Commentaria in Leviticum
The tropology of these blemishes is the same as in the blemishes of the priests, chapter 21, verse 18. So Rudolph.
IF IT BE BROKEN—if it have broken feet, or loins, or an eye.
What if one had vowed a female?
22. IF IT HAVE A SCAR.—The Hebrew is, if cut, that is, if it show a cut by a scar. The Septuagint: if it be maimed in the tongue. More recent writers render: if it have a limb cut off; but this is sufficiently forbidden by the preceding particle: for if broken is forbidden, so also is cut off.
IF IT HAVE PIMPLES—that is, if it have warts. So Vatablus.
23. AN OX OR A SHEEP THAT HATH THE EAR OR THE TAIL CUT OFF, THOU MAYEST OFFER VOLUNTARILY.—For “the ear and tail cut off,” the Chaldee and more recent writers render, superfluous it must be persevered in most constantly in action. For nothing is so arduous and unusual that perseverance does not overcome it. “Perseverance is more efficacious,” witness Sertorius, “and many things which one impetus [could not do]...”
… and diminished, that is, one with enormous and contracted members. But the Septuagint, both here and in Leviticus 21:18, render as our version does, “cut off in ear or tail.” For the general significations of Hebrew nouns are often determined by usage to something particular, as we saw in chapter 21, verse 18, where pisseach, that is, leaping, signifies lame; dak, that is, tender, blear-eyed; charum, that is, cut off, signifies flat-nosed, whose nose is as it were cut; so excrescent (if the Hebrew root, which is found nowhere else, signifies so) can signify one with truncated ears, whose head stands out and appears as it were excrescent, or whose nose grows out, and who has a large or turned-back nose, as our version renders in chapter 21, verse 18; so diminished is one that is diminished in the tail: for so the Septuagint and our version explain. An ox and a sheep, then, with ear and tail cut off, could be voluntary or spontaneous victims, but not votive, and consequently not for sin; because the sacrifice for sin was not voluntary but obligatory, as well as votive: the same I say of the other things to which the Hebrews were bound at a fixed time; for these were not spontaneous but necessary and prescribed by law. The reason is that the obligation is greater in votive and commanded sacrifices than in spontaneous ones. Hence in these greater liberty is allowed than in those; those also had greater dignity: hence a purer and more entire victim is rightly required in them. Tropologically, in the ear obedience is signified, in the tail perseverance: without these a free work and of supererogation, namely the work of one who has not vowed the state of perfection, can please, but not the work of one who has vowed. Hence in vows, as the guilt is greater unless they be completed by work, so the crown will be greater if they be fulfilled, that those who have vowed may be bound to progress on both sides: says Rudolph. St. Bernard says admirably, in the homily On the Two Disciples going to Emmaus: “Patient in tribulation, and rejoicing in the labour of obedience, one may be called powerful in work. Let him see someone frequently devout in prayer, whose eyes are as the pools in Hesebon for the multitude of tears, but who refuses to bear the yoke of obedience: he thinks he offers his vow by offering a victim with the ear cut off; he bewails his pride in prayer, but the hour of compunction past, he is as proud as before, etc. Such seem powerful in speech, but not in work. In work and speech are powerful those who have honesty in morals, virtue in works, knowledge in speech, devotion in assiduity of prayer, gravity in conversation, perseverance in love.” Chilon rightly said that great things are to be undertaken slowly indeed; but when you have once begun, “It is base,” says Seneca, “to yield to a burden and to struggle with a duty which you have once received. He is not a brave and strenuous man who flees labour, nor does his spirit grow by the very difficulty of things.”
The same, epistle 1: “There is nothing,” he says, “which persistent effort does not conquer, and intent and diligent study must add strength by assiduity, until a good mind be what a good will is.” And epistle 65: “The happy life is on high, but perseverance is penetrating.”
24. ANY BEAST THAT HATH THE STONES BRUISED, OR CRUSHED (so we must read with the Romans; not ‘poured,’ as the Plantin editions read), OR CUT, OR TAKEN AWAY, YOU SHALL NOT OFFER.
Tropologically, the stones signify the faculty of generating and producing good works, of which reason is the father, will the mother; which if it be made sterile or unfruitful, is unfit for the Lord’s offering. So Rudolph and Cyril, book 15 On Adoration.
25. OF THE HAND OF A STRANGER (a Gentile remaining in his superstition; for he is called in Hebrew ben nechar, that is, son of a stranger)
YOU SHALL NOT OFFER BREAD TO YOUR GOD.—“Bread,” that is, sacrifices, which are as it were bread, that is, the food of God. Hence the Septuagint render “gifts”: see what was said in chapter 21, verse 22; for the loaves of proposition cannot be understood here, because the priests made them, not the laity, much less aliens, as is plain from chapter 24, verse 3.
AND WHATSOEVER ELSE HE WOULD GIVE—the alien, namely, to be offered immediately and burnt to the Lord, such as incense, oil, wine; for these could not be received from him, but the rest could be received. Hence it is not here forbidden that the priests receive money from Gentiles to buy victims: for they received them both from others and from Seleucus king of Asia, 2 Machabees 3:3.
BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL CORRUPTED AND DEFILED—namely the gifts and victims of the Gentiles, because the offerers themselves are corrupt, that is, idolaters. Again, because they were reckoned unclean among the Jews; hence they were kept from the sacred things, and could not enter the sanctuary, because these were proper to the Jewish state, to which they did not belong: just as now those who are not baptised are not admitted to holy communion, to the temples and sacrifices of Christians. So Abulensis.
Morally, the habit of virtue is to be acquired by exercise.
27. WHEN A BULLOCK, OR A SHEEP, OR A GOAT IS BROUGHT FORTH, THEY SHALL BE SEVEN DAYS UNDER THE UDDER OF THEIR DAM: BUT THE EIGHTH DAY, AND THENCEFORTH, THEY MAY BE OFFERED TO THE LORD—because in the first seven days the young is too tender. See what was said on Exodus 22:30, where the same is said of the firstborn.
Tropologically Rudolph: Seven days, that is, as long as one can think of nothing but the things of this world and temporal things, so long let him be nourished with simple doctrine; but on the eighth day, that is, when he has become spiritual and renewed in spirit, he can be presented to the Lord.
Allegorically, for seven days of this life we are under the Church our mother; but on the eighth day of the resurrection we shall be presented to the Lord in glory. So Rudolph.
28. WHETHER IT BE A COW OR A SHEEP, THEY SHALL NOT BE SACRIFICED THE SAME DAY WITH THEIR YOUNG ONES—because this seems cruel. God willed by this law to teach the Jews humanity, that is, that a humanity premeditated toward beasts might be trained to the relief of men, says Tertullian, book 2 Against Marcion, chapter 16. For the same reason, Deuteronomy 22:6, he who finds a nest is forbidden to take the mother with the young.
Tropologically Rudolph: “The mother,” he says, “is the will, which sacrifices its offspring to God, when in outward acts it slays, as far as it can, whatever is contrary to the law of God; but then there is heavy labour for it about itself, because the memory of the pleasures to which it willingly subjected itself, when it strives to tend to God, it feels, groaning and unwilling, to be troublesome: let it not therefore be afraid, because it cannot be that on one day the mother be sacrificed with her young, that is, that the act and the affection inciting and tempting to the act be cut off together.”