Commentaria in Leviticum
4. HE THAT SHALL TOUCH ONE UNCLEAN BY A DEAD BODY—as if to say: He shall be unclean who has touched one unclean on account of a dead person, or who has touched a dead body, any corpse, or tended it, buried it, or been present at its funeral. For such a one was unclean, and he who had so touched one unclean became likewise unclean, so that he might not eat of the flesh sacrificed to God. The Septuagint render: “He that toucheth the uncleanness of a soul,” that is, of a corpse, that is, he that toucheth a corpse; hence some think that only those who touch a corpse are here kept from eating the sacred flesh, but not those who in turn touched them: for these did not transfer their uncleanness to others. But our version demands the former sense, and the Hebrew and Chaldee incline the same way, as Vatablus admits; this too favours what follows:
5. AND HE THAT TOUCHETH A CREEPING THING, AND ANY UNCLEAN THING (in Hebrew, he that toucheth a creeping thing, and a man who can defile, such as a leper, a woman in her courses, one with an issue of seed), WHOSE TOUCH IS DEFILING—because he pollutes and renders unclean him whom he touches, so that it is not lawful for him to eat of the sacred flesh.
7. BECAUSE IT IS HIS FOOD—that is, because it belongs to him to eat of the foods offered to God.
8. THAT WHICH DIETH OF ITSELF, OR WAS CAUGHT BY A BEAST, THEY SHALL NOT EAT.—A carcass, says St. Jerome, is a body in which the blood, that is, the soul, dies, that is, which dies without effusion of blood; for blood is called the soul, because it is the vehicle and support of the soul: for this reason, carcasses by this law are reckoned unclean, as are those torn by a beast.
9. LET THEM KEEP MY PRECEPTS, THAT THEY FALL NOT INTO SIN, AND DIE IN THE SANCTUARY (lest they be slain by me in the sanctuary, as Nadab and Abiu were slain), HAVING DEFILED IT.—For by this very act, when they eat, being unclean, against these laws, the flesh offered to God in the sanctuary, they pollute and contaminate both the flesh itself and consequently the sanctuary itself in which it was offered.
I AM THE LORD WHO SANCTIFY THEM—who will and command them to be holy.
10. NO STRANGER SHALL EAT OF THE SANCTIFIED THINGS.—For “stranger” the Hebrew is “alien,” that is, one who is not of the priestly race; for only those who were of the stock of Aaron, namely sons and daughters, and their slaves and home-born, were permitted to eat the flesh offered to God, namely that which fell to the right of the priests: for of the peace-offering victim, which in great part fell to the offerer, any of the laity could eat with him.
fell out into the chalice, which had been laid on the altar, and, Udo being struck with an axe, the vision of all those things vanished. Wherefore Frederick, greatly terrified, when he had come to the altar, and had seen the chalice to be there with the Christian host, and at the same time the dead Bishop lying on the ground, roused other religious men, who carried away the body of the Bishop and buried it in the field.”
Note: “stranger” is taken in three ways. First, he is called a stranger who is not of the Jewish race. Secondly, who is not of the stock of Levi; Numbers 18:4. Thirdly, who is not of the stock of Aaron. So it is taken here.
THE SOJOURNER OF THE PRIEST, AND THE HIRED SERVANT, SHALL NOT EAT OF THEM.—“Sojourner,” in Hebrew toshab, is he who dwells with the priest but is not of his stock; he dwells, I mean, as a guest, hireling or stranger: he, then, could not eat of the sanctified things, because he did not belong to the priest’s stock or family, as belonged the slave and the home-born, that is, the slave born in the house, who, since they are wholly their lord’s and master’s, may eat of the sanctified things, as the master himself with his sons.
12. IF THE DAUGHTER OF A PRIEST BE MARRIED TO ANY OF THE PEOPLE, SHE SHALL NOT EAT OF THOSE THINGS THAT ARE SANCTIFIED, NOR OF THE FIRST-FRUITS—because by marriage she has passed into another, a popular, family; but the wife of a priest could eat of them, because she is reckoned one flesh and one person with her priest husband. Note: first-fruits here are called the first and choice things, which [belong to the priests]; so too this word is taken in Exodus 25:2.
13. BUT IF SHE BE A WIDOW, OR DIVORCED, AND HAVING NO CHILDREN RETURN TO HER FATHER’S HOUSE, AS SHE WAS WONT TO BE WHEN SHE WAS A MAID, SHE SHALL BE FED OF HER FATHER’S MEATS.—For such a divorced woman, though she have children, they follow their father: for mothers in the old law did not succeed to the goods and inheritances of their parents: hence neither did sons have maternal goods, as there were none; but only paternal: for they succeeded to the father alone; hence the care of feeding them also lay on the father: so when the divorced mother returns to her father’s house, she returns without children, and is to be fed by her father, just as she was fed while a maid before marriage.
Tropologically St. Cyril, book 12 On Adoration, p. 245: If the soul, he says, as condemnable be put away, and left destitute of a husband, that is, a spiritual spouse, and have no fruit of virtue, let her at once return to her former state, and quickly go back to her father’s house by penance, and seek again that former kinship with God, and then at last she shall eat of his loaves.
14. HE THAT EATETH OF THE SANCTIFIED THINGS THROUGH IGNORANCE, SHALL ADD THE FIFTH PART (for the injury done to the tabernacle or the priest: he had also to give a ram to God in sacrifice, as was said in chapter 5, verse 15) WITH THAT WHICH HE ATE, AND SHALL GIVE IT TO THE PRIEST IN THE SANCTUARY—that is, to be carried into the sanctuary, for the uses either of the priest or of the sanctuary: for if the sanctified things he had eaten belonged to the parts that went to God, as if he had eaten the blood, head or tail in a victim for trespass, restitution had to be made to the sanctuary itself, that is, to the priest for the uses of the sanctuary: but if he had eaten of those that went to the priest, restitution had to be made to the priest himself for his uses. So Abulensis.
15. AND THEY SHALL NOT PROFANE THE SANCTIFIED THINGS—by eating them, when they are not of the priestly race.
18. THE MAN OF THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL—of the stock and posterity of Jacob. See what was said on Exodus 1:1.
AND OF THE STRANGERS THAT DWELL AMONG YOU—of the proselytes, who from the Gentiles have migrated to you, to worship the true God with you, and therefore have been circumcised and made Jews.
18 and 19. WHATSOEVER HE OFFER FOR A HOLOCAUST OF THE LORD, SHALL BE A MALE.—For he might offer another victim, not for a holocaust, but for sin, or a pacific, even a female; but he who offered a victim for a holocaust had to offer a male. If any one, therefore, had vowed a female for a holocaust, he should have given a male in her place, if indeed he had the intention of vowing a holocaust absolutely: for then he had to follow in his vow the determination of the law, which commands a male, not a female, to be offered; but if through ignorance he had vowed only this certain animal, for example a female, for a holocaust, and had not wished to vow anything else, then at most he would have been obliged to sell her, and from the price to buy a male for a holocaust. I say at most: for if he had vowed a female for a holocaust, with such an affection that he determinately wished a female, because beautiful or fat, to be offered in holocaust, so that he absolutely wished nothing else, then he was held to nothing: because his vow concerned wholly unlawful matter, and he did not wish to vow a lawful one.
21. THE MAN THAT OFFERETH A VICTIM OF PEACE OFFERINGS.—Here is described what a pacific victim must be, as in verse 18 the victim of a holocaust was described; the victim for sin is omitted here, because it has been treated at length in chapter 5, and what each ought to offer has been prescribed.
THERE SHALL BE NO BLEMISH IN IT—that is, none shall be.