Commentaria in Numeros
Verse 9. BUT IF ANY MAN DIE SUDDENLY BEFORE HIM, THE HEAD OF HIS CONSECRATION SHALL BE DEFILED—that is, his consecration shall be defiled, which appears chiefly in the hair of the head; and therefore, lest this hair of the Nazarites, being as it were sacred, should afterwards be profaned, at the end of the vow it was burned to the Lord to whom they had been consecrated.
Note: nezer signifies first, separation; second, consecration; third, a crown; fourth, hair or tresses, like a crown, consecrated to God. Hence from nezer is derived nazir, that is Nazarite, signifying first, separated to God; second, consecrated; third, crowned; fourth, long-haired or tressed. Thirdly, Allegorically, Rupert applies all these things to Christ, of whom, Matthew 2, last verse, it is said, as foretold through the Prophets: “Because he shall be called a Nazarene”; which St. Jerome, expounding, says: Nazarene is interpreted holy. But all Scripture records that the Lord would be holy, and his holiness all these Nazarites prefigured, and by name the patriarch Joseph, Genesis 49:26, and Samson, Judges 13:5; by whose symbol Christ was brought up in Nazareth, God’s providence signifying by this that he himself would be a Nazarite in life and manner; and this Leo Castrius proves at length on Isaias 11:1, both from other things and from this, that the Evangelists always write Nazarene with the letter zeta, which corresponds to the Hebrew zain, with which letter these our Nazaroi are written. For if Nazarene were derived from netser, Isaias 11:1, that is, a flower or shoot, as many will have it, then they would not write Nazarene with z, but with the letter s. For netser there is written with tsade, which letter is always rendered by the sacred writers by s, never by z; but this matter must be treated more exactly on Matthew 1.
Tropologically Rabanus and Cyril, book 16 On Adoration, think that in the Nazarites the life of the abstinent and continent is signified. He therefore who wishes to consecrate himself to God by a great vow, that is by a life of perfect justice, let him here withdraw his mind from wine and strong drink, that is from everything that can disturb it. These are worldly sense, earthly desires, anxieties of the flesh, vain distractions. Let him let grow the hair of his head, that is, let him not have a bare mind, but one adorned with divine thoughts and knowledge. Let him not go in to father and mother, that is, let him renounce carnal love, and prefer God to the tie of blood.
Wherefore the Nazarites foreshadowed the life of our Religious, as St. Gregory Nazianzen teaches, in his oration in praise of St. Basil; St. Gregory, book 32 of the Morals, chapter 17; Innocent, cited chapter 4, 49; St. Thomas, 2–2, Question 186, article 6. Religious therefore are true Nazarites, that is, separated from the common life of men, and also crowned on the head like Kings and Caesars, both of heaven and of earth, of whom it is said, Lamentations 4: “Her Nazarites were whiter than snow, purer than milk, more ruddy than the old ivory, more beautiful than sapphire.” In snow and milk the chastity of Religious is signified; in old ivory continual and strong obedience; in sapphire, which is of a heavenly colour, poverty, which fixes its hope on God alone. Hence in verse 21 the Nazariteship is called a state of perfection and sanctification, namely of the old law: just as Religion in the new law is a state of perfection, not acquired (for that is the Episcopate), but to be acquired by the three vows. For, as Eusebius of Emesa says: “A Religious ought to be a neglecter of ease, a fugitive from pleasure, a seeker of labour, patient of abjection, impatient of honour, poor in money, rich in conscience, humble in regard to merits, proud in regard to vices.” Hence some who have turned to Religion go wholly astray, “who,” as Blessed Prosper says in On the Contemplative Life, “cast off nothing of their former manners, because they are changed not in mind but in dress; not in act but in habit; not in work but in speech. For in Religion they live as seculars, seek the reputation of virtue instead of virtue, preach great things and do them not, accuse vices and lay them not aside, pretend publicly to dislike what they commit in secret.”
Secondly, as the Nazarites, so Religious ought to abstain from wine, and from everything that can disturb or defile the mind. Let them hear St. Jerome instructing the monk Paulinus: “Let thy food be cheap and taken at evening, herbs and pulse; and now and then count small fishes among thy highest delicacies: he who desires Christ, and feeds on that bread, does not greatly inquire out of how costly foods he makes dung.” And below: “I am not content that anything in thee be moderate; I desire all to be highest, all perfect.”
Thirdly, the Nazarites had to abstain even from kernels, lest they should pass from kernels to grapes, from grapes to wine: so Religious ought to cut off every occasion of gluttony and sin, even the least and most remote. For, as the Gloss rightly says on that text of Job 31, “I made a covenant with my eyes”: “Sight is followed by thought, thought by delight, delight by consent, consent by act, act by custom, custom by necessity, necessity by despair, despair by damnation.”
Let Religious hear, let ecclesiastics hear, what the neglect of the least canons and ordinances effects, from St. Antoninus, teaching in part 2 of his Histories, title 15, 82, after treating of many Religious Orders: “The aforesaid Orders,” he says, “which began with great fervour and holiness of life, neglecting the least of the paternal traditions, in the course of time gradually fell away and were emptied, even to the foundation in them, namely the substantial vows; but by divine mercy for seventy years they have sprouted and flowered again in the few who are reforming themselves to the regular life.”
Let them hear St. Anselm, epistle 6 to Monks: “It is most certain,” he says, “as we have learned by experience in many Churches, that in a monastery where the least things are strictly kept, where the rigour of the monks remains inviolate, there is peace among the brethren, and in chapter accusations are at rest. But where the least excesses are neglected, there the whole Order is gradually dissipated and destroyed. If, then, you would ascend from virtue to virtue, always fear to offend God in each least thing.”
Rightly, therefore, St. Gregory Nazianzen warns Religious men and women, in his oration On Paint, saying: “I would not have you ignorant that a single wrinkle is more shameful in you than the greatest wounds in those who live in the world; for a stain of any kind is not so notable and conspicuous on soiled garments as on pure ones of one colour.”
Fourthly, the Nazarite could not mourn the dead, even father or mother: so all Religious ought to cut off carnal affections toward parents, and hear that word of Christ, Matthew 8:22: “Follow me,” and “Let the dead bury their dead”; and that of Psalm 44: “Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thine ear, and forget thy people and thy father’s house, and the king shall greatly desire thy beauty.”
Fifthly, the Nazarite was defiled even by the mere presence of a corpse: so the Religious ought to be most remote from all sin, of which more on verse 9.
Sixthly, the sanctification of the Nazarite lay chiefly in the nourishing of his hair. This is mystically the budding of holy thoughts, by which a man is made holy; and these Religious foster and nourish.
Seventhly, if it befell a Nazarite to be defiled by the dead, his hair, as if polluted, was shaved off, that new might grow up: so Religious, if their thoughts and affections are stained with any blemish of sin, at once cut them off, and summon new holy ones.
Eighthly, if the Nazarite was defiled, the past days of his Nazariteship were counted void, and he was compelled to begin the time of his vow afresh; for God delights most in continual company. So the Religious, if he has fallen into negligence or another sin, again with a new effort, as if he had done nothing before, ought to take up the way of virtue, and say with the Psalmist, Psalm 76: “I said: Now have I begun.”