Commentaria in Deuteronomium
For there is a certain natural, as it were, miracle, says Abulensis, that if the slayer come to the corpse of the slain, the wounds sweat blood; and this happens not only when someone has been lately slain, but also after many days; nay, from the bare bones themselves blood is wont at times to flow, as has been many times seen, God showing by this sign the author of so enormous a crime. For God is wont, even among the Gentiles, to detect and avenge homicide by a wondrous judgment and sign. Hence that saying of the Maltese about Paul, when attacked by the viper: “Vengeance doth not suffer him to live,” pursuing him as a homicide to death.
Hear examples of the Gentiles. Macareus of Mitylene, a priest of Bacchus, killed a guest in the temple: shortly after, his sons, wishing to imitate their father’s sacrifices, one slew the other as a victim; the mother, learning of it, in a fury killed with a firebrand the son who remained, who had slain the other; the father, the priest, knowing this, slew the mother, his own wife, and was therefore seized and, having confessed the crime, expired in torments before the public punishment. Behold, God punished the homicide of the priest by the slaying of his sons, of his wife, and of the homicide himself: Aelian is witness, book xiii.
Secondly. Two Arcadian friends came to Megara; one lodged with a friend, the other at an inn; the latter appeared by night to the other, asking that he would help him, because destruction was being prepared for him by the innkeeper; he rose; but thinking it a dream, soon lay down again. The other came again, asking that if he would not help him in life, at least he would not suffer his death to go unavenged: for he had been killed by the innkeeper, and his body thrown into a cart and lay hidden under dung: “In the morning, therefore,” he said, “stand at the gate before the cart leaves the town, and thou shalt find the body and the thing as I tell it.” He did so, found the body and the innkeeper, and the innkeeper paid the penalty. Here it is not to be doubted that this dream was sent by God to the friend, that the author of the homicide might be betrayed. Cicero relates this, book i On Divination.
Ibycus the poet, having fallen among robbers and being about to be killed, by chance adjured the cranes flying overhead. Some time after, when the same robbers were sitting in the forum, and the cranes again flew over, they whispered to each other in the ear for a jest: “Here are the avengers of Ibycus.” The bystanders caught this speech into suspicion: Ibycus especially having been missed for some time. Asked what these words meant, they answered hesitatingly and inconsistently. Put to the torture, they confessed the crime. And so, as by the testimony of the cranes, they paid the penalty to Ibycus, or rather perished by their own judgment. So Plutarch, in the book On Talkativeness.
King Pyrrhus on a journey came upon a dog that was guarding the body of its murdered master: and hearing that for three days it had stayed there without food and had not departed, he ordered the corpse to be buried, and the dog to be taken with him and cared for. A few days after, the king was reviewing his troops, and the soldiers were passing while the king sat. The dog was there quietly; but when it saw the murderers of its master passing, it ran at them with barking and rage, ever turning about to Pyrrhus. They were therefore seized at once and examined, and, other indications coming in, confessed the murder and paid the penalty: so Plutarch, On the Comparison of Animals.
The dog of Hesiod revealed the sons of Ganyctor of Naupactus, by whom Hesiod had been murdered. So the same Plutarch.
Popiel, king of Poland, killed his uncles: soon mice, bursting from the tombs of the slain, attacked the king; nor could they be kept from assailing him even by fires made all round; so that at last he, deserted by his people and confessing himself struck by divine vengeance, was torn to pieces by those little creatures, as all the writers of Polish affairs relate.
By the heifer’s head being struck off it is signified that he ought to be beheaded, both the homicide, if he were known, and he who conceals the homicide, especially if he be one of these elders, that is, of the magistracy.
5. EVERY MATTER HANGETH.—Delete “hangeth,” with the following “and,” as the Roman editions delete; as if to say: The ancients of the city shall come to the priests, whose part it is to judge and decide all controversies, and all uncleanness.
7. AND SHALL SAY: OUR HANDS DID NOT SHED THIS BLOOD, NOR DID OUR EYES SEE IT,—as if to say: We know not the author of the homicide; if we knew, we should surely punish him.
Where note: by “have not shed” they signify not only that the judges had not shed blood with their own hand: for that would have been little, nor sufficient for their innocence; but moreover that by their consent, or connivance, or dissimulation, or impunity, or other like negligence they had given no cause to the homicide. For the praetor, who by his office is bound to keep the roads safe from assassins, and to hinder murders, unless he do this, is guilty of them, even though he be not privy to them. For only to a private man saying, “I did not commit theft,” it is answered: “Thou shalt not feed ravens on the cross”; but more is required of a public person, such as a magistrate is. So Rabbi Solomon, Lyranus and others.
8. AND LAY NOT INNOCENT BLOOD TO THE CHARGE OF THY PEOPLE,—do not impute the slaughter of this innocent man to the people of Israel, nor avenge it upon them.
Certain Hebrews think that the soul of the slain goes about and wanders on earth, and cries to heaven for vengeance, until the magistrate takes action against the homicide and removes him from the earth: for then that soul departs from the earth, and seeks no further vengeance. But this opinion savours of Judaism.
AND THE GUILT OF BLOOD SHALL BE TAKEN AWAY FROM THEM (the elders of the people),—in the Hebrew: and the blood shall be forgiven them, that is, the guilt, or the penalty, of the blood shed. So that God will not punish the people as negligent in punishing homicides; because they did what they could, and what the Lord commanded, to find out the homicide and to expiate the homicide.
9. BUT THOU SHALT BE FREE FROM THE INNOCENT BLOOD.—Moses here turns to the people itself, because all Israel was held guilty of blood when anyone was slain, unless the elders of the neighbouring city made this inquiry and purification: for by it it was absolved.
Note: The slain man is called innocent, though he might have been guilty and an aggressor: because by presumption of law everyone is presumed good unless the contrary is proved. So Abulensis.
Allegorically, this heifer signifies the flesh of our Redeemer, say Procopius and Rabanus, which never drew the yoke of sin, and in a hard valley, untamed and most rough with the thorns of vices, namely in Jerusalem, was sacrificed: the priests wash their hands over her, that is, the holy Apostles and preachers, in the passion of Christ, show their works to be clean; while by them the flesh of Christ, crucified by the Jews for the expiation of our sins, is preached; and while they confess themselves free from the impiety of the Jews, they obtain remission, says Cyril in the Glaphyra. See Rabanus.
Rupert explains this otherwise.