Commentaria in Leviticum
Do you want examples of the Gentiles? Hear St. Jerome, epistle 3 to Heliodorus, in the epitaph of Nepotian: “Where,” he says, “is the ever-praised saying of Anaxagoras and Telamon: I knew that I had begotten a mortal”; so they answered when the death of a son was announced. ‘Cicero, Plato, Diogenes, Clitomachus, Carneades, Posidonius, set forth countless men, and above all Pericles and Xenophon the Socratic, of whom the one, having lost two sons, spoke crowned in the assembly; the other, when sacrificing in a garden he heard that his son was slain in war, is said to have laid down his crown, and to have put it on his head again after he found that he had fallen fighting bravely in the line. Pulvillus, dedicating the Capitol, when it was announced that his son was dead, ordered him suddenly to be buried in his absence. L. Paulus entered the city in triumph within seven days of the funerals of his two sons. I pass over the Maximi, Catos, Galli, Pisos, Bruti, Scaevolae, Metelli, Scauri, Martii, Crassi, Marcelli and Aufidii, whose virtue in mourning was no less than in wars, and whose bereavements Tully set forth in his book of Consolation, lest I seem to have sought what is others’ rather than ours. Yet let these things be briefly said as a scourge to ourselves, if faith does not furnish what unbelief has shown.’”
6. THEY SHALL BE HOLY TO THEIR GOD—that is, removed from all contamination, uncleanness, and base and profane rites and ceremonies, which the Gentiles use at funerals.
AND SHALL NOT PROFANE HIS NAME—as if to say: And so they shall not profane the name, fame and dignity of the priesthood; and consequently not the fame of God, whose ministers and priests they are.
FOR THEY OFFER THE BURNT OFFERING (the Hebrew is “fire-offerings,” which the Septuagint render sacrifices, but our version incense, because it is burnt with fire) AND THE BREAD (of proposition) OF THEIR GOD, AND THEREFORE THEY SHALL BE HOLY.—The Hebrew is, and therefore they shall be holiness, as if to say: Therefore they shall be most holy and most pure, so as to appear to be holiness itself.
Tropologically, the incense is prayer; the loaves of God are the saints, who feed God by faith and good works, and transform themselves into the body of Christ: these the priests offer to God, because by their teaching they bring them to belief. It is just, therefore, that they be holy who invite others to holiness. So Rudolph. Verse 7. 7. THEY SHALL NOT TAKE (the priests) TO WIFE A HARLOT, OR A VILE PROSTITUTE.—“Prostitute” here, as in Deuteronomy 23:18 and Joel 3:3, is a harlot, who has prostituted her body and modesty.
The Septuagint render it “profaned,” that is, violated and polluted: for this is what chalalah signifies. So in Plautus and other Latin writers, prostibulum signifies not only a place of turpitude, such as a brothel, but the harlot herself, most vile and abject.
Tropologically, the wife is the form of living; he takes a wife of his own kindred who looks to God the creator and the holy Fathers, and lives after their pattern. But he takes a harlot, a vile prostitute, and a woman put away, who is conformed to lovers of this world.
8. LET THEM THEREFORE BE HOLY, BECAUSE I ALSO AM HOLY, THE LORD, WHO SANCTIFY YOU—who communicate my holiness to you, designating and consecrating you as priests to me. Secondly, “sanctify,” that is, I command you to be holy.
9. IF THE DAUGHTER OF A PRIEST BE TAKEN IN WHOREDOM, AND DISHONOUR THE NAME OF HER FATHER, SHE SHALL BE BURNT WITH FIRE.—On account of the dignity of the priest father, the simple fornication of his daughter is punished by death, by fire; but the fornication of others is not so punished: for the daughters of the laity who fornicated were not punished, as we read in Exodus 22:16, unless they had passed themselves off as virgins, and in this way deceived the bridegroom; for then, the matter being found out, they were stoned like adulteresses, as is plain from Deuteronomy 22:20. The words of this law signify this difference, when they give the reason, “because she hath dishonoured the name of her father,” as if they said: Because by her fornication she has branded grave disgrace and ignominy on her priest father, therefore she shall be burnt. So also the Gentile Romans buried alive the Vestal virgins taken in fornication; but women adulterers, though with some penalty, they punished with no death. “So much more gravely,” says St. Augustine, book 3 On the City of God, chapter 5, “did they think the divine shrines to be avenged than human beds.”
