Commentaria in Leviticum
It is credible that from these fictions of Jews and heretics some demon afterwards took this name Azazel, to confirm wizards and witches in this their error: whence he appears to them in the form of a goat, and in that form is adored by them; and it may be that this goat is likewise called Azazel by them. That demons of old assumed the form of a goat, because this animal is lascivious and proud, is plain from the fact that in Scripture they are themselves called seirim, that is, hairy and shaggy like a goat, as our Delrio noted among others, On Magic, book 2, question 27, section 3.
Thus we read in the Lives of the Fathers, book 6, vol. 2, no. 12, that the Emperor Julian the Apostate had his own demon Azazel, or emissary, whom he sent from Persia to the West to bring him some answer from there; and when the demon came to the place where the monk Publius dwelt, he stood there motionless for ten days, because that monk prayed continually and so hindered his passing. Returning, therefore, and asked by Julian, “Why have you delayed?” he answered: “The monk Publius hindered my passing, and so I return with the business undone.” Julian in anger threatened Publius; but within a few days, by God’s will, he was slain.
Thirdly, others render Azazel “depulsory,” that is, of divine vengeance, that is, expiatory; for such was this goat.
But I say that the goat Azazel, in Hebrew, is the same as the goat going away, or emissary: for so our version renders it, and the Septuagint, who call it the goat sent away. Hence also Symmachus and Aquila render it “the goat that is sent out into the wilderness,” as Theodoret witnesses. For azazel is composed of ez, that is, goat, and azal, that is, he went away, was removed; the goat is called ez because it bears a hardened forehead with horns, from the root azaz, that is, he strengthened, made firm; further, lamed is prefixed to azazel to signify the distinction and boundary of the lot, and it is the same as the preposition “for”; for the lot of one goat was ladonai, that is, for the Lord, namely that it be immolated to him; but that of the other was laazazel, that is, for the emissary goat, namely that it be sent as an atonement of the people into the desert.
Of this goat, then, it is said: “The High Priest shall present it before the Lord, that he may pour out prayers upon it,” namely that he may confess his sins and those of the people, and ask God to transfer them to the goat. Hence “to expiate in it,” that is, by it. These things are said by anticipation: for the sending out of this goat took place after the expiation of the Holy of Holies was finished, after the High Priest had returned from there, as is clear from verse 20.
The fourth and genuine view: the goat Azazel is the emissary.
This emissary goat, then, was as it were an anathema, a cleansing offering and an atonement of the people, upon whom the High Priest laid all their sins, that, laden with them, it might carry them away outside the camp into the desert: just as the Romans and Greeks, in time of common plague or pestilence, chose men as expiatory victims, and by killing them devoted them to the gods to avert the calamity: such an expiatory victim was Curtius, who threw himself headlong into the chasm of the city. Of this I have said more on 1 Corinthians 4:13.
Hence also among the Gentiles there were gods called averters, drivers-away, turners-away, deliverers, repellers, that is, emissaries, dispellers of evils, averting, loosing, putting evils to flight; hence also the sacrifices were called depulsory which were made to the gods who drive off and avert evils, of which Giraldus, Syntagma 4 (1).
11. HE SHALL OFFER THE CALF.—This was not the red heifer of which Numbers 19 speaks; for that was immolated outside the camp, for the sin of the people, but this in the tabernacle, for the sins of the priests.
learned from Origen, Against Celsus, book 6. For, to prove that the Devil was known in the very age of Moses, he says among other things: ‘He who in Leviticus is called the one sent away (apopompaios), whom Scripture names Azazel, was none other than the Devil.’ And in the verses of an ancient Christian poet against Marcus, disciple of Valentinus, which Epiphanius brought forward in Heresy 84, he is said to have performed his lying wonders by the help of Satan and Azazel. That of the ancient interpreters of the Pentateuch, Onkelos, Jonathan and the Samaritan took Azazel as a proper name of the Devil, is credible from the fact that they retained it. For if they had known it to be a common noun, it is hardly likely that they would have left it untranslated.” Against this opinion Drach objects the place Leviticus 17:7: “And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to devils”; it would therefore, he says, be contrary to the mind of the Mosaic law, indeed to its express prohibition, if a sacrifice (for both goats are called an expiatory sacrifice, Leviticus 16:5) were offered to a demon by way of gift. Hengstenberg, in the place cited, replies that the goat is indeed offered to Jehovah, but that all the iniquities with which the other was laden are symbolically committed to the demon, as referred to their author. Allioli adds that the Devil acts here not as another divinity to be appeased by sacrifices, but as a minister of divine vengeance (cf.
