Commentaria in Leviticum
Chapter 12
The purification and offering to be made by a woman after childbirth is prescribed, on the fortieth day from the completed birth, if she bear a male; on the eightieth day, if she bear a female: namely, that she offer a lamb for a holocaust, and a young dove or a turtle for sin; but if she be poor, let her offer two young doves, or two turtles.
1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: If a woman, having received seed, shall bear a man child, she shall be unclean seven days, according to the days of the separation of her flowers. 3. And on the eighth day the infant shall be circumcised: 4. And she shall remain three and thirty days in the blood of her purification. She shall touch no holy thing, neither shall she enter into the sanctuary, until the days of her purification be fulfilled. 5. But if she bear a maid child, she shall be unclean two weeks, according to the custom of her monthly courses, and she shall remain in the blood of her purification sixty-six days. 6. And when the days of her purification are expired, for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the door of the tabernacle of the testimony a lamb of a year old for a holocaust, and a young pigeon or a turtle for sin, and shall deliver them to the priest, 7. Who shall offer them before the Lord, and shall pray for her, and so she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood: this is the law for her that beareth a man child or a maid child. 8. And if her hand find not sufficiency, and she is not able to offer a lamb, she shall take two turtles or two young pigeons, one for a holocaust and another for sin: and the priest shall pray for her, and so she shall be cleansed.
Verse 2. If a woman, having received seed, shall bear a man child, she shall be unclean seven days.—For “having received seed,” the Hebrew is tazria, which Oleaster, Cajetan here, and Jansenius in the Gospel Concord, chapter 10, render, “if she shall have made seed,” that is, offspring, that is, if she shall have generated. For tazria in Hiphil is active; and “seed” is everywhere in Scripture taken for offspring.
That our Interpreter has rendered better, “having received seed,” is plain first from this which follows, “and shall bear”; for hence it is plain that the tazria which precedes must be rendered, if she shall have received seed, or conceived, and formed the foetus: otherwise the same would be said twice, and it would be tautology to say: If she shall have generated, and shall have borne.
Secondly, because with our Interpreter agree the Septuagint, who render, if she shall have conceived, as do Lyranus and Vatablus, who render, if having received seed she shall bear a male.
Thirdly, because the Hebrew tazria properly signifies, if she shall have seeded, if she shall have made and emitted seed, namely in the natural and ordinary way, that is, if, having received the seed of the man, emitting also her own, she shall have conceived. For the woman in conception, receiving the man’s seed, emits also her own into the womb, which is presently retained by the male seed, coagulated, and fortified, and so grows, and at length rises into members; and thus the embryo, or infant, is conceived, say the Hebrews and Vatablus, who add:
“From the male seed are formed the nerves and bones, but from the woman’s seed are produced the flesh, blood and hair of the infant.” But this last the physicians deny, and assert that all the members are formed mixedly from the seed of both woman and man (1).
Hence the common opinion of the Fathers and Doctors of old, Abulensis alone excepted, was that the Blessed Virgin bringing forth Christ was not comprehended in this law, because she did not conceive Christ from the man’s seed received and her own emitted, but of the Holy Spirit, forming the body of Christ from her most pure blood; as if by this singular providence of the Holy Spirit, willing to except this Virgin, it came about that Moses in this place did not use the verb hara, which signifies absolutely to conceive, but tazria, which signifies to emit one’s own seed on receiving the man’s, and so to conceive. So teach Origen, Rupert and Radulphus here, and Eusebius, Emissenus, St. Ildephonsus, St. Eligius, Laurence Justinian, sermon On the Purification of the Blessed Virgin; St. Bernard, on the same, sermon 3; Euthymius, Theophylact, Anselm, Bede on Luke 2, Chrysostom, homily On the Meeting of the Lord; and most gravely St. Cyril of Alexandria, book 2 On the Faith to the Queens, near the beginning, against the Arians confirms the same: “It is plainly seen,” he says, “into what impiety the Arians fall who assert that Mary the Mother of God needed the sacrifices which by law it was the custom to offer for women after childbirth.”
