Leviticus 12

That our Lord Jesus Christ is called a physician in the divine Scriptures we are fully taught by the sentence of the Lord himself, as he says in the Gospels: "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Now every physician compounds medicines beneficial to bodies from the juices of herbs or of trees, or even from the veins of metals or the natures of living creatures. But if someone should chance to look upon these herbs before they are compounded according to the reasoning of the art, then indeed, if they are in the fields or on the mountains, he tramples them underfoot and passes them by as worthless grass. But if he sees them set out in order within a physician's school, though perhaps they give off a bitter and harsh odor, nevertheless he will suspect that they contain something of healing or remedy, even if he does not yet recognize what or of what kind is the power of health and cure that is in them. These things we have said concerning common physicians. Come now to Jesus, the heavenly physician; enter into this station of his medicine, the Church, and behold there the multitude of the languishing lying about. There comes a woman who has been made "unclean" by childbirth; there comes "a leper" who has been separated "outside the camp" because of the uncleanness of leprosy; they seek from the physician a remedy, how they may be healed, how they may be made clean; and because this Jesus, who is the physician, is himself also the Word of God, he seeks out for his sick not medicines of herb-juices, but of the sacraments of words. And if anyone should see these medicines of words to be, as it were, scattered somewhat unkempt throughout the books as through fields, being ignorant of the power of the several sayings, he will pass them by as worthless things having no cultivation of speech. But he who has learned in some part that the medicine of souls is found with Christ will surely understand that from these books, which are recited in the Church, as from fields and mountains, each person ought to take up the healing herbs — that is, the very power of the words; so that, whatever languor there is in the soul, it may be healed not so much by the outer foliage and bark as by drinking in the power of the inner juice. Let us see, then, against the uncleanness of childbirth and the contagion of leprosy, how diverse and how varied are the medicines of purification that this present reading provides.

"And the Lord spoke," it says, "unto Moses, saying: Speak unto the children of Israel, and thou shalt say unto them: Whatsoever woman shall have conceived seed and borne a male, she shall be unclean seven days." First let us consider according to the history, whether it does not seem to be added as though superfluously: "the woman who shall have conceived seed and borne a male," as if she could bear a male otherwise than by seed conceived. But it is not added superfluously. For to distinguish her who "conceived and bore" without seed, the lawgiver added this word for the sake of the other women, so that he might designate as "unclean" not every woman who had borne, but her who "had borne with seed conceived." To this may also be added that this law, which is written concerning uncleanness, pertains to women; but concerning Mary it is said that "a virgin" conceived and bore. Let the women, then, bear the burdens of the law, but let the virgins be held immune from them. But if someone clever should come up against us and say that Mary too is named "a woman" in the Scriptures — for so the Apostle says: "But when the fullness of the times was come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law" — we shall answer him that in this the Apostle named her "a woman" not for corruption, but as an indication of sex; so that, since he was saying that "God's Son was sent," he might at the same time also set forth that he had come into this world by the common entrance of all. Moreover, this word is also one of age — namely, of that age at which the female sex passes beyond the years of puberty and crosses over to that time at which she seems fit for a man. Just as, on the contrary, he is called a man who has passed beyond the time of adolescence, even if he does not yet have a wife of whom he may be said to be the husband; by which name are also wont to be called even those whom no stain of feminine union has touched. If, then, a man is rightly called a man for the sake of virile age alone, even he who has known union with no woman, how should not, by the same consequence, a virgin also, who has remained undefiled, be named a woman for the sake of maturity of age alone? Finally, when Abraham sent the servant into Mesopotamia to the house of Bethuel, that "he might take from thence a wife for his son Isaac," and the "servant" inquired the more carefully, "he said unto him": "But if the woman will not be willing to follow me, shall I bring back thy son thither?" — and he did not say: but if the virgin will not be willing to follow me. Let these things, then, be said by us concerning what we observed to be written, that the lawgiver did not add superfluously "if a woman shall have conceived seed and borne a son," but that there is a mystical exception, which sets apart Mary alone from the rest of women, whose childbearing was not from the conception of seed, but from the presence "of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High."

