Commentaria in Leviticum
“What a fish is out of water, that a monk is out of his cell.” Add that fishes, because they abound in moisture and seed, are a symbol of sloth and lust. Pierius, however, in his Hieroglyphics, book 31, says that fishes are a hieroglyph of innocence, since they are altogether harmless, and do not leave their element to lay snares for others; and therefore Pythagoras took care to abstain from fishes, lest he should persecute the innocent. The same teaches Lilius Giraldus in the Symbols of Pythagoras. Wherefore Pythagoras, according to Plutarch, is said to have bought from a fisherman the cast of his net, that whatever fish he took by that cast he might at once let go; and this he did.
The third reason is that fishes are very imperfect and ignoble animals. Hear Philo, book 1 On the Constitution of the World: Fishes were created first among the other animals, because their soul is the most ignoble, as man’s is the most acute. “Of souls,” he says, “one is indeed the slowest and least expressed, which fell to the race of fishes; another is the most acute, which is man’s. That which is intermediate between the two is given to land animals and birds. For this is more sensitive than that in fishes, but duller than that which is in men. Wherefore God made fishes first among living things, sharers rather of bodily substance than of soul, and in a manner animals and not animals, and moving things without soul; and for the mere preservation of the body God gave them an animal spirit, as (it is said) salt is sprinkled on flesh lest it quickly putrefy.” Wherefore the Egyptians, according to Herodotus, abstained from fishes as unclean and defiling. Nay, when they wish to signify what is unlawful and defilement, they paint a fish, because fishes feed upon one another’s flesh and are food to one another, as Horus the Egyptian writes. Besides the Egyptians, we read that the Syrians also abstained from fishes. Hence among them is worshipped the goddess Atergatis, which is interpreted “without fish”: for in the Syrian tongue ater is a privative word, and gatis signifies fish.
Yet Athenaeus, book 7, relates that other nations offered sacrifice of tunny and of eel. Nay, M. Varro, book 3 On Rural Matters, writes that sacrifice is made among the Lydians of certain fishes.
Abulensis gives a fourth reason: “God willed,” he says, “that an ox be immolated to Him, lest the Hebrews should think that Apis, the Egyptian ox, was God; a ram, lest they should deem the Egyptian Hammon, who has the horns of a ram, to be God; a he-goat, because the demons worshipped by the Egyptians often showed themselves to be seen in the form of a goat,” as they still do.
Hence it follows that all animals clean for sacrifice were also clean for food, and could be eaten; but not conversely. For the hart, the pygarg and the rest were clean for food and eating, as will appear in chapter 11, but not for sacrifice; for it was not lawful to immolate them. So Abulensis.
The allegorical reason was, that these animals aptly signified Christ, who is the one victim of the new law, to signify whom they were instituted, Hebrews 10:1. For the ox signified the strength and labours of Christ; the sheep, innocence; the kid, the form of a sinner; the turtle-dove, close union with God; pigeons or young doves, meekness. So St. Cyril, book 15 On Adoration in Spirit and in Truth, page 304; Procopius on chapter 4 of Leviticus; and Bede here.
The same animals signify the same things tropologically; for, as Origen says, homily 2: “He offers a calf to God who conquers the pride of the flesh by labour; he offers a sheep who corrects the irrational motions of anger and folly (for if you forgive your brother his sin from the heart, and, laying aside the swelling of wrath, gather within you a mild and simple mind, think that you have immolated a ram or a lamb); he offers a kid who overcomes wantonness; a pair of turtle-doves, who joins his mind to the word of God as to a spouse; young pigeons, who imitates the dove-like eyes of the bride.” So also Hesychius and Radulphus.
Hence Philo, in his book On Victims, says that these animals to be immolated had to be whole, unhurt in all their parts, free of defects and blemishes, and that therefore the priests were wont to examine them diligently before immolation, from head to foot, that the victim might never have a blemish; and this that the offerers might thereby be admonished to bring forth a soul bright and spotless in the sight of God, and to offer it to God with their victim.
Verse 3. If his offering be a holocaust.—Holocaustum is a Greek word, as if to say holon kauston, that is, wholly burnt, because in it the whole victim was burnt to God. Hence in Hebrew it is called calil, that is, the whole, or the consummated, because the whole was consumed by fire in honour of God; it is also called olah, that is, ascent, because in it the whole victim ascended to God by fire and smoke. Hence again in Greek it is called holokarpoma, because the whole yielded to the fruit of God. The holocaust, then, was a sacrifice offered to God purely for the praise of God, and the honour of His supreme majesty, and the love of His supreme goodness, even if we expected from Him no grace, says Philo. For this reason in the holocaust the whole victim, the skin excepted, was burnt, that thereby might be signified God’s supreme dominion over all things, and that all things are to be referred to Him and to His glory.
Second, the offerers thereby protested that they were wholly God’s, and as it were consecrated themselves wholly to God with the holocaust, so that, the body being as it were laid low, they might lift their soul with the smoke of their victim into heaven and carry it over to God. Here the Gentile Greeks, if they sacrificed to the heavenly gods, so set the head of the victim that it looked to heaven; but if to the infernal, that it looked down to the earth, says Giraldus, Syntagma.
Note first: The victim of the holocaust had to be male and without blemish. The rich offered an ox or a calf; others who could not have a calf offered a lamb or a kid; lastly the poor, who had neither lamb nor kid, offered a turtle-dove or a young pigeon. Second, it had to be brought to the door of the tabernacle. Third, the offerer laid his hands upon the head of the victim. Fourth, the priest slew it and cut its throat, received the blood of the holocaust in a bowl and poured it round about the altar, then flayed off the skin, then cut the victim into pieces and laid them on the altar, and with fire and wood put under, burnt them.
In these things the sacrificing priest was helped by the work of other priests and Levites; for one priest could not have done all this, especially when many victims were to be offered at once.
Tropologically: He, says Radulphus, becomes a holocaust who is continually devoted in heart and body to the divine service; and it is threefold: first, of an ox, that is, of those strong in body, who lay their labours beneath the advantages of their brethren; second, of sheep, that is, of those who, weak in body, feed others by the innocence of their works and the simplicity of their ways; third, of birds, that is, of those who give themselves to knowledge and contemplation, that they may know God; so nearly Hesychius and Rupert, who compares the first with Job, the second with Noe (for Noe shone with innocence among sinners); the third with Daniel, the wisest of mortals. First, Ribera, book 4 On the Temple, chapter 3, aptly takes by the holocaust of a calf Christ, “who, as Paul says, delivered Himself for us an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness.” Second, by the holocaust of a lamb or kid he takes the oblation and death of the Martyrs, which in dignity was next to the victim of Christ. Third, by the holocaust of the turtle-dove and pigeon he takes those who, by the continual mortification of the flesh and denial of the will, immolate themselves to God as living victims, Romans 12:1.