Commentaria in Leviticum
12. THOU SHALT NOT SWEAR FALSELY BY MY NAME—by my name.
NOR PROFANE THE NAME OF THY GOD—as far as in thee lies; for otherwise the name of God cannot in itself be profaned.
13. THE WAGES OF HIM THAT HATH BEEN HIRED BY THEE SHALL NOT ABIDE WITH THEE UNTIL THE MORNING.—“Work” here means the wages of the work; it is a metonymy: in like manner “work” is taken in Psalm 127:2, as if to say: Thou shalt not put off the payment of the wages to the next day, but on the same day, before night, shalt pay the workman or hireling, because these workmen are generally poor, and live from day to day on the day’s pay (1).
14. THOU SHALT NOT SPEAK ILL OF THE DEAF—because it is very inhuman to do injury to one who cannot defend himself.
Tropologically St. Gregory, part 3 of the Pastoral, admonition 36: “To speak ill of the deaf,” he says, “is to detract from the absent, who does not hear.”
NOR PUT A STUMBLINGBLOCK BEFORE THE BLIND—the Hebrews think that even here it is forbidden to give bad counsel to a simple man. But this sense is mystical.
Tropologically St. Gregory above: “To put a stumblingblock before the blind is to do a thing which is indeed discreet, yet to give occasion of scandal to him who has not the light of discretion.”
15. RESPECT NOT (in judgment, as went before) THE PERSON OF THE POOR—lest, moved by an unjust pity for him, thou pervert judgment.
16. THOU SHALT NOT BE A DETRACTOR NOR A WHISPERER.—In the Hebrew one word answers to these two, rachil, that is, detractor, whisperer. The Septuagint render: Thou shalt not walk with guile among thy people (2).
So the Emperor Vespasian repressed fiscal calumnies by heavy punishment of the calumniators, and this saying of his was reported: “A prince who does not chastise informers provokes them.” And the Emperor Antoninus Pius punished informers with death if they did not prove the crime; if they proved it, he dismissed them with a reward, but branded with infamy. Aristotle, when from fear of lawsuits he had fled from Athens, being asked by someone what sort of city it was, answered: “In it pear grows old upon pear, and fig upon fig.” By which saying he marked the sycophants and calumniators of the Athenians, most pernicious to good men. So Aelian, book 3.
Thearidas, when he was sharpening a sword on a whetstone, being asked by someone whether it was sharp, said: “Sharper is calumny,” indicating that calumny is a most harmful thing. Demosthenes, oration 1 Against Aristogiton: “When you see a viper,” he says, “you kill it at once: so when you see an informer and cruel man to have a viper’s nature, wait not until he bite one of you, but let him be punished as soon as he appears.”
Pelopidas, when a brave soldier was reported to him by calumny as having railed at him, said: “I look at his deeds, but I have not heard his words.” So Xenophon in the Economics.
Finally St. Athanasius, apology 1: “He who has been struck by a stone,” he says, “seeks a physician; but the strokes of calumny strike harder than stones. For calumny is a club, and a sword, and an incurable javelin, as Solomon says.”
THOU SHALT NOT STAND (the Septuagint: thou shalt not conspire) AGAINST THE BLOOD OF THY NEIGHBOUR—that is, that thou bear false witness against him, or otherwise unjustly [deliver him to those] who kill. Blood here signifies life; for the soul and life is in the blood, as Moses said, chapter 17, verse 14.
17. THOU SHALT NOT HATE THY BROTHER IN THY HEART.—Hence it is plain that to the Jews in the Old Testament was forbidden not only the external action, for instance of homicide or injury, as Josephus and some Rabbis (whom Christ therefore corrects, and explains the law, Matthew 5:22) thought, but also the internal, namely the evil act of the will, such as hatred. So Cassian, book 8 On the Capital Vices, chapter 14.
