Commentaria in Leviticum
Hear Peter Chrysologus: “The smell of wine had put to flight the smell of incense, and the fire of drunkenness had provoked the flame of the altar. Whence, because, estranged by wine, they carried strange fire, they were presently reported to be extinguished by divine fire. Drunkenness in another is a crime, in a priest a sacrilege.” Hence also St. Jerome to Nepotian: “Never smell of wine. This is not to offer a kiss, but to hand round wine. The old law says: They who serve at the altar shall not drink wine nor strong drink.” And below: “A cleric is easily despised who, often invited to dinner, does not refuse to go. Let us never ask, and seldom go when asked. For I know not how, even he who entreats you to give, when he has received, judges you the meaner; and, wonderful to say, if you have scorned him when asking, he afterwards venerates you the more.”
Finally, a cleric given to wine and gluttony is a priest not of God but of Bacchus; for to such a one, as Tertullian says, book On Fasting, “God is the belly, and the lung the temple, and the paunch the altar, and the priest the cook, and the Holy Spirit the savour, and the seasonings are charisms, and belchings prophecy, etc.; whose love-feast boils in the cooking-pots, faith glows in the kitchens, hope lies in the dishes.”
Hear the Gentiles: Among the Troezenians, those who performed the divine rites of the Aridalici and sought the oracles of the gods abstained from food for a whole day, and from wine for three days, as Alexander ab Alexandro witnesses, book 6, chapter 2.
Amphiaraus, the supreme seer, commanded the priests who wished to receive clear oracles and to render them sincerely to abstain a whole day from food and three days from wine, says Volaterranus, book 13, chapter 4.
Those who wished to be initiated into the sacred rites of Isis had a fast of ten days enjoined upon them, as Apuleius testifies, book 11.
Nay, even lay Christians of old exercised themselves in fasts and abstinences before and after the reception of the holy Eucharist, as St. Chrysostom witnesses on 1 Corinthians, chapter 11. The Emperor Louis the Pious, when sick, had for forty days no other food than the Lord’s body, as Aimonius witnesses, book 5, chapter 29.
The Emperor Zeno, at the election of a Bishop of Constantinople, appointed a fast of forty days for the whole people, as Nicephorus witnesses, book 16, chapter 18.
Moreover, concerning wine there is Alciati’s emblem 94, “The prudent abstain from wine”:
Why do ye vex me, ye branches? I am the tree of Pallas; take hence the clusters; the virgin puts Bromius to flight.
And Homer, book 1 of the Epigrams:
Wine, and baths, and love in the matters of Venus, send by a swifter way to hell.
And Horace, book 1, epistle 5:
What does drunkenness not disclose? It unlocks secrets, it bids hopes be sure, it thrusts the unarmed into battle.
St. Augustine, Question 51, thinks that Aaron, and any pontiff succeeding him, could never drink wine and strong drink, because the pontiff, he says, had to enter the tabernacle every day to burn incense. But he rests on a false foundation: for St. Augustine thought that the altar of incense was in the Holy of Holies, into which only the pontiff could enter, and consequently he thinks that only the pontiff could burn incense.
But in the last chapter of Exodus I have shown that the altar of incense was not in the Holy of Holies but in the Holy, and consequently that any priest could offer incense on it, as is expressly said in 1 Paralipomenon 6:49 and 2 Paralipomenon 26:18.
So Radulphus.
Verse 11. By the hand of Moses—by Moses.
Verse 12. Take the sacrifice—of meal. For the Hebrew is mincha, which Aquila, as Hesychius testifies, renders “gift of grain”: see what was said on chapter 6.
Verse 13. Which is given to thee and thy sons of the oblations.—In Hebrew, of the fire-offerings, that is, of the victims burnt, or consumed by fire, to the Lord.
Verse 14. You shall eat in a most clean place.—In Hebrew, a clean place, that is, holy, as the Septuagint render, and dedicated to sacrifices, namely in the court of the tabernacle beside the altar of holocausts (1).
For they are laid up for thee and thy children (in Hebrew, are given, namely by God, who so ordained) of the peace victims—that is, of the peace-offerings, which are offered for peace, that is, for welfare and prosperity.
