Commentaria in Leviticum
Note “upon the altar,” that is, under the altar. For the altar was hollow within to receive the fire and wood, as I said on Exodus 27:8; but it was covered with a grating latticed like a net, on which the victims to be burnt were laid, as is plain in the same place, verse 4. In Hebrew it is, “they shall give fire upon, or to, the altar.” Hence Abulensis infers that the fire and wood were not under but upon the altar. But I answer: “They shall give fire to the altar,” that is, to the place set under the altar, or upon the altar, as the Septuagint render it, that is, upon the inner part of the altar, namely upon stones raised from the ground, which reached to the middle of the altar within; on which a hearth with fire and wood was placed.
Hence the altar is said to be as it were alta ara (a high altar), says Isidore, book 15 of the Origins, chapter 14; and ara is so called, says Varro, because in the city there are altars, or from the burning of victims. Others think altars are named from prayers, which the Greeks call arai.
Verse 8. The head, to wit, and all things that cleave to the liver.—He names the parts about which there might be doubt; for as to the rest of the flesh, it is manifest that it all had to be burnt in the holocaust, as is plain from the Septuagint, the Hebrew and the Chaldee. Mystically, we ought chiefly to offer to God the vital parts, the head and the liver, that is, the understanding and the affection; for the liver is the seat of love. Hence the Gentiles, thinking that single parts and members in man were held by single gods, assigned the head to Jove, the eyes to Minerva, the arms to Juno, the breast to Neptune, the loins and girdle to Mars, the reins and groin to Venus, the feet to Mercury, as Giraldus teaches from Democritus and Placiades, Syntagma 4.
Verse 9. For a holocaust and a sweet savour to the Lord.—This is said of God anthropopathically. The sense is, as the Chaldee renders it, that it is an offering of a holocaust, which is received with good pleasure before the Lord. Hence for “sweet savour,” or “of sweetness,” the Hebrew has “savour of rest,” in which God sweetly rests and delights, as in a sacrifice acceptable to Him.
Abulensis thinks that, as the odour of the blood, so the fumes and stench of the flesh were divinely taken away, and a sweet odour put in them; for otherwise in continual sacrifices there would have been a most grievous smell and an intolerable stench.
Radulphus gives the tropology of all that has been said: The altar, he says, is our heart; the wood is holy thoughts; the victim is offered at the door of the tabernacle, that is, at and near the entrance of heaven; the laying on of the hand is the devotion of the offerer; the pouring out of the blood is the expulsion of petty desires; the stripping of the skin is the examination of the interior will; the cutting of the members is the discreet distribution of works of charity; the fire is charity; the head is the intention of the work; the entrails, that is, the inward parts of the soul, and the feet, that is, outward actions, are to be washed and purged, that we may be worthy victims for God. This tropology serves also for the holocaust of sheep, of birds, and the other sacrifices, and therefore I shall not repeat it afterwards in the others.
Verse 10. And if the offering be of the flocks.—By pecora he means pecudes, or flocks of sheep and goats; for these the Hebrew tson signifies. For Moses here passes from the first kind of holocaust, namely that of oxen, to the second, of sheep and goats.
The Plantin Bibles have “of a year old” instead of “male”; but that “male” is to be read is plain from the Hebrew, the Chaldee, the Septuagint and the Roman editions. And although Josephus says, “It is lawful to sacrifice a lamb and a kid of a year old, but an ox even a larger one,” yet Scripture and the divine law have nothing of the kind: perhaps the Jews interpreted that the lamb in a holocaust ought to be such as the paschal lamb, which had to be of a year old, Exodus 12:5.
Verse 11. And shall immolate it at the side of the altar that looketh to the north.—God commanded this so that the slaying and immolation might be done before the door of the tabernacle, or of the Holy, which was as it were the temple and house of God. For the altar of holocausts stood to the south of this door; therefore, that the immolation might be made before the door, it had to be made at the northern side of the altar. So Hesychius. St. Cyril, book 16 On Adoration, gives the allegorical reason, namely that it might be signified that the passion of Christ was to profit the Gentiles; for since Judea lay to the south, the Gentiles, set over against the Jews, are signified by the north.
And the sons of Aaron shall pour its blood upon the altar—upon the sides of the altar, or upon the walls of the altar round about, as he said in verse 5; for if the blood had been poured upon the latticed grating, it would have put out the fire beneath it.
Verse 12. And they shall lay them upon the wood—either immediately, or by means of the grating, as I said on Exodus 25:4.
Tropologically, Ribera adapts all these things which concern the holocaust of sheep one by one to the Martyrs. See him, book 4 On the Temple, chapter 3.
Such a sheep, nay a ram of the flock and of the Martyrs of Christ, was St. Polycarp, who, when he was entering the arena of martyrdom, a voice was heard from heaven: “Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man.” Wherefore, contending constantly for the faith of Christ before the Proconsul, condemned by him and led to the pyre, “with his hands bound behind his back, like a notable ram, he offered a holocaust acceptable to Almighty God, saying: Father of Thy beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the knowledge of Thee, God of the angels and powers, and of all creation and of the whole race of the just who live before Thee, I give Thee thanks that Thou hast deemed me worthy this day and hour to receive a part in the number of the Martyrs, in the chalice of Christ, unto the resurrection of eternal life, of soul and body together, in the incorruption of the Holy Ghost: among whom may I be received in Thy sight this day in a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as Thou hast prepared, and hast before revealed, and hast fulfilled, who canst not lie, true God. Wherefore I praise Thee for all things, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, through the eternal High Priest Jesus Christ Thy beloved Son, through whom, with Him and the Holy Ghost, be glory now and in the ages to come. Amen.” So the Smyrnaeans, eye-witnesses, relate, in Eusebius, Church History, book 4, chapter 15. Do you want not one, but many?
Under the Emperor Diocletian the Christians had assembled at Nicomedia in a church on the day of Christ’s birth; the tyrant sent men to close the church and to kindle a fire all round it. Presently he ordered it to be proclaimed by a herald that whoever wished to live should come out of the church and burn incense at the nearest altar of Jove; otherwise, unless he did so, he would be burnt with the church. Then one from the church answered freely for all: “We are all Christians, and we believe that Christ is the one and only God and King; and we are ready to sacrifice to Him, and to His Father, and to the Holy Ghost, and to offer ourselves all together.” Scarcely had he said this when the fire was kindled, which, embracing the whole church as in a moment, burnt them all (and they were twenty thousand men) like holocausts, and reduced them to ashes, as Nicephorus relates, Church History, book 7, chapter 6. Hear also the three children, martyrs in the furnace of fire:
“As in the thousands of fat lambs, so let our sacrifice be made in thy sight this day, that it may please thee,” O Lord, Daniel 3:40. Hear also a heroine among women.
A matron and Martyr was renowned under Dunaan, tyrant of the Homerites, who, when she had reproached him with blasphemy and perjury, heard from him: I will tear thee in pieces, boldest of women, and give thee to be devoured by dogs; I shall see whether thy Nazarene can help thee. Not bearing these words, the eldest of the Martyr’s daughters, now in her twelfth year, spat in the tyrant’s face; presently those standing by the tyrant ran her through with the sword, with her sister, and offered their blood to the mother. But she, tasting it and looking up to heaven, said: “To thee, O Christ the Lord, I offer this my sacrifice; and to thee I present as Martyrs chaste virgins who came forth from my womb, with whom lead me also, numbered among them, into thy bridal chamber, and, as the divine David says, show the mother rejoicing over her daughters.” Wherefore the king condemned her to death. So from Procopius Baronius relates in the year of Christ.