Commentaria in Leviticum
You will ask, why at the birth of a male only 40, but at the birth of a female 80 days of purification are appointed?
Hesychius and Cyril, book 15 On Adoration, and Maldonatus on Luke 2:22, answer that so many days were fittingly appointed according to the natural formation of male and female: for the male is formed and perfectly organized in 40 days, and therefore on the 40th day is animated. For as soon as the foetus is perfectly formed, it is animated, as physicians teach: but the female is formed and organized in 80 days, and that by reason of the weakness of heat and seminal virtue. Now this formation of male and female takes place out of the menstrual blood: whence the woman pregnant does not then suffer menstruation, on account of which by the law of Leviticus 15:19 she would have been unclean, and therefore after childbirth is reckoned unclean for as many days as she retained the menstrua, and out of menstrual blood formed the foetus, because she has poured out these menstrua by the childbirth.
The moral cause, however, is that for as many days as she formed the offspring, she so many transmitted original sin to it; hence she must be purified for as many days.
But the physicians oppose this opinion: for Levinus Lemnius, book On the Hidden Miracles of Nature, chapter 11, teaches that the formation of the male is sometimes completed on the 30th day, sometimes on the 35th, sometimes the 40th, sometimes the 45th; of the female now 35, now 40, now 43, now 50. Hippocrates, however, book On the Nature of the Foetus, number 10, teaches that the male is formed at the longest in 30 days; the female at the longest in 42 days: and he proves this from the purgation, which after the birth of a male lasts 30, after that of a female 42 days, at the longest.
Hence secondly, others judge that here is regarded the time not of the formation nor animation of the foetus, but of the motion by which the foetus shows itself in the womb: for, as Aristotle teaches, book 7 of the History of Animals, chapter 3, males for the most part about the 40th day begin to move on the right side of the womb, but females about the ninetieth day, and on the left side of the womb. But neither does this correspond in all respects to this law and time, nor is it certain or altogether true: for Hippocrates, book On Nutrition, and others teach that for neither the formation, nor the motion, nor the birth of man has a simple and common time been appointed for all, but a varied and manifold. Add that this purgation is to be regarded not so much from the formation or motion as from the uncleanness of the childbirth.
Hence thirdly, more probably answers Francis Valesius, physician of Philip II king of Spain, On Sacred Philosophy, chapter 17: “It is to be noted,” he says, “that a twofold evacuation from the womb takes place after childbirth: the first of blood flowing copiously, as is wont to happen to women every month; the second of other excrements, flowing little by little with a small amount of blood. Each is shorter in her who bore a male; for since females are moister and more excrementitious than males, it is necessary that their principles at birth be moister than those of males. Whence experience shows that not males but females are conceived by those women who either by nature are, or whom by accident in conception it chances to be, more excrementitious; such therefore will need longer purgation. And though Hippocrates, book On Generation, judges the longest purgation of her who bore a male to be 30 days; of her who bore a female 42, yet from this authority and law of Holy Scripture it is gathered that the former evacuation can take place in males up to seven days, in females up to fourteen; the second, in males to 40, in females to 80, can be extended.” So far Valesius.
For this the words of Moses intimate, saying: “Sixty-six days shall she remain in the blood of her purification,” although this place does not plainly convince; for it might be said with Vatablus that she who bears a female is for 80 days reckoned unclean, and commanded to remain in the blood of her purification, not because blood flows so long after childbirth, but because legally by this law she is so long held unclean, on account of the flow of blood which she suffered for seven days after the birth, and therefore for the following 66 days to be reckoned still in the flow of her blood, and in the legal purification of it, which she is commanded by this law to complete.
