Commentaria in Leviticum
THEY SHALL DIE WITHOUT CHILDREN.—The Hebrew is, they shall die childless, as if to say: These incestuous shall not be suffered to remain in this crime until they can have children, but as soon as it is known, they shall be put to death by the judge’s sentence. For this signifies “they shall bear their iniquity,” that is, the penalty of their iniquity, namely death; which in the following verse and case, where likewise it is said “they shall be without children,” is in like manner to be repeated; for to this incest as to the former the penalty of death is decreed, and that at once, so that the offspring which they seek from it may not be suffered to be conceived. So Abulensis. To which add that it seems that God here threatens the incestuous with the penalty of childlessness in particular, as though he himself by his peculiar providence would bring it about that offspring should not grow from such incest. For so even today we often experience that such remain childless, and St. Gregory asserts that he has experienced the same, in answer to the question of St. Augustine, Bishop of the English, chapter 6.
Otherwise St. Augustine, Rudolph and Cajetan explain “they shall be without children,” as if to say: If any sons be born of them, they shall be reputed spurious, not sons, and by no right shall succeed to their parent.
21. DOETH AN UNLAWFUL THING.—The Hebrew is niddah, that is, a thing to be shunned, turned from, abominated.
23. WALK NOT AFTER THE LAWS OF THE NATIONS (in the manner of living of the Gentiles) WHICH I WILL CAST OUT BEFORE YOU—before you, when you enter their land, namely Chanaan.
24. A LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY—a most fertile land; it is hyperbole.
25. DO YOU ALSO SEPARATE THE CLEAN BEAST (animal or cattle; so the Hebrew and Chaldee) FROM THE UNCLEAN.
See what was said on this distinction of animals, chapter 11.
DEFILE NOT (partly by disobedience, partly by legal irregularity) YOUR SOULS—that is, yourselves.
26. YOU SHALL BE HOLY UNTO ME, BECAUSE I THE LORD AM HOLY.—God here speaks to all the Israelites, not only the priests, but the laity also. Adam Sasbout piously treats this sentence, homilies 1 and 2, and adapts it in the first to the laity, in the second to priests.
Note: holy in Hebrew is kadosh, that is, set apart from profane uses, and destined and as it were consecrated to the worship of God, who accordingly ought to be pure from vices, chaste, uncontaminated and clean from filth. Secondly, holy in Greek is hagios or hosios. Origen thinks hagios is said as if a-ge, that is, without earth. But the privative a, that is, without, lacks the aspirate which is in hagios. Wherefore it comes from hazomai, I worship, I venerate, as if you said: to be worshipped and venerated for virtue and purity. Thirdly, the Latins derive sanctus from sancio, which is said from blood (sanguis), because treaties were wont to be sanctioned, that is, confirmed, with the blood of a slain victim. Hence Servius explaining that line of the Aeneid, book 12:
Let the Father hear this, who sanctions treaties by lightning:
“Holy,” he says, “is so called as if sanctioned by blood and consecrated.” Hence a law by which a penalty is prescribed for violators is called a sanction (sanctio). Hence that is called holy which is sacred, so that it may not be violated. Holy, then, is first said of what is pure and unpolluted. Hence Virgil, Aeneid book 12: “A holy soul,” he says, “to you, and a wife ignorant of that (that is, most pure) ...” Secondly, what is religious and divine, and therefore inviolable. Thirdly, what is firm and perpetual. For hence treaties sanctioned by blood were held holy, because they were to be kept ratified and firm even to blood and death, holily and inviolably.
So then the Jews, and much more Christians, ought to be holy before God in all acts and manners; holy, I say, according to all the etymologies and all the modes just stated. For it is said to the Jews by Moses, Exodus 19:6, as to Christians by St. Peter, epistle 1, chapter 2, verse 9: “You are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people.” So Christ is the Holy of Holies, Daniel 9:24. So most holy, that is, most pure, was the Blessed Virgin Mother of God. So David says, Psalm 85:2: “Preserve my soul, for I am holy.” So in Jeremias 1:5 it is said: “Before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee.” So St. John the Baptist was sanctified in the womb, who, that he might keep this holiness unimpaired, withdrew into the desert, “lest he might stain his life with even a light fault.” So a virgin is holy, that is, pure, in body and spirit, 1 Corinthians 7:34. So holy, that is, chaste, were St. Agnes, Lucy, Agatha and other holy virgins. Secondly, holy, that is, separated from the world, and devoted and consecrated to God, were the holy hermits, religious, priests. Thirdly, holy, that is, venerable for piety and virtue, were the holy Patriarchs, Prophets, Bishops and Doctors. Fourthly, holy, that is, faithful to God unto death, were the Apostles and Martyrs.
27. THEY SHALL STONE THEM.—Abulensis probably thinks that this penalty of stoning pertains to all the cases and crimes of this chapter (except that incest of verse 14, where another penalty, namely of fire, is assigned), because stoning is put and expressed here, both at the beginning of the chapter and at the end.
Hence it seems to comprehend, as it were in summary, all the other cases in the middle (in which therefore no certain kind of punishment is expressed); and this is confirmed from verse 10, compared with John 8:5, where adulteresses are said, according to the law of Moses, to be stoned. Nor is this wonderful; for all these cases and crimes are enormous, so that they deserve the hard penalty of stoning.
For in lesser crimes the common kind of punishment, where no other is expressed, was hanging, or the cross, thinks Abulensis, and this is intimated in Deuteronomy 21:22. But this opinion is little probable: for the cross seems to have been among the Jews the penalty of enormous crimes only; for in Deuteronomy 21:23 he that is hanged is said to be accursed of God. Hence to the Jews the cross and the crucified were supremely execrable; and therefore on the same day the bodies had to be taken down and buried. Hence Christ also was crucified, on account of the supreme torment of the cross, and likewise its infamy; for this is what the Jews say, Wisdom 2: “Let us condemn him to a most shameful death.” See Jansenius on chapter 143 of the Concordance of the Gospels.
It is truer, therefore, that the common punishment of lesser crimes was the sword or the axe, though we find this nowhere expressed and decreed in the old law; for this kind of death is the lightest and received in use among very many nations: and so John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod. Finally Charles Sigonius notes, book 6 On the Hebrew Republic, last chapter, that in the old law these punishments are found decreed: a fine, retaliation, scourging, exile, sale and death; and of death three kinds only, namely stoning here, burning in verse 14, and crucifixion, Deuteronomy 21. So among the Romans Tullius wrote that eight kinds of penalties are contained in the laws, namely loss, chains, stripes, retaliation, ignominy, exile, servitude and death, says Isidore, book 2 of the Etymologies.