest vow, by which the thing vowed was so consecrated to God that it had to be destroyed or killed, and die either naturally or civilly. If, therefore, a clean animal (of which chiefly Moses here speaks of cherem, as is plain from what follows), which could be immolated, was vowed to God, it was cherem, that is, it could not be sold or redeemed, but had to be immolated to God; so if a man who could be cherem, that is, who could be vowed to God by the vow of cherem, or anathema, for example a Levite, or the enemies of Israel, whom God had commanded to be slain, Num. [21:2–3], could not be redeemed.
So a hereditary field, if the heir would not redeem it, became cherem, and was wholly consecrated to the Lord, so that it could no more be sold or redeemed; understand absolutely and by a completed sale: for after every jubilee it was sold, but so that at the next jubilee it again returned to the priests; of this vow of cherem, then, only God speaks here, and of it adds: “Whatsoever is once consecrated (absolutely and perfectly by the vow of cherem, as the Hebrew has) shall be holy of holies to the Lord,” that is, shall be wholly holy and consecrated to the Lord.
For holy is what is pure, set apart and consecrated to God. Whence St. Thomas 2–2, Quest. 81, art. 8: “Sanctification,” he says, “is cleanness from sin, or confirmation in good, or deputation to the worship of God.” “Holiness is the knowledge of the gods to be worshipped,” says Cicero, book 1 On the Nature of the Gods; or, as Andronicus: “It is a virtue making men faithful, and observant of what is just toward God.” And, as St. Dionysius says, On the Divine Names, chap. 12: “Holiness is a cleanness free from all uncleanness, perfect and altogether immaculate.” For what is consecrated to God ought to be pure and clean; whence St. Augustine:
“Holy,” he says, “is he who has charity in order; and three things are to be kept by the holy: purity of body, chastity of soul, and truth of doctrine.”
Such was St. John the Baptist, of whom Chrysostom, serm. 8 on him: “John,” he says, “the school of virtues, the teaching of life, the form of holiness, the rule of justice, the mirror of virginity, the title of modesty, the example of chastity, the way of penance, the pardon of sinners, the discipline of faith, the sum of the law, the action of the Gospel, the voice of the Apostles, the silence of the Prophets, the lamp of the world, the office of the herald, the herald of the judge, the witness of the Lord, the mediator of the whole Trinity.”
Again the Saints by this union with God and consecration become godlike, and as it were gods. Hear it said: “As a drop of water poured into much wine wholly fails of itself, and takes on the taste and colour of the wine: as red-hot iron is stripped of its former and proper form and made most like fire: as air flooded with the sun’s ray is transformed into the same brightness of light: as a mirror directly irradiated by the sun’s rays receives in itself the likeness of the sun, and you would think it another sun; so also the Saints and the Blessed, being wholly penetrated in their inmost parts by the charity of God, and thus made godlike, are transformed into the likeness of God.” These are the cherem of God.
29. EVERY CONSECRATION (in Hebrew every cherem) WHICH IS OFFERED BY MAN, SHALL NOT BE REDEEMED, BUT SHALL BE PUT TO DEATH.—“He shall die” by his own and natural death, if he can be slain, or if it be lawful to slay it, as if it be a clean animal, or if they be enemies given over to death by God: of which we see an example Num. 21:2, where the Canaanites, devoted to God by the Hebrews by the vow of cherem, are said to have been wholly cut off and destroyed to extermination, and therefore the name of the place was called Cherem and Chorma, or, as others pronounce it, Horma. So Jericho was appointed by God cherem, that is, anathema, so that it had to be wholly burnt and cut down, nor was it lawful for the Hebrews to touch or seize anything from its wealth. For this reason Achan troubled the whole camp of Israel with cherem, because he took something from the spoil of Jericho for himself.
Such a cherem, or anathema, St. Paul wished to become for the Jews, as I said Rom. 9:3. But if a thing vowed to God by cherem were incapable of death properly so called, “it shall be put to death,” that is, it must die a civil death, as our Religious, as it were dedicated to God by the vow of cherem, are said to be civilly dead, because they have renounced all civil business, and inheritance and dominion of temporal things, just as if they were dead. So of old in the old law both Levites and fields, which were devoted to the Lord as cherem, died civilly, because they could no more return to profane uses, just as the houses of ecclesiastics and religious are put in mortmain.
The Gentiles also had such cherem and such devoted ones. So Leonidas with his three hundred devoted himself for his country, and burst into the camp of Xerxes, saying: “Breakfast, comrades, you will sup in the underworld.” Asked why the best prefer a noble death to an obscure life, he answered: “Because the one they hold to be proper to nature, the other to themselves.” Wherefore to Xerxes promising him dominion over all the Greeks if he would take his side, he wrote back: “If you knew the goods of life, you would surely have laid aside the desire of other men’s things; to me indeed it is better to die for Greece than to hold dominion over all the nation.” So Plutarch in Leonidas. More examples I cited Exod. 32:32.
30. ALL TITHES OF THE LAND, WHETHER OF CORN OR OF THE FRUITS OF TREES (that is, fruits; so the Hebrew, Chaldee, Septuagint: for God here claims for himself, that is for his ministers, namely the Levites, the tithes not of apples alone but of all fruits and crops: see Abulensis Quest. 68 and following), ARE THE LORD’S, (as if to say: are due to the Lord by this law), AND ARE SANCTIFIED TO HIM,—that is, ought to be sanctified, given and offered. In a like phrase the Hebrews say: What will not be done, that is, what ought not to be done; I know not a man, that is, I cannot, it is not lawful for me to know a man.
God would not have the Levites possess fields in the land of Israel, but live on the tithes, firstfruits and oblations of the Lord; and for this reason it is said that “God is their part and inheritance,” that is, their hereditary portion; because the Levites, as sons and heirs of God, enjoyed his goods, namely tithes and firstfruits, as is plain Num. chap. 18, ver. 21. Again the Levites paid to the high priest the tenth part of all their tithes, as is plain Numbers chap. 18:28; the high priest therefore was of old very rich. Hence in the chapter “Parochianos,” extrav. On Tithes, Alexander III asserts and ordains, saying: “Since tithes are instituted not by men but by the Lord himself, they can be exacted as a debt.” Where he seems to assert that tithes, even among Christians, are due by divine right; which understand of human right, both general: for divine right, nay natural right, dictates that priests and ministers of the Church should be maintained by the people, though in particular it does not dictate that they be maintained by tithes, or firstfruits, or any other particular way; and special, because tithes in the old law were commanded to the Jews by divine right, which law and divine right the Church renewed, and the same ordained by ecclesiastical law: though the whole obligation of the old divine right, as divine (because that right was ceremonial), ceased with the old law, and is abrogated, and now only the positive law of the Church binds, which received that old right, as also very many other things, into her laws, and anew constituted and established it; more about tithes and firstfruits I shall say Num. chap. 18, ver. 12, 24 and 29.