Commentaria in Leviticum
St. Ephrem, book On the Day of Judgment: “Compunction,” he says, “is the health of the soul, the illumination of the mind; compunction acquires for us remission of sins.” St. Jerome in the epitaph of Fabiola, speaking of her contrition: “What sins,” he says, “would this weeping not purge? what inveterate stains would these laments not wash away?” And below: “O happy of the Lord’s preaching it is commanded that even to the guilty of the most wicked crime, if with all the heart and open confession of sin they do penance, the grace of the heavenly Sacrament shall be restored.” St. Chrysostom, sermon On Penance: “O penance,” he says, “that by God’s mercy remittest sin, and openest paradise, by which thou healest the contrite man, and cheerest the sad, recallest life from death, restorest standing, renewest honour, givest confidence, reformest strength, and pourest back more abundant grace! O penance, what new thing shall I tell of thee? All things bound thou loosest, all things loosed thou unlockest, all adverse things thou mitigatest, all contrite things thou healest, all confused things thou makest clear, all desperate things thou quickenest. O penance more resplendent than gold, brighter than the sun, whom sin conquers not, nor defect overcomes, nor despair blots out! Penance rejects avarice, shrinks from luxury, etc. O penance, mother of mercy, and mistress of virtues! great are thy works, by which thou loosest the guilty, and restorest sinners, raisest the fallen, recreatest the desperate. Through thee Christ suddenly snatched the thief to the kingdom, through thee David after his crime, happy, received again the Holy Spirit,” etc.
more easily,” he says, “have I found those who have kept innocence than those who have done penance fittingly.” If you ask, What then, O Ambrose, do you call fitting penance? he answers in the same place: “One must renounce the world, indulge sleep itself less than nature demands, be interrupted by groans, broken by sighs, set apart by prayers: one must so live that we die to this vital use, let a man deny himself to himself, and be wholly changed, as the story tells of a certain youth who, after harlot loves, went abroad, and, the love abolished, returning afterward met his old beloved: who, wondering that she was not accosted, and thinking herself not recognized, meeting him again said: It is I; he answered: But I am not I. Whence well says the Lord: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” Ambrose speaks of exact and perfect penance, which few practise: the common, which especially, with the Sacrament of Penance supervening, suffices for the remission of sins and for salvation, many embrace and practise.
Shall be unclean seven days—so that it is lawful for no one, not even her husband, to be with her for seven days: for the remaining 33 days, which remain up to 40, she is indeed barred from the sanctuary, but it is lawful to speak with her, eat and be with her (not, however, to have intercourse, says Abulensis: for she was as one menstruating); therefore on these seven days she was said to be separated, and these were the days of separation; but the remaining 33 were the days of purification.
According to the days of the separation of her flowers—as if to say: For these seven days she will be as unclean as a menstruating woman, and in the same way must bear herself separated and unclean as a menstruating woman, of whom chapter 15, verse 19.
Verse 4. And she shall remain three and thirty days in the blood of her purification—that is, in the blood by which she is continually purged, says Jansenius on chapter 10 of the Gospel Concord. Secondly, by hypallage, as if to say: She shall remain in the purification of her blood, until namely she be purged from the flow of blood, of which more on verse 5. A like hypallage is Exodus 12:41. Tropologically, to remain in the blood of purification is to bear the burden of mortality into which we have fallen by sinning, through which nevertheless we are cleansed from what we have committed: that on the fortieth day of the resurrection we may be set before the Lord in the heavenly temple, immortal and glorious. So Radulphus.
Again, symbolically and properly, this blood and filth of childbirth were the effect, punishment and sign of the lust which the woman had in conjugal intercourse and conception. For what is conceived with shameful love, this is borne with pain, purged with stench. So by the just and eternal law of God it is ordained. God willed therefore by this purification to signify that the chastity of marriage does not approach celibacy, but is impure; and that spouses in wedlock need purification. Rightly Cassian, Conference 21, chapter 33: “In the law,” he says, “in which the rights of marriages are kept, although luxury is restrained, wandering is bound to one woman only. Hence the stings of carnal concupiscence cannot but live, and it is difficult for a fire, to which even fuel is zealously supplied, to be so shut within fixed bounds that, straying out, it should not burn whatever it touches.” Full purity therefore is in chastity and continence, whose whiteness, glory and praises St. Cyprian thus depicts, book On the Good of Chastity: “Chastity,” he says, “is the honour of bodies, the ornament of manners, the holiness of the sexes, the bond of modesty, the fount of purity, the peace of the house, the head of concord. Chastity is solicitous to please none but itself. Chastity ever bashful, while it is the mother of the innocent. Chastity is ever adorned with modesty alone, then well conscious of its beauty, if it displeases the wicked. Chastity seeks no ornaments; it is itself its glory. This commends us to the Lord, joins us to Christ; blessed itself, and making blessed wherever it deigns to dwell: which not even those who have it not can ever accuse; venerable even to its enemies, while they admire it the more who cannot conquer it.”