BUT REPROVE HIM OPENLY.—The Hebrew is, reproving reprove, as if to say: Cherish not hatred in thy heart against thy neighbour; and secretly contrive no evil against him; but show openly, that is, in the open, to him who has hurt thee, that thou art offended, and ask satisfaction for the injury or damage done to thee. He does not command, therefore, that he who offends be rebuked publicly and before the whole multitude, but that the offended keep no hidden hatred; and so make manifest the injury done him to the one who inflicted it, and ask satisfaction. Hence Tertullian, book 4 Against Marcion, chapter 35, takes this place of fraternal correction, as though it had been prescribed here to the Jews.
LEST THOU INCUR SIN THROUGH HIM—by secretly contriving his hurt or ruin. Secondly, and rather, thou shalt not seek vengeance proceeding from rancour, either privately or publicly in court; for every such is sin in the forum of the soul and before God. This law, therefore, supplements and perfects the law of retaliation, laid down in Numbers 35:19 and Deuteronomy 19:12, which permits one to seek vengeance in the judicial forum, when it is just in the matter, though with an evil mind, and the accuser asks it out of revenge, for example that a kinsman of the slain man put the murderer to death; for though this is just in itself, yet if it is done out of revenge, it is unjust and sin.
Wherefore God here commands that in such matters they seek not vengeance, but only their right, that justice be satisfied, whether private or public.
Plutarch says admirably: “He who is hungry uses food according to nature; but vengeance ought to be used by one who neither thirsts for it nor hungers. As a father, seeing a boy about to cut something, takes the iron and does it himself, so reason, snatching vengeance from anger, chastises usefully.” And Juvenal, satire 3 [13]:
Vengeance is the pleasure of a weak and little mind: gather it at once from this, that no one rejoices more in vengeance than a woman.
And Francis Petrarch, dialogue 104: “The noblest kind of vengeance,” he says, “is to forgive. The delight of revenge is momentary, that of mercy everlasting. Many have repented of having avenged, none of having forgiven.” But what is more illustrious than this saying of Christ, Matthew 5:39: “But I say to you not to resist evil; but if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other.” And of Paul to the Romans, chapter 12: “Rendering to no man evil for evil. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good.”
NOR BE MINDFUL OF THE INJURY.—The Chaldee: You shall not keep up enmities.
18. THOU SHALT LOVE THY FRIEND AS THYSELF.—Hence the Jews gathered the contrary sense: Therefore enemies are to be hated, as Christ reports, Matthew 5:43. But that argument is altogether invalid; for neither does the consequence hold, nor is the antecedent true, as they understood it: for “friend” does not signify here him who is kindly disposed toward us, but every neighbour. This is plain from the Septuagint, who translate plesion, that is, neighbour, and from the Chaldee, who translates chabrach, thy companion, and from the Hebrew rea, which signifies not only a friend, but by a metaphor usual with the Hebrews is transferred to him who is joined with us in any way, or with whom we have some business: and such is every man; for at the least every man is a friend to another, and joined with him by a common origin from the first parent, by common creation and likeness of God, common redemption, common Church and Sacraments, common grace, charity, ordination and course to eternal life. So St. Augustine, Jerome, Theophylact on Matthew 5; for that the love of enemies was commanded to the Jews is plain from Exodus 23:4.
What and how great this love ought to be, Christ taught us by his own example, of whom St. Bernard, sermon 20 on the Canticle: “God,” he says, “loved me at once strongly, wisely and sweetly. Sweetly, because he put on flesh; wisely, because he avoided guilt; strongly, because he endured death.”
Again St. Gregory, book 10 of the Morals, chapter 6: “The love of neighbour,” he says, “is derived into two precepts, since both by a certain just man (Tobias, chapter 4, verse 16) it is said: ‘What thou hatest to have done to thee by another, see thou never do to another’; and Truth himself says: ‘All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them,’” namely in lawful and wholesome matters: for these only ought each to wish and desire for his neighbour equally with himself, according to right reason, as St. Gregory declares in the same place by many particular examples.
St. Paul loved his neighbour, King Agrippa. For when the king said: “In a little thou persuadest me to become a Christian,” he replied: “I would to God, that both in a little and in much, not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, become such as I also am, except these chains,” Acts 26:29.