I say therefore: The proper and genuine cause of this ordinance and disparity is the will and good pleasure of God, who for the birth of a male appointed 40 days of purification, on account of the greater and moister flow in the birth of females, and corruption of blood, and the greater languor of the woman bearing: for, as Theodoret teaches, women are wont to suffer more gravely when they bear a female than when a male. To this join the congruity of Valesius already mentioned, that the flow of blood in the birth of a male can last to the fortieth day, in that of a female to the 80th, or rather that it never exceeds these terms, so that these terms define not so much the greatest or most that is, as the most and greatest that is not, as the Physicists speak. Tropologically, the woman bearing a male is the perfect soul, cultivating perfect virtues; this soul is purged by the one forty, that is, by the penance of this life before death, that immediately after it she may fly to heaven; but the woman bearing a female, that is, she who more slackly strives not toward the heights of virtues, will after this forty of penance undergo another in Purgatory. So Radulphus.
Verse 6. And when the days of her purification are expired, for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of a year old for a holocaust, and a young pigeon or a turtle for sin.—The question here is to what the words “for a son or for a daughter” are to be referred, or whether to the preceding days of purification. For [some think] the days of purification were more numerous for the birth of a daughter than of a son. On this question depends, and must be resolved, another question, whether the sacrifices here prescribed were offered for the offspring, or only for the mother bearing, or for the mother and offspring together? Various here are the opinions of interpreters and Doctors.
Many judge that these sacrifices were offered as holocaust and for sin, both of the mother and of the offspring. So St. Augustine, Question 40, Hugh, Rupert here, Bede, and Euthymius on Luke 2, Barradius, book 10, for although by the sacrament of circumcision the infant was cleansed from original sin, yet he was still reckoned with his mother legally unclean: for he was still as it were one with his mother. Hence with the mother by this sacrifice he was expiated and the more sanctified, and consecrated to God by this legal ceremony. In favour of this opinion is what the Church sings in Responsories 2 and 3 of the first nocturn on the feast of the Purification: “They offered for him (the child Jesus) a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”
But more probably Jansenius, chapter 10 of the Concord, judges that the woman after childbirth offered these for her own purification and not the offspring’s; for this is expressly said in verse 7: “Who shall offer it before the Lord, and shall pray for her (not for him, namely the child), and so she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood.” Again, in the last verse: “And the priest shall pray for her, and so she shall be cleansed.” Wherefore what is sung on the feast of the Purification, “They offered for him,” understand indirectly and concomitantly, as if to say: They offered for his birth, or because the Blessed Mary bore him. The offspring, therefore, was purged of original sin not by this sacrifice but by circumcision; then if he was firstborn he was presented to the Lord, and redeemed with five shekels, as is plain from Numbers 3:47, compared with Exodus 13:13; which law of the redemption of the firstborn offspring is other than this law of purification: for this regards the mother alone after childbirth. Hence in verse 7 it is said: “This is the law for her that beareth a man child or a maid child.”
Hence it follows that “for a son or for a daughter” is to be referred not to “shall bring,” but to the days of purification, which were different at the birth of a daughter, namely 80, from those at the birth of a son, namely 40, to be completed before the mother came to the temple, and there expiated herself by the sacrifices here prescribed. This the Hebrew and the Septuagint signify more clearly.
that she may give thanks to God that she has escaped the perils of childbirth, and that she may offer the offspring with the lamb in holocaust to God, that He may bless it, and bestow and preserve on it the innocence of a lamb.
And a young pigeon or a turtle for sin—namely, to take away the uncleanness and legal irregularity contracted in childbirth. For this uncleanness is called sin, namely legal; especially because, arising from original sin, it clearly signifies our race vitiated in Adam, says Hesychius and St. Augustine. So legal uncleanness contracted from leprosy or the menstrua is called sin, chapter 14:12, and chapter 15:30. Secondly, the woman after childbirth will also offer these for sins properly so called, if any she committed in childbed or otherwise.
Fittingly for the married woman and the woman after childbirth a purificatory victim is prescribed, a turtle or dove; for the groaning turtle is a symbol of grief and penitence. For, as the Poet says: Nor shall the turtle cease to moan from the airy elm.