Commentaria in Deuteronomium
Catherine of Sweden, while she was at Rome with her mother, was once ordered, on account of the wickedness of the impious, to remain at home while her mother went to the stations and indulgences. Meanwhile Satan came, and began to put bitter thoughts into her mind, as though, while others were winning gain for their souls, she like a brute animal was shut out from all spiritual goods. He added that her kinsfolk, her brothers and sisters, were serving God in her native land in the greatest tranquillity, while she, wretched, led a miserable life: it were better, therefore, not to have been brought to light at all, than to lead this kind of idle life. This was a violent temptation in the mind of the holy virgin, and had so filled her with grief and disturbance that, when her mother returned and seriously commanded her to tell the cause of so great sadness, she simply answered that she could not speak of it. And indeed her face had already grown quite pale like that of a dead woman, and her eyes were turned aside: so troublesome was the demon in pressing on her thoughts of this most importunate kind. The following night, in her sleep, she seemed to herself to see the whole world as if on fire, and herself placed in the midst of the flames in a small level space, and wholly despairing of being able to be rescued from those flames; then the most blessed Virgin Mary appeared to her, and she besought her in these words: Help me, my dearest Lady; but she answered: And in what way can I help thee, who art held by so great a longing for thy country, forgetful of thy promise, and obeying neither God, nor me, nor thy mother, nor thy spiritual father? She, however, offering to carry out all that the Mother of God should command, the Mother of God at length said: Obey, then, thy mother and thy spiritual father. Catherine, awaking, went quickly to her mother with all humility, begged pardon for her inconstancy, and promised that henceforth she would gladly remain with her in exile even to death. So has the Life of St. Catherine, chap. vi, which is found in Surius, March 22.
8. IF THOU PERCEIVE THAT THERE BE AMONG YOU A HARD AND DOUBTFUL MATTER IN JUDGMENT BETWEEN BLOOD AND BLOOD.—“Blood” is here called, by metonymy, homicide; as if to say: If the homicide be doubtful, that is, the quality of the homicide, some asserting that it was voluntary or deliberate, and therefore to be punished with death; others, however, excusing it as committed by chance or in ignorance, and therefore the homicide has the right of asylum in the cities of refuge. So Lyranus, Abulensis and others. So between cause and cause, that is, if the cause and the suit be doubtful, some saying it is just, others unjust; so between leprosy and leprosy (for so it must be read with the Roman, Hebrew, Chaldee and Greek texts, not between leprosy and not leprosy, as the Plantin editions read), namely some asserting that it is clean or very clean leprosy, which does not bar a man from sacred things; others, however, saying that it is unclean leprosy, and bars from sacred things.
Note: Legal causes and questions were of two kinds: first, sacred and ceremonial, such as the question of faith, religion and ceremonies: such was the controversy about leprosy: these belonged to the priests, as is plain of itself; second, judicial, such as of blood and homicide: these belonged to the lay magistrate, and in each city there were judges appointed to try them, as was said in the preceding chapter, vers. 18; who, if they could not settle the suit, were bound to bring it to Jerusalem, to the priests and the high priest, who defined it. For all these were to be defined from the law, whether judicial or ceremonial; but the interpreter of the law was the high priest, of whom presently more: whence it follows that the high priest was the supreme judge of controversies, even legal ones.
ARISE AND ASCEND TO THE PLACE WHICH THE LORD SHALL CHOOSE,—go up to Jerusalem, where is the temple, in which the Lord dwells. So Abulensis. God willed the supreme authority of judgment to be in the place of the tabernacle or temple, because this place was God’s, that is, of divine presidency. God, therefore, presiding in the temple, enlightened and directed the priests and judges abiding there, that they might not err in judgment, but pronounce a just, equitable and true sentence. Again, justice is a holy and inviolable thing: hence God willed the judges to reside in a sacred place. Archytas used to say that the judge is an altar; for to both flee those who suffer wrong, signifying that judges ought to be such as to be a protection to the oppressed and like a sacred asylum: Aristotle is witness, Rhetoric, book iii.
Vers. 9.—9. AND THOU SHALT COME TO THE PRIESTS OF THE LEVITICAL RACE.—Some (see On the Republic of the Hebrews, book vi, chap. vi) take this divisively, as if to say: If the doubt be about sacred things, consult the priests; if about civil, consult the secular judge, so that “and” is taken for “or”.
But this cannot be said, because God here wills that recourse be had, not divisively but simply and absolutely, to the priests, in all doubtful causes which ought to be decided by the divine law. For the interpretation of the law belonged to the priests, and most of all to the high priest, who was the hierarch and prince of the priests; first, for this is what he adds: “And thou shalt do whatsoever they shall say, that preside in the place which the Lord shall choose, and what they shall teach thee according to his law.”
Secondly, that the priests were judges not only in sacred causes but also in civil, nay even in the cause of homicide, Ezechiel plainly teaches, chap. xliv, vers. 24. The same is plain here, chap. xxi, 5, where Moses, treating of secret homicide, says: “And the priests shall come, etc., and at their word every controversy shall be decided, and whatsoever is clean or unclean shall be judged.” Josephus teaches the same, book ii Against Apion, when he says: “The priests were appointed by Moses as overseers of all, judges of controversies, and punishers of the condemned.” And Philo, book iii On the Life of Moses, teaches that Moses, by the counsel of the priests who by custom sat with him, condemned to death the man gathering sticks on the sabbath, of whom Numbers xv, 33. Nay, Abulensis teaches that the high priest is here called judge, because he alone in the council, having heard the judgment of the others, was wont to pronounce the sentence of death. Thus Caiphas in the council pronounced the sentence of death against Christ, John xi, 50. Thus Ananias the high priest in the council commanded Paul to be struck, Acts xxiii, 2. Thus Ananus the high priest procured in the council the condemnation to death of James, the brother of the Lord, as Josephus witnesses, book xx, chap. viii. Thus another high priest adjudged St. Matthias to death in the council, as a blasphemer, saying: “It is written: He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, let him die the death,” if we believe the Acts of St. Matthias.
Thirdly, because in vers. 12 it is expressly said: “He that will be proud, and refuse to obey the commandment of the priest, etc., shall die”; this commandment, therefore, was the judicial and definitive sentence of the high priest.