Homilies on Leviticus — Homily 7 (Lev. 10–11 — wine forbidden to the priests; clean and unclean animals)
Latin source: Origen's Greek homilies on Leviticus, surviving only in Rufinus of Aquileia's Latin translation (c. 403–405), from the reading text of W. A. Baehrens (ed.), Origenes Werke VI (GCS 29, Leipzig, 1920), pp. 280–507. This English translation is released into the public domain.On what was commanded to Aaron and his sons, that they "drink not wine nor strong drink, when they enter the tabernacle of testimony, or when they approach the altar", and concerning the "little breast of the presentation and the arm of separation", and concerning clean and unclean animals or foods.
1. Many things indeed had been recited in the reading above, of which, constrained by shortness of time, we said but very little. For we are now discharging the ministry not of expounding the Scriptures, but of building up the Church—although even from the things treated by us before, any prudent hearer may find plain paths to understanding. And therefore from these things too which have now been read, since we cannot take up all, we will nevertheless gather some little flowers that may build up the hearers, as from "a full field which the Lord has blessed". Let us see, then, what it is that has now been read to us. "And the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying: You shall drink no wine nor strong drink, you and your sons with you, when you enter into the tabernacle of testimony, or when you approach the altar, and you shall not die. This is a perpetual statute throughout your generations, to distinguish between the midst of the holy and the profaned, and between the midst of the unclean and the midst of the clean, and to instruct the children of Israel in all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them by the hand of Moses". A plain law is given both to the priests and to the chief of the priests, that "when they approach the altar, they abstain from wine and from every drink that can inebriate", which Holy Scripture is wont to name by the native word "sicera" (strong drink). The divine word wills, therefore, that the priests of the Lord be sober in all things, inasmuch as they, "approaching the altar" of God, ought "to pray for the people" and to intervene for the offenses of others—they who have no portion in the earth, but the "Lord himself is their portion". For thus Scripture speaks of them: "To the sons of Levi", it says, "you shall not give a part in the midst of their brethren, because I, the Lord their God, am their portion". It wills, therefore, that these, to whom the "Lord himself is the portion", be sober, fasting, watchful at every time, but especially when they stand ready at the altars to beseech the Lord and to sacrifice in his sight. And these commandments preserve their force to such a degree, and are to be kept with all observance, that even the Apostle confirms these same things by the laws of the New Testament. In it, similarly laying down for the priests or the chiefs of priests the rules of life, he says that they ought "not" to be given to "much wine", but to be "sober". And sobriety indeed is the mother of all virtues, just as, on the contrary, drunkenness is of all vices. For the Apostle plainly declared, saying: "wine, wherein is riot", that he might show that from drunkenness, as a firstborn daughter, riot is begotten. Then, moreover, the Savior too, with the authority of the Lord and King, establishing laws and ordinances at once for priests and for the peoples, says: "Take heed, lest perhaps your hearts be weighed down with drunkenness and surfeiting and with the cares of this world, and that sudden destruction come upon you". You have heard the edict of the eternal King, and you have learned the lamentable end of "drunkenness" or "surfeiting". If some skilled and wise physician were to prescribe to you in these very words and say: Take heed to yourselves, lest anyone, for example's sake, take too greedily of the juice of this or that herb; for if he does so, sudden destruction will come upon him—I do not doubt that everyone, with regard to his own health, would keep the precepts of the physician who forewarned him. But now the physician of souls and bodies, and at the same time the Lord, bids the herb of "drunkenness" and of "surfeiting" be shunned, and likewise the deadly juices, as it were, of worldly cares be guarded against. And I know not whether any of us is not consumed in these things—not to say wounded. Drunkenness by wine, then, is pernicious in all respects; for it alone is the thing that renders both the body and the soul feeble at once. In other matters indeed it can come to pass that, according to the Apostle, when the body "is weakened", then the spirit "is the more powerful", and where "he who is without, the man, is corrupted, he who is within is renewed". But in the sickness of drunkenness the body and the soul are corrupted together, the spirit is vitiated along with the flesh. All the members are feeble, the feet, the hands, the tongue slackened; darkness veils the eyes, forgetfulness veils the mind, so that a man does not know nor perceive himself to be a man. This, then, drunkenness has first, of bodily disgrace. But now if we examine in how many ways the human mind is inebriated, we shall find drunken even those who seem to themselves sober. Wrath inebriates the soul, but fury makes it more than drunken, if indeed anything can be more than drunkenness. Cupidity and avarice render a man not only drunken but even rabid. And obscene desires inebriate the soul, just as, on the contrary, holy desires also inebriate it, but with that holy inebriation of which a certain one of the saints said: "and your inebriating cup, how excellent it is!". But hereafter we shall look at the diversity of inebriation; now meanwhile see how many are the things that inebriate the soul: both dread inebriates it, and vain suspicion; but envy and spite wear it away beyond all drunkenness. Yet they cannot be enumerated, how many are the things that afflict the unhappy soul with the vice of drunkenness. Now for the moment let us look at the priests, whom the law commands, as they approach the altar, to abstain from wine. And indeed, as far as pertains to the historical precept, let those things suffice which have been said. But as far as regards the mystical understanding, in what was said above our