Verse 15. Because they have elevated the shoulder and the breast, and the fat that is burnt on the altar, before the Lord—as if to say: Because the priests, by a special ceremony, have elevated to me from the peace victim the shoulder and the breast with the fat (in Hebrew, with the fire-offerings, that is, with the oblations of the fat, which are to be burnt to God by fire), so that these three are mine, while the rest of the flesh of the victim falls to the lay offerers themselves: for this cause I will that, on account of this elevation and the ministry of the priests, these three fall to us both, but so that the fat be burnt to me, while the shoulder and the breast fall to the priests for food.
Verse 16. In the meantime, the buck that had been offered for sin (of the people, chapter 9, verse 15), when Moses sought it, he found it burnt—because Aaron and his sons, stricken and sad at the recent slaughter of their own, could not eat this buck for sin, as they ought according to the law laid down in chapter 6, verse 26, and therefore thought that the buck should be burnt, as God had commanded the other flesh offered to God that remained to them to be burnt, chapter 7, verse 17.
(1) “In a clean place, namely at home, not in the court, in which the wives and sons of the priests did not take food. But the chamber ought to be unpolluted by any uncleanness. This distinction is plainly indicated in the Hebrew: for if the court is meant, ‘holy’ is added, as in the preceding verse; if any clean place, or one not polluted by any uncleanness,
And being angry with Eleazar and Ithamar.—He passes over Aaron the parent, because the death of his sons touched him more than the brothers, and he saw him swallowed up with grief.
Verse 17. Why did you not eat the victim for sin in the holy place, which is a holy of holies (very holy), and is given to you that you may bear the iniquity of the multitude?—namely, that together with the victims of the people for sin you might as it were take upon you the sins of the people also, that you might expiate them, and entreat God for their pardon.
Verse 18. Especially whereas none of the blood thereof was carried within the holies.—The word “especially” here is not exceptive but expository and causal. This is plain from the Hebrew, the Chaldee and the Septuagint. As if to say: You ought by all means, O priests, to have eaten the buck offered for sin: for none of its blood was carried within the sanctuary, nor was the altar of incense sprinkled. For such a victim had to be eaten by the priests; but that one whose blood was carried within the Holy was not eaten, but was wholly burnt without the camp, as was said in chapter 6, verse 30.
Verse 19. How could I eat it?—The Hebrew is: If I had eaten the sacrifice for sin today, would it have been good? that is, would it have pleased in the eyes of the Lord? As if to say: It would not at all have pleased, if at this time I had kept this ceremony of eating: for in so great a slaughter of my own and wrath of God, it is rather a time of mourning and fasting than of gladness and feast or banquet (2); which excuse and satisfaction Moses approved as just and accepted. Rightly Agesilaus, when, breaking camp suddenly by night, he was forced to leave a sick friend behind, said: “In such a case it is hard at once to pity and to be wise.”
Morally, let us learn here from Moses, in anger and injury, readily to admit an excuse, to pity, and to soothe the mind and dispose it to indulgence. For this is the victory over anger, the gentleness and clemency of a prince’s and kingly mind. So Seneca, book 3 On Anger, chapter 30, exhorts us, if we suffer anything from anyone, to make excuse. “Is he a boy?” he says; “let age be pardoned; he knows not whether he sins. Is he a father? Either he has so profited us that his very injury is by right, or perhaps this is the very merit of his by which we are offended. Is it a woman? She errs. Was he commanded? Who but a fool is angry at necessity? Was he hurt? It is no injury to suffer what you did first. Is he a judge? Trust his sentence more than your own. Is he a king? If he punishes the guilty, yield to justice; if the innocent, yield to fortune. Is it a dumb animal, or like a dumb one? You imitate it if you are angry. Is it a disease or a calamity? Therefore it will pass more lightly over him who bears it. Is it God? You waste your labour as much if you are angry as when you pray Him angry at another. Is he who did the injury a good man? Do not believe it: a bad man? Do not wonder.”
Symbolically, St. Ambrose to Simplicianus, explaining this saying of Aaron, teaches that excuse of error is easy, but penance difficult. “To sin not at all,” he says, “is God’s alone: to do penance for sin is the wise man’s. Yet this is difficult; for nature resists; present things resist things to come, violent things moderate, many things few, pleasant things grave, soft things harsh, glad things sad, alluring things more rigid, and hasty things slower. For iniquity is swift, because it outstrips the work by thoughts; but virtue is slow, and a long delayer, because it considers what is to be undertaken and first examines what is fitting and honourable. Penance therefore is slow and bashful: for it looks to the future alone, whose hope comes late and its fruit later still.”