of love, and the reckoning of the angelic life! O chastity, who art in a pure heart, a sweet throat and a cheerful look! O chastity, who makest men like to angels! O chastity, who didst so exalt the friend of God in a foreign land that he redeemed even those who had bought him! O chastity, gift of God, full of kindness, of discipline and knowledge! O chastity, tranquil harbour, established in the highest peace and security,” etc. And the author of the book On the Singleness of Clerics, among the works of St. Cyprian (for that this book is not Cyprian’s is plain from the style): “Chastity,” he says, “is the invincible bulwark of sanctity, and the strong storming of infamy: the firmness of fortitude, and the weakness of wantonness: the guard of probity, and the overthrow of improbity: the victory of the soul, and the prey of the body: the fruitfulness of glories, and the barrenness of crimes: the bridesmaid of holiness, and the repudiation of baseness: the token of sincerity, and the abolition of scandals: the exercise of the continent, and the emptying of all luxury: the secure peace of the virtues, and the vanquishing of restless wars: the summit of purity, and the prison of lust: the harbour of honesty, and the place of shipwreck of ignominy: the mother of virginity, and the enemy of uncleanness: the breastplate of modesty, and the spoil of shamefulness: the destruction of corruption, the wall of rigour, and the ruin of vulgarity: the sword of severity, triumpher and slayer of dissolution: the armour of strength, and the disarming of laxity: the dignity of integrity, and the condemnation of fornication: the height of splendour, and the precipice of disgrace: the will of good works, and the affliction of vices: the refreshment of chastity, and the punishment of petulance: the acquisition of triumphs, and the loss of crimes: the rest of salvation, and the exile of perdition: the life of the spirit, and the death of the flesh: the state of angelic quality, and the funeral of human substance. By its reins all obscenity is bridled, and by its fetters the heels of raging lust are held fast.”
the bridle of the eyes, who transferrest the whole body from darkness to light! O chastity, who most chastely penetratest the flesh! O chastity, who gladdenest the heart of him who possesses thee, and addest wings to the soul for heavenly things! O chastity, who bearest spiritual joy and takest away sorrow! O chastity, who diminishest the passions and freest the soul from perturbations! O chastity, who illuminest the just and pourest darkness upon the devil! O chastity, who drivest out sloth and bringest patience! O chastity, spiritual chariot bearing its possessor aloft! O chastity, who like a rose in the midst of the soul and body flowerest, and fillest the whole house with the fragrance of odour! O chastity, forerunner and cohabitant of the Holy Spirit!” That they might attain this purity, some illustrious spouses kept continence in marriage by mutual consent. So did St. Ammon with his wife, Euphraxia, sprung from the family of the Emperor Theodosius, with her husband Antigonus, Anastasius with Theognia, Eucharistus with Maria, Magna with her husband, Olympias with Nebridius, as is plain from their Lives. More I have cited on 1 Corinthians, chapter 7, verse 6.
Wherefore so great a gift of chastity comes to no one without a peculiar grace of God, and much prayer. St. Augustine is witness of himself, Confessions, book 10, chapter 29: “All my hope,” he says, “is only in thy exceedingly great mercy. O love that ever burnest and art never extinguished, charity, my God, enkindle me. Thou commandest continence, give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.” Hence also God is wont to guard virgins and the chaste, that like asbestos they may be inviolable by fire. For fire finds in them no matter or filth to burn. So St. Cunegund, wife of the Emperor Henry, to prove her virginity to her husband, walked with bare and unharmed feet on glowing iron. So Theognia, at the command of St. Basil, receiving glowing coals in her lap, carried them with her lap unharmed, because in marriage with her husband Anastasius she kept continence: Amphilochius is witness in the Life of St. Basil. So also that Abbot who converted the harlot Porphyria, when he had come under suspicion of fornication with her, cleared himself by fire, which he carried in his garment unharmed, as is had in the Life of St. John the Almsgiver.
Verse 5. But if she bear a maid child, she shall be unclean two weeks, according to the custom of her monthly courses (namely 14 days, which was double the days of separation if she had borne a male, verse 2), and she shall remain in the blood of her purification sixty-six days.—So that, the former 14 days, in which she was wholly separated, being added, there are 80 days of purification, which are double the purification at the birth of a male: for in that only 40 days were appointed, verse 4.