Now, then, let us also inquire into this: what is the cause that a woman, who furnishes a ministry to those being born into this world, is said to be made "unclean" not only when "she has received seed," but also when "she has borne"? Whence also for her purification she is commanded to offer "young pigeons or turtledoves for sin at the door of the tabernacle of testimony," that "the priest may make propitiation for her," as one who owes a propitiation and a purification of sin for the fact that she furnished a ministry to a man being born into this world. For thus it is written: "And the priest shall make propitiation for her, and she shall be cleansed." I dare say nothing in such matters, yet I perceive that certain hidden mysteries are contained in these things, and that there is something of a latent secret, on account of which even "the woman who shall have conceived of seed and borne" is called "unclean" and, as though guilty of sin, is commanded to offer a victim "for sin" and so to be purified. But even the very one who is born, whether of male or female sex, the Scripture pronounces concerning him that he is not "clean from filth, even if his life be of one day." And that you may know there is in this something great, I know not what, and such as has come into the mind of none of the saints, no one out of all the saints is found to have kept a feast day or a great banquet on the day of his birth; no one is found to have had gladness on the birthday of his son or daughter; only sinners rejoice over a nativity of this kind. For we find indeed in the Old Testament Pharaoh, king of Egypt, celebrating the day of his birth with festivity, and in the New Testament Herod. Yet both of them stained the very festivity of their birthday with the shedding of human blood. For the one beheaded "the chief of the bakers," the other the holy prophet John "in prison." But the saints not only do not keep a festivity on the day of their birth, but, filled with the Holy Spirit, they execrate this day. For neither would so great and such a prophet — I mean Jeremiah, who was "sanctified in the womb" of his mother and "consecrated a prophet unto the nations" — have set down anything emptily in books that were to remain forever, unless it contained something secret and full of vast mysteries, when he says: "Cursed be the day in which I was born, and the night in which they said: Behold a male. Cursed be he that told my father, saying: A male is born to thee. Let that man be glad like the cities which the Lord overthrew in fury, and repented not." Does it seem to you that the prophet could have imprecated things so grave and so burdensome, unless he knew there was something in that bodily nativity which both seemed worthy of curses of this kind, and on account of which the lawgiver would arraign so many uncleannesses, upon which he would consequently impose fitting purifications? But it is a long matter, and one for another time, to explain the testimonies which we have taken up from the prophet; because now it is set before us to discourse not on Jeremiah, but on the reading of Leviticus. But Job too, speaking not without the Holy Spirit, "cursed the day of his nativity, saying": "Cursed be the day in which I was born, and the night in which they said: Behold, a male. Let that night be darkness, and let not the Lord seek it again, neither let it come into the days of the year, nor be numbered among the days of the months." But if it does not seem to you that Job speaks these things by the divine and prophetic Spirit, consider from these things which follow; for he adds: "but let him curse it who cursed that day, in which he shall slay the great whale." You see, then, how in the Holy Spirit he foretold concerning "the great whale" which the Lord "was to slay," of which that "whale" of Jonah was a type. Whence the Lord too, who "was to slay" that whale, the devil, says: "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so must the Son of man also be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." But if it pleases you to hear what the other saints also thought concerning that nativity, hear David saying: "In iniquities," he says, "was I conceived, and in sins did my mother bear me," showing that whatever soul is born in the flesh is polluted with the filth "of iniquity and sin"; and that on this account was said what we have already mentioned above, that: "No one is clean from filth, not even if his life be of one day." To these things this too may be added, that it be inquired what is the cause that, whereas the baptism of the Church is given for the remission of sins, according to the observance of the Church baptism is given even to little children; when indeed, if there were nothing in little children that ought to pertain to remission and indulgence, the grace of baptism would seem superfluous. "Whatsoever woman," then, "shall have conceived seed and borne a male, she shall be unclean" "seven days," just as she also who, "according to the days of her purification," is separated from all clean things "for seven days." For she spends seven days "in unclean blood," but "in clean blood thirty and three days." But this is in the nativity of "a male"; for she spends double the days in the nativity of "a female." She begins, then, to be in clean blood from the eighth day, and she is in clean blood for thirty-three days, that is, three decads and three monads. And when she "who has borne" has begun to be in clean blood, then the infant is circumcised: "For on the eighth day," it says, "thou shalt circumcise the flesh of his foreskin." This is the law of the letter, but do you inquire what circumcision the Apostle preaches, which he commands us both to receive and to have. "For we are the circumcision," he says, "who serve God in the spirit." But also what he says in the Psalm: "The sinners are estranged from the womb," consider whether he does not say this concerning those who receive that circumcision by which the Apostle forbids us to be circumcised, and it is then that "the sinners are estranged from the womb," when they are circumcised not in the spirit but in the flesh. For "they who are circumcised in the law are fallen from grace." Therefore "the woman is said to be made "unclean" "who has borne a male with seed conceived"; but "she who shall have borne a female" will not only be unclean, but doubly unclean. For she is written to remain "twice seven days in uncleanness."