profession is held: that, according to the authority of Paul the Apostle, our Lord and Savior is called "the high priest of the good things to come". He, then, is "Aaron", and "his sons" are his Apostles, to whom he himself said: "Little children, yet a little while I am with you". What, then, did the law command "Aaron and his sons"? That "they drink not wine and strong drink when they approach the altar". Let us see how we may indeed fit this to Jesus Christ our Lord, the high priest, and to his priests and sons, that is, to our Apostles. And first it must be perceived how, before "he approaches the altar", this true high priest drinks wine with his priests; but when he begins "to approach the altar and to enter into the tabernacle of testimony", he abstains from wine. Do you suppose we can find any such thing done by him? Do you suppose we can fit the figures of the Old Instrument to the deeds and words of the New Testament? We can, if the very Word of God deign both to help and to inspire us. We ask, then, how our Lord and Savior, who is the true high priest, with his disciples, who are the true priests, before "he approaches the altar" of God, drinks wine, but when he has begun "to approach", does not drink. The Savior had come into this world, that he might "offer his flesh as a victim to God for our sins". Before he offered this, amid the delays of the dispensations, he was drinking wine. In short, he was called "a glutton and a wine-drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners". But when the time of his cross arrived and "he was about to approach the altar" where he might immolate the victim of his flesh: "taking", it says, "the cup he blessed it and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take, and drink of this". You, he says, "drink", who are not now about to approach the altar. But he himself, as one "about to approach the altar", says of himself: "Amen I say to you, that I will not drink of the generation of this vine, until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father". If any of you approaches with ears purified for hearing, let him gaze upon the secret of the ineffable mystery. What is it that he says: "that I will not drink of the generation of this vine, until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father"? We were saying in what went before that the promise of this good inebriation is given to the saints, when they say: "and your inebriating cup, how excellent it is!". But in many other places of Scripture also we read the like, as there: "they shall be inebriated by the abundance of your house, and you shall give them to drink of the torrent of your pleasure". In Jeremiah too the Lord says: "and I will inebriate my people". And Isaiah says: "behold, they that serve me shall drink, but you shall thirst". And you will find many things concerning inebriation of this kind mentioned in the divine Scriptures. And this inebriation without doubt is taken for the joy of the soul and the gladness of the mind, just as elsewhere too I remember we distinguished that it is one thing to be inebriated by night and another to be inebriated by day.
2. If, then, we have understood what the inebriation of the saints is, and how this is given to the saints in the promises for gladness, let us now see how our Savior does not drink wine, "until he drink it new" with the saints "in the kingdom" of God. My Savior even now mourns my sins. My Savior cannot be glad, so long as I remain in iniquity. Why can he not? Because he himself is "the advocate for our sins with the Father", as John, his fellow-initiate, declares, saying that "even if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just; and he is himself the propitiation for our sins". How, then, can he who is "the advocate for" my "sins" drink the wine of gladness, whom I sadden by sinning? How can he who "approaches the altar" that he may make propitiation for me, a sinner, be in gladness, to whom the grief of my sins ever ascends? "With you", he says, "I will drink it in the kingdom of my Father". As long as we do not so act that we ascend to the kingdom, he cannot drink alone the wine which he promised to drink with us. He is therefore in mourning as long as we persist in error. For if his own Apostle "mourns certain who sinned before and did not do penance for the things which they committed", what shall I say of him himself, who is called "the Son of love", who "emptied himself" because of the love which he had toward us, and "did not seek the things which are his own", though "he was equal to God", but sought the things which are ours, and on account of this "emptied himself"? Since, then, he has thus sought the things which are ours, does he now no longer seek us, nor think of the things which are ours, nor grieve over our errors, nor weep over our perditions and contritions—he who wept over "Jerusalem" and said to it: "how often would I have gathered your children, as a hen gathers her chicks, and you would not"? He, then, who took up our wounds and suffered on our account, as the physician of souls and bodies, does he now neglect the festering of our wounds? For "they have festered", as the prophet says, "and our scars are corrupted from the face of our foolishness". For all these things, therefore, he "now stands before the face of God", "interceding for us", he stands at the altar, that he may offer propitiation for us to God; and therefore, as one about to approach that altar, he said: "that I will no longer drink of the generation of this vine, until I drink it new with you". He waits, therefore, that we may be converted, that we may imitate his example, that we may follow his footsteps, and that he may rejoice with us and "drink wine with us in the kingdom of his Father". For now, because "the Lord is merciful and compassionate", he himself with greater affection than his Apostle "weeps with them that weep and desires to rejoice with them that rejoice". And much more "does he himself mourn those who sinned before and did not do penance". For it must not be thought that Paul indeed mourns for sinners and weeps for the offending, but that my Lord Jesus refrains from weeping when he approaches the Father, when he stands at the altar and offers propitiation for us; and this is, being "one who approaches the altar", not to drink the wine of gladness, because he still suffers the bitternesses of our sins. He does not