Commentaria in Leviticum
Note that in this verse and in verses 3, 25 and 26, the victim for sin is called in Hebrew chattath, in Greek hamartia, that is, sin, by metonymy; for the sin of man, by the laying on of the hand upon the victim, was by moral estimation as it were transferred. So Paul, 2 Corinthians 5, last verse: “Him,” he says, “who knew no sin (Christ), for us he hath made sin (that is, a victim for sin), that we might be made the justice (the just) of God in him (through him).”
Verse 27. And if any one shall sin through ignorance of the common people.—“The soul of the people of the land” is the plebeian man, the common and gregarious.
This is the fourth victim for sin, namely of the commoner: this victim was a she-goat.
A she-goat.—Tropologically Bede: The soul that sinneth, he says, is of the people of the earth, because it gapes after earthly goods; for that which sinneth not is of those of whom it is said: “Our conversation is in heaven.”
Verse 32. But if he offer of the flock a victim for his sin (see what was said on chapter 1, verse 10), namely of sheep; for of goats it has already gone before. Hence the Hebrew has clearly: If he bring a sheep as an offering for sin, a female, entire shall he bring it.
Philo notes that the prince offers for sin a he-goat, the commoner a she-goat, which is of less price as a victim, because the male befits the magistrate, the female the commoner: for the commoner has less manliness and wisdom than the prince. Again, the she-goat and the sheep tacitly admonished the offerers to study innocence for the future, and to endeavour to benefit by every means those whom they had injured by any wrong or example; for thus sheep and goats benefit all by their milk, wool, flesh and hide.
Verse 33. And shall immolate it (through the priest) in the place, etc., of holocausts—namely near the altar, where holocausts are wont to be immolated. So the Septuagint.
Verse 35. He shall burn it upon the altar for an incense of the Lord—that is, as the Hebrew has it, the priest shall burn them upon the incense-offerings (or for the incense-offerings) of the Lord, that they may be incense-offerings of the Lord. Therefore, as in peace-victims, so also in the victim for sin, only the fat with the kidneys and the blood yielded to God. What was to be done with the flesh of this victim for the sin of a commoner, as also of the victim for the sin of a prince, Moses will say in chapter 6.
Note: In the sacrifice for sin, as in any other, salt was laid on the victim, as was prescribed in chapter 2, verse 13; but not the other libations of wine, oil and meal: for these were added only in the holocaust and the peace-victim: the reason of which difference I shall assign in Numbers 15:3. Hence it follows that incense also was not laid on the victim for sin. For incense was laid not on the victim, but on its libation, namely the meal, as is plain from Leviticus 2:1. But the sacrifice for sin had no libation of meal, as I have already said: therefore neither incense; nay if, the victim failing, fine flour, or meal, had to be offered for sin, incense was not laid upon it, as God expressly commands, chapter 5, verse 11.
Lastly, hear here the ten miracles in the sacrifices which the Jews recount: the first, they say, was that, though at the appointed feasts an innumerable multitude of men flocked to the temple, no one ever lacked lodging; the second, while they stood in the temple they pressed upon one another; but when they fell prostrate on the ground to confess their sins, they all had room enough, which, that one might not hear another confessing his faults, had to be four cubits; the third, the fire of the sacrifices, though in the open air, was never put out by rain; the fourth, no winds could scatter the smoke of the victims, but it always rose straight to heaven; the fifth, no mishap ever befell the high priest on the day of expiation; the sixth, no defect was ever found in the loaves of proposition or of the first-fruits; the seventh, no pregnant woman ever miscarried on account of the odour of the sanctified flesh; the eighth, the sanctified flesh never putrefied; the ninth, no fly was seen in the place where the victims were slain; the tenth, no one was ever hurt by a serpent or a scorpion. But let us leave these gross miracles to those fabulists. Mystically, the sacrifice for sin is penance and contrition, Psalm 50:19: “A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” Baruch 2:18: “The soul that is sorrowful for the greatness of the evil, and goeth bowed down and infirm, and the eyes that fail (with tears, fasts and watchings), and the hungry soul, giveth glory to thee”; and Daniel 3:39: “In a contrite heart and humble spirit let us be accepted, as in holocausts of rams,” etc., “so let our sacrifice be made.” “To do penance,” says St. Augustine, On Penance, “it is not enough to change one’s manners for the better, unless one also make satisfaction for what has been done, by the sorrow of penance, by the groaning of humility, by the sacrifice of a contrite heart, with alms co-operating.” Let Luther and the Innovators note this, who acknowledge no other penance than amendment and a new life. St. Augustine adds: “O humble tear, thine is the kingdom, thine the power; thou fearest not the face of the judge, thou imposest silence on accusing enemies. Thou alone enterest to the king, and thou alone departest not: thou conquerest the unconquerable, and bindest the Almighty.” St. Gregory, book 21 of the Morals: “The more abundantly,” he says, “guilt is wept, the higher knowledge of the truth is attained, because, to behold the inner light, the conscience long polluted is renewed, baptized with tears.” And presently: “The force of compunction opens the pores of the heart and puts forth the wings of the virtues; and when the mind zealously rebukes itself for sluggish oldness, it grows young in brisk newness.” The same, book 3 of the Dialogues, teaches that this compunction flows first from fear of hell, then from love of God and of His kingdom: “He who first wept lest he be led to punishment, afterwards begins to weep most bitterly because he is put off from the kingdom.”
[Bernard] says, “is an ointment of contrition, an ointment of devotion, an ointment of piety: the first stinging, causing pain; the second tempering, easing the pain; the third healing, driving out the disease.”
St. Chrysostom, in his book On Compunction of Heart: “Compunction alone,” he says, “makes the soul shudder at purple, desire sackcloth, love tears, flee laughter. As it is impossible for fire to be kindled in water, so it is impossible for compunction to flourish amid delights. For that is the mother of weeping, this of laughter; that constricts the heart, this dissolves it.”
We know how pleasing to Christ was the sacrifice of the compunction of St. Magdalene, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Matthew, St. Mary of Egypt, St. Pelagia the penitent, and St. Thais, who as a penitent shut herself in a cell for three years, and said: “I call God to witness that since I entered here I have set all my sins like a burden before my eyes, and I wept ever beholding them.” Hence Paul, a disciple of St. Antony, saw in heaven a precious bed prepared for her, which three virgins of shining countenance guarded. This her humble penance merited, by which, by the instruction of Blessed Paphnutius, she dared not name God, nor spread her hands towards heaven, but her one cry was this: “Thou who hast made me, have mercy on me.”
Rightly did that holy Abbot say: “As the shadow the body, so let compunction accompany thee everywhere.” And another: “The children of Israel after forty years entered into the land of promise. Tears are the land of promise, to which if thou comest, thou shalt no longer fear war.”
The contrition of Arsenius, ever weeping, is known; and of Fabiola doing public penance, in St. Jerome; and of another in Rufinus, book 2, chapter 1, who shut himself in a sepulchre, and, as one buried alive, from the depth continually uttered the bellowing and groaning of his heart; whence he heard the demons crying: “Thou hast conquered, thou hast conquered.” Truly, then, says Damascene in the Life of Barlaam, contrition, and “the fountain of tears is baptism.” Palladius narrates in the Lausiac History, chapter 46, of a certain monk who had fallen: who, returning to himself, shut himself in a cave, and spread under him sackcloth and ashes, and did not rise from the ground nor cease to weep until he heard an angel saying: “God has accepted thy penance, and has had mercy on thee: see that thou be not deceived hereafter.”