Commentaria in Leviticum
A lion in front, a dragon behind, in the middle the very Chimaera.
Such are they who feign to be Curii, and live Bacchanals.
Diogenes, in Laertius, book 6, chapter 2, said to a certain man pleased with himself because he walked in covered with a lion’s skin: “Will you not cease to put the covering of virtue to shame?” For he judged it unseemly that a soft man should claim for himself the garment of Hercules.
Alexander, when some praised Antipater’s frugality because he led an austere life, said: “Outside, Antipater is white, but within he is wholly purple”; noting his feigned thrift, while he was otherwise most ambitious. So Plutarch in the Apophthegms of Kings. Achilles in Homer, Iliad 1, says thus:
Hateful to me as the gates of dark Dis is he who utters one thing in words and revolves another in his mind.
The Trojan horse, contrived by the Greeks, deceived the Trojans, because it feigned the form of Minerva, Diogenes used to say: so does the hypocrite.
Those who carry about fragrant musk, their breath stinks: so also hypocrites, who, exhibiting a great show of piety, within are most foully filthy. Rightly therefore are they compared to the ostrich. For, as St. Gregory says, book 7 of the Morals, chapter 1: “The ostrich has the appearance of flying, but has not the use of flying: so hypocrisy insinuates to all beholders an image of holiness, but knows not how to hold the way of holiness.”
Eighthly, the owl, sharp-sighted by night, denotes those wise in evil. Hence St. Ambrose, sermon on the prophet Malachias, at the end of volume 2: “I would not have you,” he says, “an imitator of the owl, which, though it watches through the night, is by day sluggish or blind, which with great eyes loves the gloom of darkness, and shrinks from the splendour of the sun: it is enlightened by obscurity, blinded by light. That animal is a figure of heretics and Gentiles, who embrace the darkness of the devil, shrink from the light of the Saviour, and with the great eyes of disputations see vain things, and look not to the everlasting. Of these the Lord says, Psalm 113: They have eyes, and see not. And Psalm 81: They walk on in darkness: for they are keen for superstitious things, dull for divine.”
Ninthly, the amphibious gull signifies soldiers, who on land are as it were dry and unmarried, as lacking wives, yet wallow in the waters and flow of wandering luxury; tenthly, the rapacious hawk, which, when tamed, serves its owners for prey and plunder, signifies servants who at their masters’ nod plunder the poor; eleventhly, the horned owl signifies those who, filled with the foulest crimes, shun light and men; twelfthly, the diver signifies those who are swallowed up in the pleasures of the flesh; thirteenthly, the ibis signifies those who are wicked and cruel to themselves, that is, to their bodies and souls; fourteenthly, the swan signifies those who glory in their garments alone and earthly abundance; fifteenthly, the bittern signifies insatiable avarice; sixteenthly, the porphyrio signifies the stubborn, who receive nothing except what is dipped in the water of their own will and delight; seventeenthly, the stork signifies stupidity in apprehending heavenly things; eighteenthly, the charadrius, a chattering bird, signifies talkativeness; nineteenthly, the hoopoe, simulating a groan in its song among the dung, signifies the sadness of the world; for into this, and into filth and sorrows, the delights and joy of the world end; twentiethly, the bat signifies worldly knowledge, wise only in natural and earthly things. So Radulphus and St. Thomas, I-II, Question 102, article 6, reply to objection 4.
After its kind—after its species, as if he said: I forbid all species of these birds; for there are many species of hawks, as also of other birds. The Septuagint render, and the like to these. For the Hebrew min signifies also likeness, and so our version has it in verse 15; for one species of hawks, for example, is like another species of hawks.
Verse 20. Every thing that flieth and goeth upon four feet shall be an abomination to you—because four feet are a sign that it is not so much a winged creature as degenerating into a land animal: and therefore I will that it be held unclean (1).
Verse 21. Hath the hinder legs longer, that it hoppeth.—Because such a one is not wholly earthly, but shows by its leap that it has something of fire in it. Hence I will that it be reckoned clean (2).
Tropologically, these are the Saints who, placed in the flesh and worldly pomp, do not war according to them, but recoil from the filth of the world, and leap up into the thought and desire of eternity. So Hesychius and Radulphus.