will, then, to drink wine alone "in the kingdom" of God; he waits for us; for thus he said: "until I drink it with you". It is we, therefore, who, by neglecting our life, delay his gladness. He waits for us, that he may drink "of the generation of this vine". Of what "vine"? Of that of which he himself was the figure: "I am the vine, you are the branches". Whence also he says that "my blood is truly drink, and my flesh is truly food". For truly "he washed his robe in the blood of the grape". What, then, is it? He awaits gladness. When does he await it? "When I shall have consummated", he says, "your work". When does he "consummate" this "work"? When he shall have made me, who am the last and viler than all sinners, consummated and perfected, then "he consummates his work"; for now his work is still imperfect, so long as I remain imperfect. In short, so long as I am not subject to the Father, neither is he himself said to be "subject" to the Father. Not that he himself needs subjection with the Father, but on my behalf, in whom he has not yet consummated his work, he himself is said not to be subject; for thus we read, that "we are the body of Christ and members in part". But let us see what it is that he said, "in part". I now, for example, am "subject" to God according to the spirit, that is, in purpose and will; but as long as in me "the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh", and I have not yet been able to subject the flesh to the spirit, I am indeed "subject" to God, but not entirely, but "in part". But if I shall be able to draw even my flesh and all my members into consonance with the spirit, then I shall be seen to be perfectly "subject". If you have understood what it is to be "subject" "in part" and what it is to be so entirely, return now also to that which we set forth concerning the subjection of the Lord, and see that, since we are all said to be his body and members, so long as there are some among us who are not yet subjected with perfect subjection, he himself is said not to be "subject". But when he shall have "consummated" his "work" and shall have brought his whole creation to the summit of perfection, then he himself is said to be "subject" in those whom he has subjected to the Father, and in whom he has "consummated the work which the Father had given him", "that God may be all in all". But to what do these things look? That we might understand that which we treated above, how he does not drink wine, or how he drinks; he drank before "he entered into the tabernacle, before he approached the altar"; but he does not drink now, because he stands at the altar and mourns my sins; and again he will drink after these things, "when all things shall have been made subject to him" and, all being saved and the death of sin destroyed, it will no longer thereafter be necessary to offer "victims for sin". For then there will be joy and gladness, and then "the humbled bones shall exult", and that shall be fulfilled which is written: "sorrow and sadness and groaning have fled away". But let us not omit even that, that it is said not only of Aaron, that "he drink not wine", but also of his sons, when they enter to the holy places. For they have not yet received their gladness—not even the Apostles—but they too wait, that I also may become a partaker of their gladness. For the saints, on departing hence, do not straightway obtain the entire rewards of their merits; but they wait even for us, though we tarry, though we are slothful. For their gladness is not perfect, so long as they grieve over our errors and mourn our sins. Perhaps you may not believe me when I say this; for who am I, that I should dare to affirm the sentence of so great a doctrine? But I bring forward a witness of these things, of whom you cannot doubt: for the "teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth" is Paul the Apostle. He, then, writing to the Hebrews, when he had enumerated all the holy fathers who were justified through faith, adds after all these also this: "but all these", he says, "having a testimony through faith, did not yet attain the promise, God providing something better for us, that they should not without us attain perfection". You see, therefore, that Abraham still waits, that he may attain the things which are perfect. Isaac too waits, and Jacob, and all the prophets wait for us, that with us they may receive perfect blessedness. On account of this, therefore, that mystery too is kept for the last day of the deferred judgment. For there is "one body" which is awaited to be justified; there is "one body" which is said to rise again in the judgment. "For although there are many members, yet one body; the eye cannot say to the hand: I have no need of you". Even if the eye be sound and not troubled, as far as pertains to seeing, if the remaining members are lacking to it, what gladness will there be for the eye? Or what perfection will it be seen to have, if it has not a hand, if the feet are lacking or the remaining members are not present? For even if there is some surpassing glory of the eye, it is chiefly in this, that either it itself be the guide of the body, or it not be forsaken by the offices of the other members. And this too I think we are taught through that vision of the prophet Ezekiel, when he says that "bone must be gathered to bone, and joint to joint and sinews and veins and skin", and each thing be restored to its own place. In short, see what the prophet adds: "these bones", he says (he did not say: they are all men, but he said: "these bones") "are the house of Israel". You will have gladness, then, on departing from this life, if you have been holy. But then there will be full gladness, when no member of the body is lacking to you. For you too will wait for others, just as you yourself were waited for. But if to you, who are a member, gladness does not seem to be perfect, if another member be lacking, how much more does our Lord and Savior, who is the "head" and author of the whole body, not reckon his gladness to be perfect for himself, so long as he sees any of the members lacking to his body! And therefore perhaps he was pouring out prayer to the Father, saying: "Holy Father, glorify me with that glory which I had with you, before the world was". He does not will, then, without you to receive his perfect glory, that is, without his people, who are his body and who are his members. For he