10. THE HIGH PRIEST, UPON WHOSE HEAD THE OIL OF UNCTION HATH BEEN POURED, SHALL NOT UNCOVER HIS HEAD.—The Septuagint: “he shall not uncover his head,” that is, he shall not bare it of his tiara, namely to bewail the dead, that in this way he might allegorically signify the imperturbable, immovable and eternal priesthood of Christ, which shall never be taken away, says Cyril, book 12 On Adoration.
Note: only the High Priest was anointed on the head, and by this unction he did not mourn any dead, not even parents. The lesser priests were anointed only on the thumbs of hands and feet, and on the ears, and their garments were sprinkled with the blood of the immolated ram mixed with the oil of holy anointing; and therefore they could mourn the kindred designated, verse 2, but not others. But kings were anointed neither on the head, nor on the hands, nor on the garments with the sacred oil, but only with simple and common oil; and therefore they could mourn all the dead they wished.
11. NEITHER SHALL HE GO IN AT ALL TO ANY DEAD PERSON.—“To any dead,” that is, to no dead, as if to say: He shall not enter the house in which any corpse is. So Vatablus. NEITHER SHALL HE BE DEFILED EVEN FOR HIS FATHER OR MOTHER—as if to say: If father or mother die, the High Priest shall not mourn them by outward rite and sign, nor attend their funeral. “For the law,” says Philo, book 2 On Monarchy, “requires in that man a nature more excellent than man’s, as one who is familiar with God above the rest, placed on a certain border between the divine and human nature, that through this mediator God may be propitious to men.” The Gentiles imitated this. Hence among the Romans the flamen of Jupiter was not permitted “to enter a place in which was a tomb, or to touch a dead body,” witness A. Gellius, book 10, chapter 15; nay, “not even to hear funeral flutes,” witness Festus. What of this, that the flamen’s wife was not allowed to have sandals or shoes made of carcasses, that is, of cattle dead of themselves, witness Servius on Aeneid 4: “Since,” he says, “all things extinguished by their own death are funereal.” Hence also, when the pontiff ever had to make a funeral oration, a veil was spread before the dead, which kept his eyes from the funeral. Hear Seneca, Consolation to Marcia, chapter 15: “Tiberius Caesar lost both the son he had begotten and the one he had adopted; yet he himself praised his son from the rostra, and stood in sight of the body laid out, with only a veil interposed, which kept the pontiff’s eyes from the funeral.”
The same did Augustus Caesar at the funeral of Agrippa, witness Dio, book 54; for the Caesars themselves were also pontiffs until the Emperor Constantine, who, being now a Christian, renounced this pagan pontificate. The same Dio, speaking of Tiberius at the funeral of Augustus: “Impunity,” he says, “was granted to Tiberius, who had touched the corpse (for this was forbidden) and attended it.”
Allegorically St. Bernard, sermon 1 On the Circumcision, at the beginning: “Christ,” he says, “is the high priest, of whom it was rather prophesied than commanded that he should not be defiled for father nor mother; for he has a Father from eternity, but God, in whom sin does not fall: he has also a mother, but a virgin, nor could incorruption bring forth corruption.”
12. NEITHER SHALL HE GO OUT OF THE HOLY PLACES—out of the sanctuary, if, when he is stationed there, even his father or mother happen to die. For the High Priest, when at home, did not have to go to the sanctuary if one of his own died; but if he were in the sanctuary, it was not lawful for him on account of the death of father or mother to leave it and its sacred duties and go out to the funeral; the reason is added:
[lest] he bring injury and ignominy upon the sanctuary, by deserting it.
Abulensis notes here that no sacrifice was offered by the Hebrews wandering in the desert for 40 years except on Mount Sinai, and therefore that they were thereafter in the desert bound by no ceremonial precepts, but only moral and judicial. The reason is that ceremonial precepts were ordained only in relation to sacrifices; sacrifices ceasing, therefore, the other ceremonial laws ceased. Except those which God specially excepted in Numbers [chapter 5], 2, namely the leper, him with an issue of seed, and him unclean from a dead body: for these were unclean, and to be separated according to the rite and ceremony prescribed in chapter 13. Wherefore, that these might be expiated, ashes of the red heifer were needed, of which Numbers 19; it must therefore be said that she was burnt in the desert: for those polluted by a dead man were expiated with this ash. Hence it follows that the priests also in the desert had to keep the law here prescribed, that they should not mourn the dead. In like manner in the desert the Hebrews kept no feasts except the sabbath; for one violating the sabbath was stoned in the desert, Numbers 15:36.