Verse 22. As the bruchus in its kind (these are clean because they leap), and the attacus, and the ophiomachus, and the locust.—It is probable that these four are species of locusts, as the Rabbis and most Catholics agree; Abulensis so distinguishes them as to say that the locust is and is called bruchus when it is born; attacus, when it begins to have wings; locust, when it is now wholly perfect. Hence also the ophiomachus is not a stork, or pelican, or other bird, since here it is said to be a four-footed creature; but is a certain species of locusts, as are the preceding. For this the Hebrew word hargol seems to signify. So Vatablus, Oleaster and others: otherwise the lizard is called by the Greeks ophiomachus, because it fights with serpents; but the lizard is named and forbidden in verse 30. Moreover that the ophiomachus is a species of locust, equally with the bruchus and attacus (or attelabus), Suidas and Hesychius in the Lexicon expressly assert, and Aldrovandus, book On Insects, chapter On Locusts, page 408, who adds from Aristotle, Pliny and another eyewitness that certain locusts fight with serpents, and are thence called ophiomachi. So also Hesychius here, who also adds tropologically that the ophiomachus signifies strenuous men, who leap over the hedges of difficulties, lifting the mind to heavenly things, and fight with the infernal serpent, thinking on that saying of Paul: “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.”
Hence the Egyptians, says Pierius, hieroglyphics 28, by the ophiomachus denoted modesty, temperance and continence: for these virtues are opposed to wickedness. They attack the serpent, indeed, when they dash to the ground the pleasure creeping on, by leaping through meditation to divine things, and tasting them by affection and desire.
Note: The Jews ate locusts, as did many other nations, as the Ethiopians, Libyans, Parthians and other Orientals, who were thence called acridophagi, that is, locust-eaters, as Diodorus Siculus witnesses, book 3, chapter 2, and Pliny, book 6, chapter 30, and Jerome, book 2 Against Jovinian. So St. John the Baptist ate locusts. Moreover they ate locusts either boiled, or roasted and reduced to powder, nay even hardened with salt and smoke they kept them for the whole year.
How and of what kind a nourishment the locust is for man, Hieronymus Mercurialis teaches, book 2 of the Various Readings, chapter 20, where among other things he teaches that locusts are a dry food, which shortens life, breeds lice, and creates diseases.
Verse 23. But of flying things whatsoever hath only four feet shall be detestable to you.—Understand equal feet: for if it has the hinder ones longer, with which it may leap, it will be clean, as was said in verse 21.
Verses 24 and 25. And whosoever shall touch their carcasses shall be defiled, etc.; and if it be necessary that he carry any such thing when dead (for example, that he must carry it out of the city or the way, lest it infect the air), he shall wash his garments, etc.
Verse 26. Every beast that hath a hoof.—It is an anacephalaeosis, and a repetition of what went before. Hence he adds: “He that toucheth it,” the carcass or dead body of it, as he explained in verses 24, 25, 27, “shall be defiled”: for the living unclean animals, as horses, camels, asses, the Hebrews could touch, and ride upon. So Vatablus, Abulensis and others.
Verse 27. That which walketh upon its hands (as if to say, an animal whose forefeet are as hands, as the ape and the bear), shall be unclean.
Tropologically, those are denoted here who, for the sake of gain, quickly lay hands on others, even the unworthy. So Hesychius.
He that toucheth their carcasses shall be defiled until the evening.—For evening is the most fitting time for distinguishing and as it were obliterating uncleanness.
Evening tropologically signifies penance:
“For in the evening weeping shall have place, and in the morning gladness.” So Hesychius.
Allegorically, evening or the setting of the sun signifies the death of Christ, by which every sin and every uncleanness was taken away in the evening of the world, that is, in the last age of the world. So Abulensis on chapter
Verses 29 and 30. These also shall be reckoned among the unclean: the chameleon, and the stellio, and the lizard, and the mole (1).
The weasel, and the mouse, and the crocodile.—These are forbidden here to the Jews because some nations and barbarians ate these and the like. So Stuckius, book 2 Of Banquets, chapter 9, teaches that German soldiers of old ate fried silkworms, Italians weasels, Spaniards house-bearing tortoises; nay, even today many eat mushrooms, oysters and shellfish, even raw, which we know to be bred of putrefaction. The weasel is therefore forbidden here to the Jews because it is thievish, and has the nature of the mouse, and seems to be a long mouse; but the mouse is unclean because it is earthy and foetid (2).