the other, destined for him, was sent away alive (verse 21), lest it should seem to be offered to him in place of an offering of propitiation to Jehovah. A fourth opinion was brought forward by Winer, who prefers the sense of the word Azazel as complete extermination. As to the etymology of the word Azazel: (a) Winer, following Bochart, thinks Azazel a plural or collective name, of the form which the Arabs call broken, derived from a root meaning to remove, to withdraw, so that the proper sense is withdrawals, separations, indeed destructions and ruin. Rosenmuller objects that there appears in the Old Testament no trace from which it can rightly be gathered that this verb was in use among the Hebrews. (b) See above the etymology given by Drach. (c) Spencer thinks, with sufficient probability, that Azazel is ‘strong one going away.’ ‘For so,’ he says, ‘the Devil is not unfitly called, whether regard be had to God, the good angels, men, or the Devil’s own ways. With respect to God, from whom he fell away, whence among the Hebrews the apostate, who has fallen away from God, is called so by a certain eminence. Then, since the good angels were strong in standing and remained in an unimpaired state, the demons were strong in going away, for they forsook their own dwelling (Epistle of St. Jude, verse 6). No less in respect of men may the name Azazel be thought fitting, that demons for the most part flee frequented places and houses, and go away to desert and remote places. Lastly, in respect of his ways the Devil has deserved to be called the strong one going away. For in Scripture he is described as a spirit ever going from place to place, nowhere making a stay, especially if he suffers a repulse.’ (d) Munk, in the place cited above, derives Azazel from azaz, he was strong, and el, God, that is, strong one, or power of God. It would be correctly written with the proper form; but the aleph, as being quiescent, is removed; and incense made of stacte, onycha, galbanum and frankincense, as prescribed in Exodus 30:34 and 35.
(of the Holy of Holies, which is called in the plural “the holy places,” for emphasis: for it was most holy), THAT WHEN THE PERFUMES ARE PUT UPON THE FIRE, THE CLOUD AND VAPOUR THEREOF MAY COVER THE ORACLE, WHICH IS OVER THE TESTIMONY (that is, over the ark, in which is the testimony, that is, the law or tables of the law, as I said on Exodus 25:21), AND HE MAY NOT DIE.—Because if he did not burn the incense, which with its smoke should cover the oracle or propitiatory, and that body assumed by me which sits upon it, he would die, because he presumed to see it.
Censers are the hearts of Christ and of the saints; fire is the Holy Spirit; perfumes are the virtues; the fumes are the prayers of the saints, Apocalypse 8:4.
to fill the censer, foreshadows the power of Christ, who inflamed with the torches of spiritual love the human mind which He assumed for us, shining with the gold of justice; in like manner they who are Christ’s, and who themselves put fire into their censers and burn incense: because, conceiving virtues from divine love, they stretch their desires toward the blessedness of the heavenly promises, but still with sorrow and in a riddle. Hence the cloud is here said to ascend from them, which a flame is some day to follow, when they shall see these things face to face: and these find life and escape death, says Radulphus.
St. Ambrose beautifully explains that verse of Psalm 118, “Thy word is exceedingly refined by fire, and thy servant hath loved it”: “What fire,” he says, “the Lord has scattered in the New Testament, to inflame the hidden affections of minds with the ardour of divine knowledge, to kindle the vapour of faith and devotion, to light the desire of virtue! Warmed by this fire Jeremias says: ‘And there was a burning fire shut up in my bones.’ Heated by this fire of discourse Cleophas and that other, who journeyed with the Lord from Jerusalem to the village, said: ‘Was not our heart burning within us, whilst he opened to us the Scriptures?’”
And again: “‘Love is strong as death, jealousy is hard as hell.’ Hard is the zeal which no allurement of this life conquers. Hard as hell, through which we die to sin that we may live to God.”
Whoever has been taken, he says, by the fire of Christ, was such as a man dwelling alone upon the earth. So little does he care for glory and ignominy. Temptations he so despises, and scourges and prisons, as if he were suffering in another’s body, or as if he possessed a body of adamant. And the things that are sweet in this life he so laughs at, and feels them no more than we ourselves feel dead bodies. And as flies do not fall into the midst of a flame, but flee, so passions dare not approach them.”