wills, in this body of his Church and in these members of his people, himself as it were to dwell as the soul, that he may have all their motions and all their works according to his own will; that there may be truly fulfilled in us that saying of the prophet: "I will dwell in them and walk about among them". But now, so long as we are not all "perfect", but "are still in sins", he is "in part" in us, and therefore "in part we know and in part we prophesy", until one may merit to arrive at that measure of which the Apostle speaks: "but I live now, no longer I, but Christ lives in me". "In part", then, as the Apostle says, we are now "his members" and "in part we are his bones". But when "bones shall have been joined to bones and joints to joints", according to what we said above, then he himself too will say of us that prophetic word: "all my bones shall say: Lord, who is like you?". For "all" these "bones" speak and utter a hymn and give thanks to God. For they remember his benefit, and therefore "all my bones shall say: Lord, who is like you? delivering the poor man from the hand of one stronger than he". Of these bones, while they were still scattered, before he came who was to "collect and gather them into one", that prophetic word too was spoken: "our bones are scattered beside hell". Because, then, they were scattered, therefore he says through another prophet: "let bone be gathered to bone and joint to joint and sinews and veins and skins". For when this shall have been done, then "all these shall say: Lord, who is like you? delivering the needy from the hand of one stronger than he". For each one bone of "these bones" was needy and was worn down by the hand of "the stronger". For it did not have the "joint" of charity, nor the "sinews" of patience, nor the veins of a vital spirit and the vigor of faith. But when he came who "collected the scattered" and who "joined together the dispersed", associating "bone to bone and joint to joint", he began to build up the holy body of the Church. These things indeed fell in from without to this discussion, but they were necessarily explained, that the entrance of my high priest into the holy places, not drinking wine so long as he exercises the priesthood, might become more manifest. After these things, nevertheless, he will drink wine, but "new wine"; and "new wine" in "a new heaven and a new earth" and in "the new man" with "new men" and with those who "sing" to him "a new song". You see, therefore, that it is impossible for a new cup of the new vine to be drunk by him who is still "clothed with the old man with his acts". "For no one", he says, "puts new wine into old wineskins". If, then, you too wish to drink of this "new wine", be renewed and say: "even if our outer man is corrupted, yet he who is within is renewed from day to day". And of these things indeed enough has been said.
3. There are many other things also which have been recited. But since we cannot take up all, we must choose of which we ought to speak. And since we have said, according to our powers, what it was to drink and not to drink wine, let us now see what it is also to eat "the little breast of separation and the arm of removal". And after these things we will discourse concerning clean and unclean foods or animals, as far as the Lord shall grant and there shall be space of time. Scripture says, then: "the little breast of setting-apart and the arm of removal you shall eat in a holy place, you and your sons and your house with you; for it is given as a statute to you and a statute to your sons of the peace offerings of the children of Israel, the arm of removal and the little breast of setting-apart". Not every little breast is a "little breast of setting-apart", nor is every arm of "removal" or "separation" an "arm". But since we have recalled the person of the high priest to my Lord Jesus and to his sons the holy Apostles, let us see how he himself indeed eats the "little breast of setting-apart", and his sons, but the others cannot all eat the "little breast of setting-apart". What, then, is it that is set apart from all things and is not common with the rest, except the sole substance of the Trinity? If, then, I understand indeed the reckoning of the world, but cannot also understand concerning God as is worthy, nor has the knowledge of God been revealed to me, I eat indeed the little breast, but not the "little breast of setting-apart". Even if I shall be able to say: "for he himself gave me the true knowledge of all things that are, that I might know the reckoning of the world and the power of the elements, the beginning and end and middle of times, the vicissitudes of changes and the turnings of seasons, the cycles of the year and the positions of the stars"—the knowledge of all these, because it is rational, is the food of the little breast, but not of the "little breast of setting-apart". But if I shall be able to perceive concerning God the things that are great, that are holy, that are true and secret, then I "will eat the little breast of setting-apart", when I shall have recognized that which is eminent above and set apart from every creature. First, then, my true high priest "eats" this "little breast". How does he "eat" it? "No one", he says, "knows the Father, except the Son". In the second place "his sons also eat". "For no one", he says, "knows the Father, except the Son, and to whom the Son shall will to reveal him". But to what others does he reveal, except to his Apostles? But also the "arm of separation" or "removal", as we said above too, is the deeds and works more eminent than the rest, which indeed my Savior and Lord himself first fulfilled. How did he fulfill them? "My food", he says, "is to do the will of him who sent me, and to perfect his work". When, then, he does "the will of him who sent" him, in this he eats not the little breast, but "the arm of separation". And similarly his Apostles too, when they do the work of the Evangelist and become "workmen not to be confounded, rightly handling the word of truth", "eat the arm of separation"—or "removal". Do you wish to see still more plainly how the Savior eats "the arm of separation"? Hear what he says to the Jews: "if I have done", he says, "among you works which no other has done; for which of these do you wish to kill me?". You see how he truly "eats the arm of separation", who did works so set apart and so sublime as "no other did".