Nay, our heretics also, Melanchthon, Artopoeus, Sarcerius and others, otherwise unjust to the Blessed Virgin, confess the same, as Peter Canisius shows, book 4 of the Marian, chapter 11. In like manner on Exodus 13:2 I showed from the Fathers that Christ was not comprehended in that law of the firstborn, because Christ did not open the womb of His mother, but, it being closed, was born of the Virgin.
You will say: This law of purification is laid down for women after childbirth on account of the flow of blood which naturally befalls them in childbirth, as is said in verse 4; for on account of this women after childbirth were reckoned unclean, and had to be purified; but this flow was also in the Blessed Virgin: therefore she also was comprehended in this law, and had to be purified. So Abulensis.
I answer that the minor is false, and is against the common opinion of the Fathers, who assert that the childbirth of the Blessed Virgin was most pure, and wholly without filth and flow of blood. So it is expressly said: “The childbirth of the Virgin was incorruptible, because it was accomplished without flow of blood, or like passion.” So also Epiphanius, book 3 Against Heresies, at the end, St. Cyprian, sermon On the Nativity of Christ, St. Augustine, book On Five Heresies, heresy 5: “Fool,” he says, “whence filth in a Virgin mother, where there is no intercourse with a man as father? whence filth in her, who neither in conceiving suffered lust, nor in bearing pain?” So also the Trullan Synod of more than 200 Fathers, Canon 70, defines that the Virgin’s childbirth was without afterbirth (though others render, without pain). The Holy Spirit willed therefore to indicate here the excellence of the Virgin, that her humility and obedience might shine the more, who, though not subject to this law, yet fulfilled it, as one of the other unclean women after childbirth. “Be it so, O Virgin, among women as one of them; for thy Son also is thus in the number of children.”
Note: This law of purification is now abolished, as are the rest of the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament; women after childbirth therefore are not obliged by it, and may without sin go into the temple to give thanks immediately after childbirth, as Innocent III replied, chapter unique, On Purification after Childbirth: nevertheless out of veneration and imitation of the Blessed Virgin many abstain from entering church for 40 days after childbirth, says Radulphus, book 8, chapter 6, near the beginning. Hence Innocent adds: “If, however, out of devotion she wishes for some time to abstain from church, we do not think their devotion to be disapproved.”
You will say: In the Mass of the Ethiopians it is said in the blessing of a woman after childbirth: “Thou, O Lord, hast taught Moses a clean constitution, etc.: we beseech Thee therefore for the handmaid who has kept Thy constitution”: therefore this constitution of Moses binds Christian women also.
I answer: “Who has kept Thy constitution,” understand, as to the ceremony itself of purification, not as to the very reason and obligation of the law or constitution; for our women after childbirth conform themselves to this constitution, not because they are obliged by it, but of their own accord and from their devotion already mentioned.
Tropologically, this purification was a symbol of penance, by which we recover purity of soul.
Excellently Nazianzen, oration 6: Nothing, he says, does pure God hold in such esteem as purity or purgation. And Barlaam, dying, commends to his disciple Josaphat purity of soul, as a treasure of immense price, as Damascene witnesses. Hence, to purge the filth of crimes, Christ prepared for us a bath of His own blood. For, as St. John says, Apocalypse 1: “He hath washed us from our sins in his own blood.” And Paul to Titus 2: “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and cleanse to himself a people acceptable.” Wherefore Tertullian, book On Penance, teaches that we must do penance at once, and that the soul hurt by sin must at once be cured and purified, and shows it by the example of brutes. “For the stag, pierced through, to expel from the wound the iron and its irrevocable delays, knows that it must heal itself with dittany. The swallow, if it has blinded her young, knows how to restore their sight again from her celandine. The sinner, to restore to himself the exomologesis instituted by the Lord, knowing it, will he pass it by?” The same has Pacian, Exhortation to Penitents; whence Tertullian subjoins: “Penance, do thou, sinner, so seize, so embrace, as a shipwrecked man embraces the faith of some plank: this will lift thee, submerged in the waves of sins, and carry thee forward into the harbour of divine clemency.”