Commentaria in Leviticum
Verse 18. The males only of the race of Aaron shall eat it.—Abulensis thinks that Moses speaks here of the mincha, or sacrifice for sin; for that it had to be eaten by males alone. But this is too narrow; for Moses speaks in general of the mincha, as he spoke of the holocaust in verse 9: for of the victim for sin he treats in verse 25. Again, incense could not be laid upon a mincha for sin, which yet is commanded here to be laid upon the mincha; therefore a mincha for sin is not treated here: any mincha whatever, that is, fine flour offered to God, was held very holy, just like the sacrifice for sin and trespass, and therefore could be eaten only by priests and their male sons. So Cajetan. Hence the mincha, as a sacrifice of pure fine flour, was purer and holier than the peace-victim: for this could be eaten also by women and by the servants of the priest’s household, as I said on verse 16.
It shall be a law for ever—as if to say: This law and sanction shall be perpetual, that is, shall last as long as your law shall last; it will last always, that is, the whole time of the old law, until the new law succeeds it.
Every one that toucheth them shall be sanctified—that is, he ought to be sanctified and cleansed, lest, being unclean, he touch sacred things and defile them. This future, therefore, must be taken imperatively, not indicatively; otherwise it would make the sentence false, as is plain from Aggeus 2:12. So Abulensis.
Verse 20. This is the oblation of Aaron and of his sons—that is, of the pontiff and of the lesser priests; so often below “Aaron” is taken appellatively for any pontiff. For this cannot be taken of the person of Aaron, since he was already consecrated pontiff before Leviticus was dictated by God, as will appear from chapter 8, verse 1. So some.
But nothing prevents Aaron being taken here simply for Aaron himself and his successors; for it is very probable that in his consecration not only the flesh victims prescribed in Exodus 29, but also the mincha prescribed here was offered to God; for in every victim a mincha was used, as I said in chapter 2.
Moreover the consecration of Aaron was most perfect, and the exemplar of the consecration of the other pontiffs succeeding him: if therefore this mincha was used for others, much more was it used for Aaron.
I say, therefore, that here is a hysterologia, and that this law was made before the consecration of Aaron and before Leviticus: yet it is placed in this place because Moses wished at this place to treat together what was to be done with each victim, whether it was to be burnt or eaten, as I said in chapter 6, verse 9.
They shall offer the tenth part of an ephi—namely one gomor of fine flour, which was wholly burnt with fire; for, as is said in verse 23: “Every sacrifice of the priests shall be consumed with fire”; it was otherwise in the mincha of the laity: for in that only a handful was burnt to God, but the rest fell to the priest, as he said For a perpetual sacrifice—which ever after was to be offered at the consecration of priests.
Verse 21. And he shall offer it, the priest that by right succeedeth his father—namely the priest’s first-born son, unless he, some deformity hindering the pontifical office, be barred from it, of which chapter 21, verse 18; for then the second-born succeeded in his place, and he failing, the third-born. For among the Hebrews the pontificate devolved by hereditary right on the elder son of the pontiff, the priesthood on his other sons.
Verse 22. It shall be wholly burnt.—The Hebrew is calil, that is, a holocaust, as the Septuagint render it, and “as a holocaust it shall be wholly burnt.” To be made a holocaust here is the same as to be wholly burnt; for the mincha was not properly a holocaust: for a holocaust was a victim, namely an animal, but the mincha was fine flour.
Verse 23. For every sacrifice of the priests shall be consumed with fire.
Verse 21. The Hebrew is, “in a pan with oil it shall be prepared (as a baked cake); fried shalt thou offer it, in the manner of a baked cake broken in pieces,” that is, cooked in the manner of cake broken into pieces.
—“Sacrifice,” namely of fine flour, or meal: for the Hebrew is mincha; for that the priests could eat of their peace-victims is plain from Exodus 29:28.