4. But now let us look also at some of those things which have been read concerning clean and unclean foods or animals; and just as in the explanation of the cup we ascended from the shadow to the truth of the spiritual cup, so also concerning the foods which are spoken of through the shadow, let us ascend to those which through the spirit are the true foods. But for investigating these things we have need of the testimonies of divine Scripture, lest anyone suppose—for men love "to sharpen their tongues like a sword"—lest anyone, I say, suppose that I do violence to the divine Scriptures and drag to men the things which are related in the law concerning animals, quadrupeds or even birds or fishes, clean or unclean, and feign that these were said concerning men. For perhaps one of the hearers may say: why do you do violence to Scripture? Animals are spoken of, let animals be understood. Lest, then, anyone believe these things to be distorted by human ingenuity, the Apostolic authority in them must be called forth. Hear, then, first of all, how Paul speaks concerning these things. "For all", he says, "passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ". Paul says these things, "a Hebrew of the Hebrews, according to the law a Pharisee", "instructed at the feet of Gamaliel", who assuredly would never dare to call it "spiritual food" and "spiritual drink", unless he had learned this to be the meaning of the lawgiver through the knowledge, handed on to him, of the most true doctrine. Whence also he adds this, as one confident and certain concerning the reckoning of clean or unclean foods, that they are to be observed not according to the letter, but spiritually, and he says: "let no one, therefore, judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a feast day or of a new moon or of sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come". You see, therefore, how all these things which Moses speaks concerning foods or drink, Paul, who had learned these things better than those who now boast themselves to be teachers, says all these to be "a shadow of things to come". And therefore, as we said, from this shadow we ought to ascend to the truth. The discourse is of Christians to Christians, to whom the authority of the Apostolic sayings ought to be dear; but if anyone, swollen with arrogance, despises or spurns the Apostolic sayings, let him see to it himself. "But for me", as "it is good to cleave to God" and to our Lord Jesus Christ, so also to his Apostles, and to take understanding from the divine Scriptures according to their tradition. But it will perhaps be an opportune time, if however the will of God be in this and the tranquility of affairs allow—"for we know not what the coming day may bring forth"—that we assign also from the Old Testament, according to what seemed good to the Apostles, an understanding of clean or unclean foods, and also of animals or birds or fishes, of which it is written in the law, to be referred to men. But now, since it is not the time to use a broader explanation, let us be content with two lights of the Apostles, Paul and Peter, as witnesses. And indeed what Paul perceived we have already brought forward. But "Peter" the Apostle, "when" he was in Joppa, and "wished to pray, ascended to the upper parts". I straightway take even this very thing, that he did not wish to pray in the lower parts, but "ascended to the upper parts", as not said in vain. For neither did the counsel of so great an Apostle superfluously choose "the upper parts" for praying, but, as much as I judge, that it might be shown that Peter, because "he had died with Christ", "sought the things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God", and "not the things which are upon earth". Thither "he ascended", to those "roofs", to those heights, of which the Lord too says: "let him who is on the roof not come down to take anything from the house". In short, that you may know that we do not say these things about Peter conjecturally, that "he ascended to the upper parts", you will prove it from what follows. "He ascended", it says, "to the upper parts, that he might pray, and he saw heaven opened". Does it not now seem to you that Peter ascended "to the upper parts" not only in body, but also in mind and spirit? "He saw", it says, "heaven opened and a certain vessel let down like a sheet upon the earth, in which were all quadrupeds, creeping things and flying things of heaven. And he heard a voice saying to him: rise, Peter, kill and eat", commanding without doubt that these be eaten, the "quadrupeds and serpents and flying things", which, placed upon the sheet, were brought down to him from heaven. But he: "Lord", he says, "you know that never has anything common or unclean entered into my mouth. And the voice", it says, "to him a second time: what God has cleansed, do not you call common. And this was done thrice. And after these things", it says, "the sheet was received back into the heavens". Here the reckoning is of clean and unclean animals; concerning which the Apostle is taught the knowledge of things from heaven, since indeed he had no one more eminent and greater than himself on earth, and he is taught not by one voice nor by one vision, but by a threefold one. I take not even this very thing, that these things are said "thrice", as spoken idly. "Thrice" it is both said, and through him to all of us: "what God has cleansed, do not you call common". For the things which are cleansed are not cleansed under one naming, nor under a second, but unless a third naming too be named, no one is cleansed. For unless you have been cleansed in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, you will not be able to be clean. Therefore, then, the things which were shown for cleansing are shown not once nor twice, but "thrice", and "thrice" are they commanded. There were, then, "all" in that sheet "quadrupeds and creeping things and birds of heaven". And after these things "Peter", it says, "was pondering within himself what this might be". And while he was still pondering, "there came upon him", it says, "those who had been sent by Cornelius the centurion" from this city, that is, from Caesarea to Joppa. For there was Peter, and "he was lodging with a certain Simon, a tanner". And it is well that Peter stays "with a tanner", that one perhaps of whom Job says that "you have clothed me with skin and flesh". But let these things be said by way of digression. Meanwhile "there come those who had been sent by Cornelius" to Peter; and he, receiving them, hears from them the things which Cornelius enjoins upon him. And "descending" from the upper parts he comes here to Cornelius. "He descends": for Cornelius was still below and was remaining in the lower parts. He comes, then, to Caesarea, "he finds many" here with Cornelius "gathered together", "and he says to them", after many things: "and to me", he says, "God has shown that I should call no man common or unclean". Does it seem to you that Peter the Apostle has clearly transferred those "quadrupeds and all creeping things and flying things" to man, and understood men to be the things which had been shown to him in the sheet let down from heaven?
5. But perhaps someone may say: concerning quadrupeds indeed and creeping things and birds you have rendered the reckoning, that men ought to be understood; give also concerning "those things which are in the waters". Since indeed the law designates concerning these too that some are clean and others unclean, I demand nothing in these matters, that my words be believed, unless I shall have given suitable witnesses. I will give you our very Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as witness and author of these things, how fishes are said to be men. "The kingdom of heaven is like", he says, "to a net cast into the sea, which gathers of every kind of fish; and when it has been filled, sitting upon the shore they store up those which are good in vessels; but those which are bad they cast forth". He plainly taught that those "fishes" which are said to be "gathered by the nets" are either "good" men or "bad". These, then, are they who according to Moses are named fishes either clean or unclean. These things, therefore, being confirmed by Apostolic and evangelical authority, let us see how each of men can be shown either clean or unclean. Every man has in himself some food, which he offers to the neighbor who approaches him. For it cannot come to pass that, when we men approach one another and join discourse, we should not either from a response or from a question or from some gesture either take some taste between ourselves or offer it. And if indeed he is a clean man and of good mind, he of whom we take a taste, we take clean food; but if he be unclean whom we touch, we take unclean food, according to the things that were said above. And therefore, I think, the Apostle Paul says concerning such, as unclean animals: "with such not even to take food". But that the things we say may lie more evidently open to your understanding, let us take an example from greater matters, that thence, descending little by little, we may come down to the lower. Our Lord and Savior says: "unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you shall not have life in yourselves. For my flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink". Jesus, then, because he is wholly and utterly clean, his whole "flesh is food" and his whole "blood is drink", because his every work is holy and his every word is true. Therefore, then, both his "flesh is true food and" his "blood is true drink". For with the flesh and blood of his word, as with clean food and drink, he gives drink and refreshes the whole race of men. In the second place, after his flesh, Peter is clean food, and Paul and all the Apostles; in the third place their disciples. And thus each one, according to the quantity of his merits or the purity of his senses, becomes clean food to his neighbor. He who knows not how to hear these things, let him perhaps distort and turn away his hearing, according to those who said: "how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Who can hear him? And they departed from him". But you, if you are sons of the Church, if you are imbued with the evangelical mysteries, if "the Word made flesh dwells in you", recognize that the things we say are the Lord's, lest perhaps "he who is ignorant be ignored". Recognize that they are figures which are written in the divine volumes, and therefore, as spiritual and not as carnal, examine and understand the things that are said. For if you take these things as carnal, they harm you and do not nourish you. For there is even in the Gospels a "letter" which "kills". Not only in the Old Testament is the "killing letter" found; there is also in the New Testament a "letter" which "kills" him who does not spiritually attend to the things that are said. For if you follow according to the letter this very thing that was said: "unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood", this "letter kills". Do you wish that I bring forth to you another "letter" from the Gospel which "kills"? "He who has no sword", he says, "let him sell his tunic and buy a sword". Behold, this too is a letter of the Gospel, but it "kills". But if you take it spiritually, it does not kill, but there is in it "a life-giving spirit". And therefore, whether in the law or in the Gospels the things that are said, take them spiritually, because "the spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one". As, then, we said, every man has in himself some food, of which whoever