It was certainly not for nothing that the commandment was given for the child "to be circumcised on the eighth day"; it can only have been because the rock, the stone with which we are circumcised, was Christ. It was "with knives of rock" or stone that the people were circumcised;"now the rock was Christ." So why on the eighth day? Because in seven-day weeks the first is the same as the eighth; once you've completed the seven days, you are back at the first. The seventh is finished, the Lord is buried; we are back at the first, the Lord is raised up. The Lord's resurrection, you see, promised us an eternal day and consecrated for us the Lord's day. It's called the Lord's because it properly belongs to the Lord, because on it the Lord rose again. The rock has been restored to us; let those be circumcised who wish to say, "For we are the circumcision."

But meanwhile she "who has borne a male," "on the eighth day" both the one who is born is circumcised and she is made clean. It is a matter of great labor for these things to happen in this brevity of time, yet, that we may say something in passing, this week may be seen as the time of the present life; for in a week of days the world was completed. In which, so long as we are set in the flesh, we cannot be pure to the point of clarity, unless the eighth day come, that is, unless the time of the age to come be present. On which day, however, he who is a male and has acted manfully is at once purified in the very coming of the age to come, and at once the mother who bore him is made clean; for she will receive the flesh purged of vices out of the resurrection. But if it had nothing virile in itself against sin, but was slack and effeminate in its acts, whose sin is such that it "is not remitted either in this present age or in the age to come": this one passes both one and the other week in his uncleanness, and only at the beginning of the third week arising is he purified from the uncleanness which he contracted by bearing a female. But the victims which are commanded to be applied for uncleanness of this kind are distinguished in two ways. First "a lamb" is commanded to be offered, "a yearling without blemish for a whole burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for sin." But a second victim is enjoined: "if," it says, "her hand find not what may suffice for a lamb, she shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a whole burnt offering and the other for sin." Whence it also seems marvelous that Mary's offering did not have the first victim, that is, "a yearling lamb," but the second, as one whose "hand did not suffice" for the first. For thus it is written concerning her: there came, it says, her parents, "that they might offer" for him "a victim, according to that which is written in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons." But in this too is shown to be true that which is written, that Christ Jesus, "whereas he was rich, became poor." Therefore for this reason he both chose a poor mother, of whom he would be born, and a poor fatherland, of which it is said: "And thou, Bethlehem, art the least among the thousands of Judah," and the rest. But we are compelled to run through these things briefly and not to examine each thing that is written, since indeed we are hastening to treat also something of the laws of leprosy, which have been recited.

The Lord commanded in the law that those who could were to offer a lamb for a son or a daughter, along with a turtledove or a pigeon. But one who did not have sufficient wealth to offer a lamb should offer two turtledoves or two young pigeons. Therefore the Lord, mindful in everything of our salvation, not only deigned for our sake to become a human being, though he was God, but also he deigned to become poor for us, though he was rich, so that by his poverty along with his humanity he might grant us to become sharers in his riches and his divinity.

And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord; (As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;) And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons. [Leviticus 12:8]