Verse 25. It is the holy of holies—as if to say: The victim for sin is very holy; for it is the expiator of legal sin, and therefore I will that it be immolated in the same place as the holocaust, namely at the northern side of the altar of holocausts, and eaten in the holy place, that is, in the court of the tabernacle; lastly, I ordain that whatever shall touch it be holy. Hence the Latin sanctum comes from sancire; for to sanction is properly to consecrate something under the blood of a victim; whence “holy” is said as if “consecrated by blood,” and a “sanction” is properly called a law which by its decree adds the terror of punishment: so victims for sin were holy, because in place of the sinner’s blood they offered their own blood to God.
Mystically, God wished to signify that the victim for sin, that is, contrition and penance (by which the sinner offers himself wholly, and his life and blood, to God), is a most holy sacrifice and most pleasing to Him, like a holocaust. So Hesychius.
Verse 26. The priest that offereth it shall eat it.—The victim for sin, therefore, pertained to the offerer alone, and by right fell to him alone, and was to be eaten by him and his male sons; yet the offerer could also call other priests and their male sons to share in eating it, as is plain from verse 29. And this is what is said in Osee 4 of the priests: “They shall eat the sins of my people”; sins, that is, the victims offered for sins: it is a metonymy. So St. Cyril, Theophylact and Theodoret there; and this to signify that it is the office of priests to blot out and eat, that is, consume, the sins of the people by their prayers and oblations. So Pope Alexander, letter 2, and it is found in Part 1, Question 1, chapter “The priests themselves”; Anastasius of Nicaea, book of Questions on Scripture, near the end; Rufinus on Osee 4; Theodoret here, Question 10; and this cause is brought forward in chapter 10.
In an inverted and contrary sense St. Jerome, Gregory, homily 17 on the Gospel, and Bernard, sermon 77 on the Canticle take these words, and turn them against bad priests: “Wicked priests,” they say, “eat the sins of the people, because they foster the sins of delinquents lest they lose their temporal stipends.” But this is beside the mind of Scripture; for so the Fathers sometimes play with the words of Scripture, while they accommodate them to other and even contrary things.
Verse 27. Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be sanctified—that is, shall in some way be held holy, so that it cannot be converted again to profane use except after a certain ceremony, as if it were a garment it had first to be washed; yet it did not by its touch transfer a like holiness to other things which it touched, as is plain from Aggeus 2:13, because so the process would have gone on without end.
Tropologically Radulphus: “The flesh,” he says, “of the victim for sin sanctifies him who touches it, because it cleanses him who imitates the groans of penitents.”
If a garment be sprinkled with the blood thereof, it shall be washed in the holy place—namely in the court of the tabernacle, that so washed it might return to profane uses and be worn by profane men. Abulensis gives here a fine rule: “If the sacred thing,” he says, “which was touched was such that by the contact some part of it, moisture or juice, adhered to the thing touching, then the thing touching was in some way sanctified, otherwise not.” For example, if it touched the blood of the victim, or flesh offered to God, it was sanctified, but not if it touched the altar, sacred vessels or holy garments.
Verse 28. And the earthen vessel, wherein it was sodden (the victim for sin), shall be broken—because an earthen vessel, being porous, easily soaks up some moisture of the sanctified flesh: wherefore I command it to be broken, lest it thereafter serve profane uses, and so holy flesh or holy moisture be mingled unseemly and irreverently with profane things. Theodoret, Question 12, gives another cause: “The viler vessels,” he says, “such as earthen, God commands to be broken; but the others, which are more precious, He commanded to be washed, that by the breaking of the viler He might ordain the law of uncleanness, and teach how great an evil is sin, which is figured by this victim.” For the victim for sin, though holy, yet because it is for sin, has something abominable and to be abolished.
But if the vessel be of brass (or of metal, from which all holy flesh can be scoured, and poured out in a clean place), it shall be scoured.
Verse 29. Every male of the priestly race shall eat of the flesh thereof.—The victim for sin, therefore, could be eaten only by males, and those priests, or their sons.
Verse 30. For the victim that is slain for sin, the blood of which is carried into the tabernacle (which was done in the victim for the sin of the pontiff and of the whole people, as was said in chapter 4, verses 6 and 18), shall not be eaten, but shall be burnt with fire.—For such a one had to be wholly burnt outside the camp, as God commanded in chapter 4, verses 12 and 21, which the Apostle also notes and cites, Hebrews