Commentaria in Leviticum
You will say: How then is it said here that the old victim [was for expiation?] I answer, first, because it availed for the expiation of temporal punishment, and for averting the punishment of this life which God would otherwise have inflicted on them. Second, because it removed of itself legal uncleanness, or that of the flesh, by which they were reckoned unclean among their own and were kept from sacred things; which uncleanness was a figure of sin; so this victim conferred a certain legal and external justice, which was a figure of true justice and interior renewal. Third, because it took away guilt and eternal punishment, not by virtue of the sacrifice or ex opere operato (for this is not granted even to the sacrifice of the new law, but only to its Sacraments), but ex opere operantis, namely from the contrition and charity of the offerer: for no other spiritual promise was annexed to the old sacrifices and Sacraments.
Verse 5. And he shall immolate the calf before the Lord.—“He shall immolate,” namely the offerer, through him whose office it is to immolate, that is, through the priest, whether high or inferior; for all these priests, and these alone, could sacrifice, as also burn incense, as is plain from chapter 10, verse 1.
Vilalpando, book 3 On the Temple, chapter 36, page 932, notes that both Jews and Gentiles slew their victims stretched out, namely with the legs spread apart and their whole body extended; and this first, because such an extension of the victim upon stones, with the neck lowered and the body raised, was convenient for an easier and more copious outpouring of the blood. Second, that by this outward arrangement of the victim might be signified the inward soul of the offerer as it were poured out wholly before God. Third, that Christ might be signified, who, stretched out like a victim, was slain on the cross for the redemption of men; in every victim, then, thus stretched, Christ crucified, and in like manner stretched on the cross, was represented as in a living image.
A calf.—In Hebrew, “a son of an ox”; the ox which in verse 3 he commanded to be offered, he here calls a calf. God therefore chose the ox and preferred it to the others, not aged but young, because it is more tender and delicate; for the best things are to be offered to God. For this reason He willed it to be male and without blemish. Though there was another, mystical and weightier, reason, which St. Cyril gives, book 15 On Adoration in Spirit and in Truth, page 300, namely, first, that the male at once without blemish and young was prefigured by these victims, the Son of man, our Emmanuel; for in the flower of youth Christ was immolated. Second, that God requires of us a manly soul, robust and free from vices; for softness and a womanish soul, and the interior weakness of mind and understanding, is wholly rejected by God, says Cyril. So also among the Egyptians it was not lawful to immolate females, according to Herodotus, book 2. On the contrary, other nations preferred females to males in sacrifice, says Servius on book 8 of the Aeneid. Note: In the holocaust alone God requires a male victim, because this was offered precisely for the praise and honour of God, who, being perfect, demands a perfect victim, and therefore a male, whereby we may protest and represent His perfection, says Abulensis. Wherefore in the peace sacrifice the victim could be female, as is plain from chapter 3, verse 1. The same seems to hold of the victim for sin. For in chapter 4 the law does not require a male victim in it. So Radulphus and Abulensis.
Before the Lord—before the altar and the tabernacle, where God is singularly present, and hears the vows and receives the sacrifices of those who offer. From this place, and more clearly from verse 11, where it is said, “And he shall immolate it at the side of the altar,” it is gathered that the animals were not slain upon the altar, but beside it, or at its side; for the altar was full of fire, nor could the priest have lifted an ox up on to so high an altar. Hence also the altar was sprinkled with the blood of the victim after it had been immolated elsewhere; but the members of the slain victim, cut in pieces, the priest laid upon the altar, to be burnt on it.
And the sons of Aaron the priests shall offer its blood, pouring it round about the altar.—“Sons of Aaron” here means any priests who minister to the sacrificing priest, although otherwise they be equal to him in dignity; for at that time there were no other priests to minister to Aaron the pontiff when sacrificing than his sons. For the family of Aaron alone was chosen by God and raised to the priesthood.
Pouring its blood.—For, as the Apostle says, Hebrews 9:22, “without shedding of blood there is no remission.” But the holocaust was referred secondarily to the remission of sins. Therefore, because sins made men worthy of death and of the shedding of blood (for the soul, that is, the life, is in the blood, Leviticus 17:11), they poured, in place of their own blood, the blood of the victims, onto which, by the laying on of hands, they had as it were transferred their sins by confessing them; and they poured the blood round about the altar, because God was represented by the altar. Hence by this sign they testified that the blood of the beast was offered to Him for their own, asking that God would receive it in place of their own, and that by it, as by the punishment of a sinner and an enemy, the justice of His vengeance might be justly satisfied. See chapter 17, verse 11, and Abulensis, chapter 3, Question 3.
Abulensis thinks that by a continual miracle all the blood of the victims immediately evaporated, for the decency and reverence of the sacrifices; for otherwise it would have caused an intolerable stench, especially since many victims were slain at the same time.
…is from “to burn,” because the victims were burned on it, as it were. To this inconvenience Solomon provided in his temple: for he made pools, passages and subterranean channels, through which the blood might be carried off, and water poured over it to wash it away, as Aristeas testifies, in his treatise On the Septuagint and the seventy-two Interpreters.
Verse 6. And when they have flayed the victim.—The skin was stripped off, both for the cleanliness of the sacrifice, and because the sacrifice was as it were the food of God. The skin, however, is not wont to be eaten. Except the red heifer, and the sacrifices for sin, in which the skin, the dung and the horns of the victim were burnt outside the camp; and this to point out and to induce detestation of sin, of which chapter 4. Moreover it was the priests’ office to strip off the skin; hence also the skin fell to the priest, as is plain from chapter 7, verse 8. Understand, unless necessity urged: for then the Levites also served in this flaying, as is plain from 2 Paralipomenon 29:34. So Cajetan, Oleaster and others.
[The Hebrew has:] “he shall cut it” (namely the priest) according to its cuttings, or its parts; and the Septuagint, “they shall cut it limb by limb.” Josephus adds that these pieces were sprinkled with salt, and so laid on the fire.
Symbolically, by this cutting of the members was signified, says Philo, that we ought to praise God and give Him thanks for heaven, sun, moon, earth, sea, air, and all the parts of the universe.
For these are as it were the pieces and members of the world, which is as it were the whole.
Tropologically, every member of him who is dedicated to God is diligently inspected by the word of God, which reaches even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and to which all things are naked and open, says Procopius, Radulphus, and St. Gregory, book 1 of the Morals, last chapter. “We strip the skin from the victim,” says Gregory, “when we remove from the eyes of our mind the surface of virtue; we cut its limbs in pieces when, subtly distinguishing its inward parts, we consider them member by member,” etc.
Verse 7. And they shall put fire on the altar—they shall make fire be put under; therefore at the first sacrifice they shall put fire under, which afterwards they shall continually keep up under the altar, as will be said in chapter 6, verse 13.