partakes, if indeed he is good and "from the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things", offers clean food to his neighbor. But if he is evil and "brings forth evil things", he offers unclean food to his neighbor. For one who is innocent and upright of heart can be seen as a clean animal, a sheep, and offer to the one who hears him clean food, as a sheep, which is a clean animal. Similarly also in the rest. And therefore every man, as we said, when he speaks to his neighbor and either profits him by his words or harms him, becomes to him a clean or an unclean animal, of which either the clean are to be used or the unclean commanded to be abstained from. If according to this understanding we say that the most high God promulgated laws for men, I think that the legislation will seem worthy of the divine majesty. But if we sit at the letter and, according to this—either what seems to the Jews or to the common crowd—take the things that are written in the law, I blush to say and to confess that God gave such laws. For the laws of men will seem more elegant and reasonable, for example's sake, whether of the Romans or of the Athenians or of the Lacedaemonians. But if according to this understanding, which the Church teaches, the law of God be taken, then plainly it surpasses all human laws and will truly be believed to be the law of God. And so, these things being thus premised, let us, with the spiritual understanding, as we have admonished, touch upon some things concerning clean and unclean animals.
6. "Every", it says, "beast that divides the hoof, and has hooves, and brings up rumination among the cattle, these you shall eat. Besides, of these you shall not eat, which bring up rumination, and do not divide the hooves, and have hooves. The camel, because it brings up rumination, and does not divide the hoof, this is unclean to you. And the hare, because it brings up rumination, and does not divide the hoof, this is unclean to you; and the hedgehog, because it brings up rumination, and does not divide the hoof, this is unclean to you; and the swine", and so forth. It decrees, then, that animals of this kind be not eaten, which in part seem to be clean and in part unclean; as "the camel, from the fact that it ruminates", seems clean, but from the fact "that it does not have divided hooves", it is called "unclean". After these it now names also "the hare" and "the hedgehog", but says that they too indeed "ruminate", but "do not divide the hooves". But it makes another order of those which, on the contrary, do indeed "divide the hoof", but "do not ruminate". First, then, let us see who are those which "ruminate and divide the hoof", which it calls clean. I judge that he is said to ruminate who gives labor to knowledge and "meditates on the law of the Lord day and night". But hear how it is said: "who divides", it says, "the hoof, and recalls rumination". He "recalls rumination", then, who recalls the things which he reads according to the letter to the spiritual sense, and ascends from the lowest and visible things to the invisible and higher. But if you meditate on the divine law and recall the things which you read to a subtle and spiritual understanding, but your life and your acts are not such as to have the discernment of the present and the future life, of this age and "the age to come", if you do not with fitting reason discern and divide these things, you are a tortuous camel; you who, when you have received understanding from the meditation of the divine law, do not divide nor set apart the present and future things, nor separate "the narrow way" from "the spacious way". But let us explain still more manifestly what is said. There are those who take up the testament of God through their mouth and, though they have the law of God in their mouth, their life and their acts differ far from their words and discourses; "for they say and do not". Concerning whom the prophet too says: "but to the sinner God said: why do you declare my justices, and take up my testament through your mouth?". You see, then, how this one ruminates, who has the testament of God in his mouth. But what is said to him in what follows? "But you have hated discipline, and cast my words behind you". In which it plainly shows this one indeed to be "ruminating", but "not dividing the hoof", and therefore whoever is such is unclean. And again there is another, either of those who are outside our religion, or of those who are with us, who indeed "divide the hoof" and so walk in their ways as to prepare their acts for the age to come. For many even of the philosophers are thus wise and believe there will be a judgment. For they perceive the soul to be immortal and confess that a reward is set for any good persons. This some even of the heretics do, and, as far as they expect, they bear the fear of the future judgment and more cautiously temper their acts as things to be examined in the divine scrutiny. But each of these does not "ruminate" nor "recall rumination". For he does not, hearing the things which are written in the law of God, meditate and recall them to a subtle and spiritual understanding; but as soon as he has heard something, he either contemns or despises it, and does not inquire what precious sense lies hidden in the cheaper words. And these go away indeed "dividing the hoof", but "not recalling rumination". But you, who wish to be clean, have a life befitting and consonant with knowledge, and acts consonant with understanding, that you may be clean in both, that you may both "recall rumination" and "divide the hoof", but also that you may "produce" or "cast off" the hooves (ungula). Let us seek the testimony for this thing too, how we produce, or, as it is read elsewhere, cast off the hooves. It is written in Deuteronomy: "if", it says, "you go out