Commentaria in Numeros
Ninthly, when the time of the vow was completed, the Nazarite was shaved, and his hair was burned on the altar of holocaust; by which was signified, says Gregory, book 2 of the Morals, chapter 39, “that we then reach the summit of perfection when we so overcome the worse vices that we cut off from the mind even superfluous thoughts, which to burn up with the fire of sacrifice is to kindle them with the flame of divine love, that the heart may wholly burn with the love of God.” And then the Nazarite offered first a victim for sin, which signifies the full remission of sins, which Religious receive at their entrance into Religion. Hence by St. Bernard, in the book On Precept and Dispensation, chapter 53, and others, entrance into Religion is called a second baptism; secondly, a peace-offering, which signified that God is easily appeased by the prayers of Religious and grants their requests; thirdly, a holocaust, which signified that Religion is nothing else than a holocaust, as St. Thomas teaches, 2–2, Question 186, article 7, because as in a holocaust the whole victim was burned, so the Religious has nothing that he does not offer to God. For he offers outward wealth by the vow of poverty, he offers the good of the body by the vow of chastity, he offers the good of the soul by the vow of obedience. Finally, that no kind of sacrifice may be wanting to Religion, it is itself also a most illustrious martyrdom. For, as St. Jerome says in the Epitaph of Paula, “the unspotted service of a devout mind is a daily martyrdom”; and St. Bernard, sermon 4 on the feast of All Saints: “Voluntary poverty,” he says, “is truly a kind of martyrdom.” Hear what are the duties and martyrdoms of a monk, he says: here let silence teach thee, there let meekness; do not what thou wilt; eat what thou art bidden, wear what thou hast received; perform the task of thy work. Be subject to one to whom thou wouldst not; come weary to thy bed, and sleep as thou walkest, and be forced to rise before thy sleep is finished. Say thy psalm in thy order, in which not sweetness of voice but affection of mind is sought; serve the brethren, wash the feet of guests, when thou hast suffered an injury be silent, fear the superior of the monastery as a lord, love him as a father; believe that whatever he commands is wholesome for thee, nor judge the judgment of thy elders, whose office it is to obey and fulfil what is commanded; let women know thy name, and not know thy dress; for a long time learn what thou mayest teach, and believe not those who praise thee, nay, who mock thee.”
More on this also in Viegas on Apocalypse 9:2, section 11. See also Jerome Platus, On the Good of the Religious State, book 2, chapters 19, 11 and 15.
Verse 9. BUT IF ANY ONE SHALL DIE SUDDENLY BEFORE HIM, THE HEAD OF HIS CONSECRATION SHALL BE DEFILED. NOTE.—Why this? Lyranus answers, that the Nazarite might attribute such a death to his own sins. So great ought the humility to be in a religious man that whatever evil befalls in his presence, he should attribute to his own sins.
Secondly, Viegas above: A Nazarite, he says, is reckoned defiled if any one die before him, because it might be thought that he himself was the slayer; to signify to the religious man that even the very appearance of evil is by all means to be shunned, according to that text, 1 Thessalonians 5: “From all appearance of evil refrain yourselves.”
Thirdly, and quite genuinely, Abulensis: The Nazarite was defiled, he says, if any one died before him, because he ought to be exempt from all contamination; for he was abundantly most holy, but in the dead by that law there was the greatest contamination. Hence just so if a corpse or bones of the dead had chanced to fall upon the Nazarite, or if he himself had chanced to fall or be carried into the house of a dead man, he would have been defiled, and that to signify by this that the religious man ought to be most remote from all sin (of which the corpse was the type), even accidental and surreptitious, even another’s.
WHICH (the defiled head) HE SHALL SHAVE FORTHWITH ON THE SAME DAY OF HIS PURIFICATION (as if to say: He shall shave the head on the same day on which it was defiled, that on the same day he may thereby be purged from the contamination of the dead), AND AGAIN ON THE SEVENTH day he shall shave the head, and that for greater cleanness. But the Hebrews and Vatablus think the head of the Nazarite was to be shaved not on the first but only on the seventh day; for the Hebrew hints this, which reads thus: He shall shave his head on the day of his purification, on the seventh day shall he shave it. But our Interpreter wisely understood, as is the Hebrew way, that the conjunction “and” is to be supplied, as if: And on the seventh day shall he shave it. For it is not likely that the Nazarite remained in his pollution until the seventh day, but that he had to be purified and shaved at once, and the Hebrew vau, that is “and,” sufficiently hints this, which our Interpreter rightly renders “forthwith”; for the Hebrew has, “and he shall be defiled and shall shave,” that is, as soon as he is defiled, he shall shave.
Note: This shaving was to be done only by the temporary Nazarite: for the perpetual one was never shaved, however he was defiled, and consequently neither did he offer turtles or young pigeons for his expiation, as Abulensis teaches, Question 11 on Judges 13. For all that is prescribed in this chapter regards only the Nazarite who is such for a fixed time, as is plain from verses 4, 5,
Verse 10. IN THE ENTRANCE OF THE COVENANT OF THE TESTIMONY—that is, in the entrance of the tabernacle of the testimony. So the Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint. The tabernacle is therefore here called a covenant metonymically: because it was the sign of the covenant entered into between God and the people through Moses.
Verse 11. AND THE PRIEST SHALL OFFER ONE (turtle) FOR SIN.—“Shall offer” means shall sacrifice and kill; but its flesh shall go to the priest. For in the sacrifice for sin only the fat was to be burned and consumed according to the law of Leviticus 7:4. But in the turtle and pigeon there is no fat: therefore only their blood was to be offered and poured out to God.
BECAUSE HE HATH SINNED BY THE DEAD—because he is contaminated by the dead, that is because he is defiled by the funeral of a dead person. For sin here signifies not guilt but legal uncleanness. See what was said on Leviticus 15:15.
Verses 11 and 12. AND HE SHALL SANCTIFY HIS HEAD THAT DAY, AND SHALL CONSECRATE TO THE LORD THE DAYS OF HIS SEPARATION—the days of that Nazariteship, that is, from that time he shall begin again to number the time of that Nazariteship, or the time for which he had vowed to be a Nazarite; as if to say: The priest by this purification shall restore the head of the Nazarite to his former holiness and consecration, that from that day of purification the days of his vow and consecration may begin anew: for the first days by the pollution that followed were made void.
Verse 13. WHEN THE DAYS WHICH HE HAD DETERMINED BY VOW ARE FULFILLED, HE SHALL BRING (supply the priest: for he is the minister of the tabernacle and of all sacred things) HIM (the Nazarite) TO THE DOOR OF THE TABERNACLE OF THE COVENANT—that he may offer for him every, that is a threefold, kind of sacrifice, namely “a lamb for a holocaust, a ram for a peace-offering, and a ewe lamb for sin,” not for any certain and determinate sin, but for sin in general, that is for sins in general, if he has before, especially in his Nazariteship, committed any. So Abulensis.
Verse 15. A BASKET ALSO OF UNLEAVENED BREAD TEMPERED (that is kneaded) WITH OIL (when the flour was pounded and kneaded), AND THE LIBATIONS OF EVERY ONE (1); which are prescribed in chapter 15:4.
Verse 18. THEN SHALL THE NAZARITE BE SHAVEN BEFORE THE DOOR of the tabernacle OF THE COVENANT, etc., AND (the priest) SHALL TAKE HIS HAIR, AND PUT IT ON THE FIRE.—