Commentaria in Deuteronomium
5. A WOMAN SHALL NOT BE CLOTHED WITH MAN’S APPAREL, NEITHER SHALL A MAN USE WOMAN’S APPAREL,—both because this is in itself indecent, that a man should by his dress feign himself a woman, or a woman by her dress feign herself a man; and lest a place be given to hidden lusts and other vices; for the best guardian of chastity is a decent dress: for, as the Poet says:
What modesty can a helmeted woman show, who flees from her sex?
and Herodotus: “A woman,” he says, “together with her garment puts off her modesty also.” See Rabanus. See also St. Ambrose, epistle to Irenaeus, where he treats this law of Deuteronomy, and gives four causes of it. “First,” he says, “why, O man, wilt thou not seem to be what thou wast born? why dost thou assume a form not thine own? why dost thou feign thyself a woman, or thou, woman, a man?
Nature clothes each sex with its own garments. Moreover the use, colour, motion, gait, strength and voice are different in man and woman. Secondly, even among birds there is a comparison of dress between them and men. For in them the very natural coverings distinguish the sex. Male peacocks are splendid; the females are not likewise painted with the variety of colour in their feathers. Pheasants also have a different colour, which marks the distinction of sex. What of the chickens? Surely the appearance of the cock is different from that of the hen. Do these change their form? why do we desire to change ours? Thirdly, a lie is base even in a word, much more in dress. Lastly, in temples, where there is a lie of faith, there is a lie of nature; there for men to put on a woman’s garment and a woman’s gesture is held sacred (that is, execrable, sacrilegious). Hence the law says: For he is unclean before the Lord who shall do these things. Fourthly, rightly is chastity not kept where the distinction of sex is not maintained.” Whence follows: “For he that doeth these things is abominable before God.” Wherefore a Jew using a woman’s dress, and a Jewess using a man’s, seems to have sinned mortally. Hence this precept seems partly natural, partly ceremonial and now abolished, namely as it bound under mortal sin. For now it is not a mortal sin if a man or woman change garments out of levity, if scandal, intention and danger of lust be absent, teach St. Thomas, Cajetan, and from them Navarrus, Enchiridion, chap. xxi, num. 22. Similar was the case of one having intercourse with a menstruous woman, as I said on Leviticus xviii, 19. Tropologically Cyril, book v On Adoration, fol. 87: God abominates, he says, and holds a most shameful spectacle, both an opinion of fortitude in an effeminate life, and a softness of mind in a brave man. Again Rupert: A woman, he says, is clothed with a man’s garment when one who knows not how to keep the moderation of his own life dares to become judge of another’s life, and presumes to preside who has not yet learned to be subject. On the contrary, a man uses a woman’s garment when a spiritual man, or doctor or Prelate, who presides in the Church as a man, follows loose vices: whence it comes that the preaching of him whose life is despised is contemned.
6. THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE DAM WITH THE YOUNG,—thou shalt not take the mother in the nest with her young. The reason of this law was that by it the Jews might be led to piety and mercy, to be exercised even toward beasts; that more easily, says Tertullian, book ii Against Marcion, chap. xvii, “humanity practised beforehand on cattle and beasts might be trained for the relief of men.” So also Theodoret, Question xxi. See the tropology in Rabanus and Rupert. For the same cause God forbade them to seethe a kid in its mother’s milk, that is, a suckling, Exodus xxiii, 19; and to plough with an ox and an ass, in this chapter, vers. 10; and to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, Deuteronomy chap. xxv, vers. 4.
8. WHEN THOU SHALT BUILD A NEW HOUSE, THOU SHALT MAKE A BATTLEMENT TO THE ROOF ROUND ABOUT.—In Palestine the roofs of houses were flat, on which men walked about, just as we do on floors; therefore, lest anyone chance to fall from on high, round the edges, to the ground, God here commands them to be girt with a wall or fence. Hear Maldonatus on Jeremias chap. xlviii, vers. 38: “In Judea,” he says, “the roofs were open above and flattened, and paved with bricks and plastered with cement, such as are today in our Baetica and in many places in Italy, as St. Jerome also noted in his epistle to Suniam and Fretella, and says that at Rome they are called solaria or meniana. So on the roofs they sunned themselves in winter, in summer they supped at night; and slept under the open sky, and the Jews often met there to converse. From which that is understood: What you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops, Matthew x, 27. And Peter, Acts x, 9, went up to the housetop to pray. And what is commanded the Jews, Deuteronomy xxii, 8, to make a battlement to the roof round about, lest anyone fall from it, and they be guilty of homicide.”
9. THOU SHALT NOT SOW THY VINEYARD WITH DIVERS SEED (as if to say: Thou shalt not sow between the vines two kinds of seed, or heterogeneous seeds: for these in Hebrew are called kilaim): for instance, wheat with rye, oats with barley. For in Palestine, a hot region, it was customary to sow something between the rows of vines, says Vatablus. Here God forbids that this be done with divers seed; and gives the cause: LEST BOTH (the grapes and the crops) BE DEFILED TOGETHER,—that is, polluted, because crops from this sowing of mixed seeds forbidden by God are held unclean, and as it were pollute also the neighbouring grapes which they touch or surround: for so God here ordains; see what is said on Leviticus xix, 19.
Note: The Hebrew kadash, to sanctify, is one of those which have contrary significations: whence at times, as here and elsewhere, it signifies to pollute.
Others explain it thus, as if to say: Sow not, out of avarice and excessive desire of gain and fruits, any seed between the vines and grapes: because a vineyard requires free ground for itself, and demands all its fatness for itself alone; lest the crop and the grapes be sanctified together, that is, polluted and perish, and be reduced to the idleness of barrenness and of the sabbath. So Rupert, St. Augustine and Procopius. But the former sense is the more genuine: for this is among the Hebrews to sow kilaim, as is plain from Leviticus xix, 19.