to war against your enemies, and see there a woman of comely appearance, and desire her, you shall take her, and you shall shave off all the hair of her head and her nails, and you shall clothe her in mourning garments; and she shall sit in the house mourning her father and her mother and her paternal house; and after thirty days she shall be your wife". But now it is not our purpose that these things which are called into testimony be explained; but we said them for this reason, because here too mention was made of nails (ungula, the same Latin word used above for the animals' hooves). Yet nevertheless I too have frequently "gone out to war against my enemies and seen there" as booty "a woman of comely appearance". For whatever things we find well and reasonably said among our enemies, if we read anything wisely and knowingly said among them, it behooves us to cleanse it and to remove and cut away from the knowledge which is among them all that is dead and empty—for this is what all the hairs of the head and the nails of the woman taken from the spoils of the enemies are—and so at last to make her our wife, when she has now nothing of those things which through unfaithfulness are said to be dead, has nothing dead in her head, nothing in her hands, so that she bears nothing unclean or dead either in her senses or in her acts. For the women of our enemies have nothing clean, because there is no wisdom among them to which some uncleanness is not mixed. Yet I would that the Jews would tell me how these things are observed among them. What is the cause, what the reason, for a woman to "be shorn" and "her nails to be removed"? For example's sake, if we suppose that he who is said to have found her found her so that she has neither hairs nor nails: what did she have which he might seem, according to the law, to remove? But we, for whom the warfare is spiritual and "the weapons not carnal, but powerful for God to the destroying of counsels", if a "comely" woman be found among the enemies and some reasonable discipline, we will purify her in this manner in which we said above. It behooves him, then, who is clean, not only to "divide the hoof" and not only to discern the acts and works of the present and the future age, but also to "produce the hooves" or, as we read elsewhere, to "cast them off", that "purifying ourselves from dead works" we may remain in life.
7. These things indeed have been said generally concerning animals; but those "which are in the waters", because they are said, if indeed they have "fins and scales", to be clean, but if they do not have them, unclean and not to be eaten: this is shown in them, that, if anyone is in these waters and set in the sea of this life and in the waves of the world, he ought nevertheless to strive earnestly not to lie in the depths of the waters, as are those fishes which are said "not to have fins nor scales". For this is reported to be their nature, that they always tarry in the lowest place and about the very mud; as are eels and things like this, which cannot ascend to the surface of the water nor reach its upper parts. But those fishes which are aided by "little fins" and fortified with "scales" ascend rather to the upper parts and become nearer to this air, as those who seek the liberty of the spirit. Such, then, is every holy person, who, enclosed within the "nets" of faith, is named a "good fish" by the Savior and is put "into a vessel", as having "fins" and "scales". For unless he had had "fins", he would not have risen up from the mud of unbelief nor reached the "net" of faith. But what is it that he is said to have "scales" too, as one who is prepared to lay aside the old garments? For those who do not have "scales" are, as it were, wholly fleshly and entirely carnal, who can lay aside nothing. If anyone, then, has "fins" by which he may strive toward the upper parts, he is clean; but he who does not have "fins", but remains in the lower parts and is always engaged in the mud, is unclean. And similarly concerning the birds. "You shall not eat", it says, "these, because they are unclean: the eagle and the vulture", and the rest like these. For to these birds the food is always of dead bodies, and they live from dead carcasses. All, then, who lead a life of this kind must be held unclean. I think that those too are numbered among these who brood over the deaths of others and by art or fraud forge testaments. For men of this kind will deservedly be called vultures and eagles, as gaping after the carcasses of the dead. I know also other flying things which live by rapine. These are the souls which, according to this indeed—that they are rational and imbued with liberal instruction or rational disciplines—seem to be flying things; for they read and inquire either concerning the reckoning of heaven, or how the world is governed by the providence of God; according to these things, then, they are named flying things; but if men of this kind act unjustly, do against the law, plunder their neighbors, and, though heavenly erudition may seem to be in their words, in their acts bear carnal and dead works, they are rightly to be called vultures or eagles, which slip down from the heights to dead and fetid flesh. To this must be referred also the rapacity of the hawk and of all the rest; of which some indeed are flying things given to rapacity, but some not so rapacious as loving obscurity and darkness. "For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light", as are "owls and bats" and the rest, which the law declared unclean. Keeping ourselves from all these by spiritual observance, and seeking food from clean animals, we too shall be made pure and clean, through Christ our Lord, through whom is to God the Father with the Holy Spirit "glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen."