Commentaria in Leviticum
Lastly St. Ambrose, ordered by Justina and her son the Emperor Valentinian to give up the church to the Arians, refused, saying: “The things that are God’s are not subject to imperial power. If you aim at my patrimony, seize it; if at my body, run upon it; do you wish to lead me to chains? to death? It is a sport: I will not fortify myself with a guard of the people, nor hold the altars, begging my life, but I will offer myself as a victim for the altars.” See him in his letter to his sister Marcellina.
Verse 14. And if the offering of a holocaust to the Lord be of birds, of turtles, or of young pigeons.—This is the third species of holocaust, namely of birds, that is, of turtle-doves or young pigeons. God chose the larger turtle-doves, because these are better; and of pigeons He chose the young, because among pigeons the young are better and fatter. So Philo. Add that pigeons are more salacious than other birds; for they breed every month. So Theodoret.
Note: From the Hebrew tor, doubled, comes turtur. So from the Hebrew rab in Chaldee, rabrabbim are called princes. So from the Syriac bar, that is, outside, doubled, is said barbar or barbarian.
This was the holocaust of the poor, as is plain from Leviticus chapter 12, verse 8. Hence in Numbers chapter 7, where the victims of the princes are enumerated, no birds are mentioned.
Mystically and tropologically, Ribera says that the third holocaust, of birds, signifies Confessors and Virgins, who by the mortification of the flesh and contempt of the world, by knowledge and contemplation, and by prayer fly up into heaven. “Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest?” says the Psalmist, Psalm 54:7; for the dove is of swift and long flight; again, it is fruitful, gentle and without gall. The turtle-dove loves chastity and solitude, and mourns. Hence the Poet:
Nor will the turtle-dove cease to moan from the lofty elm.
So the just fly swiftly, and are not wearied by labour, and have the fruitfulness of good works, are gentle, lack gall, know not how to repay injuries, are zealous for chastity, seek solitude for prayer and for leisure for God: for song they utter moaning, because, while others rejoice in their pleasures, they bewail their own sins and those of others with the groans of penance; of whom it is said: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” This is what St. Jerome says on Psalm 95: “Virginity is the victim of Christ.” And St. Ignatius, in his letter to the Tarsians, calls virgins priests of Christ: “Those,” he says, “who live in virginity, hold in honour as the priests of Christ.”
Verse 15. Wringing the head back, and breaking the place of the wound.—Hence it appears, first, that in the holocaust the neck of the turtle-dove was not cut off but wrung back; second, that it was opened not with iron or knife but with the nail. So Abulensis, Ribera and Vatablus.
Allegorically St. Gregory, homily 4 on Ezechiel:
“The head of the turtle-dove,” he says, “was cut, yet clung to the body: because Christ indeed suffered for us, but was not separated from us by the passion, nay rather He joined us to Himself.” Tropologically, the lofty mind must be cut off from the pleasure of the flesh, and yet not severed; for we ought to cherish the flesh that it may live, not that it may run to waste in luxury. So the same Gregory.
Verse 15. He shall make the blood run down upon the brim of the altar—that is, upon the top of the walls, that thence it may run down to the ground. Hence the Hebrew has, upon the wall of the altar.
Verse 16. But the craw of the bird, and the feathers he shall cast beside the altar at the east side, in the place where the ashes are poured out.—For “craw” the Hebrew has murah, which Vatablus renders “the stomach.”
But the Septuagint, the Chaldee and our version render it “the craw of the throat”; so also Theodotion, who renders it “the pouch”; and Aquila, who renders it “the nutritive part,” which receives the food and supplies it to the other parts of the body. Hence the Septuagint render it proptilon; this craw of the throat is so called from the bosom or pouch which first receives the food eaten from the throat.
Theodoret instead of this reads probolon. This bladder, he says, is called probole, as if “that which first takes up” the food. The same is called murah, as if “conspicuous,” from the root raah, that is, he saw: for the craw of the throat is distended, and visible to all.
You will ask: Why in the holocaust of birds were the craw of the throat and the feathers not burnt on the altar with the bird itself?
R. Solomon answers: Because birds, he says, fly with their feathers to other men’s crops and seize and lay them waste; since, therefore, the feathers are the instrument of plunder, God would not have them burnt to Him: for offerings of rapine do not please God. But by this reasoning neither the beak, nor the feet, nor the stomach of the birds ought to have been burnt.
I say, therefore: God would not have the craw of the throat burnt to Him, because it is unclean; nor the feathers, because these are not eaten, and so are useless for the sacrifice, which is as it were the food of God; He willed therefore that they be cast into a place beside the altar where the ashes were kept: for these were counted sacred, because they remained from sacred flesh. In the same place this craw and the turtle-dove’s feathers were burnt, and their ashes carried by the priest outside the camp, as is plain from Leviticus 6:11. So Abulensis, Ribera and others.
Tropologically, in birds, that is, in the knowledge and contemplation of the learned and the holy, the craw, that is, swelling and pride, is to be cast away. Likewise the feathers, that is, levity and a curious inquiry into superfluities; and the mind must be fixed on dust and ashes, from which we were sprung and to which we shall return. So Hesychius and Radulphus; and Ribera, by the bladder of the throat understand the crop of the greedy belly; for the pleasure of food is not felt except in the mouth and in this bladder of the throat; when the food has passed it, the pleasure also passes. Whence Philoxenus wished for himself the neck and throat of a crane, that he might feel the pleasure of food longer and more. This crop, therefore, as unclean, and preserving the dung of sins, is to be cast away by the wise. Soft feathers signify precious and delicate garments, which he must cast away who wishes to make a holocaust of himself to God. So St. John the Baptist, Matthew 3:4.
TOWARD THE EAST,—that is, toward the court, not toward the tabernacle or the Holy. For to cast this filth toward the Holy would have been plainly unseemly; that this is so is plain from the fact that the altar was to the east of the tabernacle or Holy: for it was before the tabernacle, or between the tabernacle and the entrance into the court. But the entrance of the court was toward the east, as Moses said in Exodus chap. 27, verse 13. That this filth, therefore, might be cast toward the entrance into the court, and not toward the Holy, it had to be cast toward the east.
Verse 17. AND HE SHALL BREAK ITS WINGS.—In Hebrew, and he shall cleave it, or split it by its wings, and shall not divide it, as if to say: He shall so cleave or break its wings that yet he does not cut them off or tear them away. So Oleaster, Cajetan and Vatablus. The literal reason of this is the fitting arrangement of the victim; for thus the wings of our fatted fowls are broken and twisted back when they are roasted or spitted. The tropological cause is that it may be signified that the power of knowledge and of sublime knowledge and contemplation is not to be cut off altogether, but to be cleft, and twisted back and kept down, so that it presume not on higher things, ever mindful of its own weakness. So Radulphus: “To break the wings,” he says, “is not to ascribe the keenness of one’s wit to oneself, but to think humbly of one’s own weakness under the gift of God.”
IT IS A HOLOCAUST AND AN OBLATION.—In Hebrew, it is a holocaust and a burning, that is, a burnt offering, which is wholly consumed by fire purely in honour of God, and therefore is of a most sweet savour, and exceedingly pleasing to God.