Leviticus 12

Leviticus 12:2

Augustine of Hippo: What does the following text mean: If a woman gives birth to a man, she will be unclean for seven days; it will be impure according to the days of their separation. On the eighth day he will circumcise the flesh of the child’s foreskin; but he will remain inactive thirty-three days in his pure blood. He will not touch anything holy or enter the sanctuary. What difference is there between those seven days when it is impure, it is said, and the thirty-three days that it will remain inactive in its pure blood? Because if he is no longer impure during the thirty-three days, why can not he touch the holy? Is there still this difference, which is with blood, but with pure blood? Would the difference be that, when it is impure, it makes impure to wherever it is, and when it is already with pure blood, only it is not lawful for it to touch the holy and enter the sanctuary? For this is what it says: According to the days of separation from your purification. For the Scripture says elsewhere that the impurity of the woman who has menstruation lasts seven days, and during this time all that she feels about will be impure (Cf Leviticus 15,19.23). The text speaks of separation, because the woman separated a little so as not to stain everything, while those days passed. The law doubled these days of impurity and turned them into fourteen, if the woman gave birth to a female. The other days that he stayed with his pure blood the law had also ordered that they doubled, since they were sixty-six. Therefore, the days in the case of the birth of a man were forty, and in the case of the birth of a female, eighty. Notwithstanding the above, some Greek codices do not have with their pure blood, but with their impure blood. The text continues: At the end of the days of his purification, whether by a son or a daughter, he will present to the priest a one-year-old Lamb, without defect, as a burnt offering, and a pigeon or dove as a sacrifice for sin. the entrance of the tabernacle of the testimony. The priest will offer it before the Lord and make atonement for it and purify it from the flow of his blood. This is the law for those who give birth to a male or a female. But if he does not find enough to offer a Lamb, he will take two turtledoves or two pigeon pigeons, one as a holocaust and the other as a sacrifice for sin. The priest will make atonement for her and will be purified (Leviticus 12,6-8). Therefore, the correct reading of the previous text is not: It will offer a one-year-old Lamb, without defect, as a holocaust or a pigeon pigeon or a turtledove as a sacrifice for sin, as some codices read, but, as we have stated: a dove pigeon or a turtledove as a sacrifice for sin, then he adds: If you do not find enough to offer a Lamb, and take two turtledoves. Here it seems that it remains and (it will take), because by removing that conjunction, it perfectly follows the meaning: It will take two turtledoves or two pigeon pigeons, one bird as a holocaust and the other as a sacrifice for sin. But why sin? Is it a sin to give birth? Or is it shown here that offspring of Adam, of which the Apostle says: Of one only for condemnation, and in another place: For one man sin entered the world and for sin, death, and for Did this happen to all men? (Rm 5,16.12) Also in the following text it is clear enough why it was said: Well, I was conceived in iniquities and in sin my mother raised me in the womb (Ps. 50,7). Why then does Scripture say that it must be purified through that sacrifice, not what was born, but what gives birth? Is it necessary to relate perhaps the purification, because of the blood flow, with that from which that origin came? Could it not be done without the purification of the fetus itself, which was born of the same blood? For what does he say before: For a son or a daughter he will offer a one-year-old Lamb, without blemish, as a holocaust and a dove pigeon or a turtledove as a sacrifice for sin, if through this sacrifice nothing was done in favor of those who were born? And if anyone tries to make a distinction, saying that we should not unite the phrase like this: For a son or a daughter will offer a one-year-old Lamb, without defect, as a holocaust, and a pigeon as a sacrifice for sin, but thus: And when the days of purification are fulfilled by a son or a daughter. That is to say, that the days of purification had been fulfilled by him or by her, by the son or by the daughter. And then he would follow the text with the other meaning: He will offer a one-year-old Lamb, without defect, as a holocaust, and a pigeon as a sacrifice for sin, that is, for his sin, when the days of his purification are fulfilled by his son or his daughter. Whoever believes that this separation must be made will be refuted by the Gospel, because when the Lord of the Virgin was born and they did something similar, more by the custom of the law than by the need to expiate and purify some sin in it, the text says: When his parents introduced the baby Jesus to do as prescribed by the law about him (Lc 2,27). The text does not say “about his mother”, but “about him”, although the present things were done in this place about the two turtledoves or the two pigeon pigeons. For the Lord also deigned to be baptized like the others with the baptism of John, which was a baptism of penance for the forgiveness of sins, (Cf Matthew 3,13.11) even though he had none. Therefore, some of our translators also rightly translate the text of Leviticus in the following way, not saying: about (super) the son or the daughter, but about (pro) the son or the daughter. For they have thought that this was the value of this preposition in the passage that occupies us and where the Greek says: ef uio e epì zugatrí. It is necessary to notice, of course, with what poverty the Lord wished to be born, that he did not offer himself a dove or pigeon or turtledove, but a pair of doves or two pigeon pigeons, as we read in the Gospel (Cf Lc 2,24). This is what the Levitical commanded then, saying: If the offeror’s hand did not have what it took to offer a Lamb (Leviticus 12,8). — QUESTIONS ON LEVITICUS, Q. 40 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

Leviticus 12:3

Augustine of Hippo: 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.” — SERMON 169.3

Leviticus 12:4

Augustine of Hippo: What does the Scripture say about a woman who has given birth: Will she not touch anything holy and not enter the sanctuary? To what sanctuary does it refer, when we know that only the priests used to enter the tabernacle, and even the second interior veil, beyond the veil itself, where the ark of the covenant was, only the high priest could enter? Is it that it could be called a sanctuary to what was in front of the tabernacle, where was the altar of sacrifices? Indeed, the atrium itself is often called the holy place; for example, when it is said: In the holy place they will eat it (Leviticus 6,26). Perhaps until that time women used to enter, when they offered their gifts, which were placed on the altar. — QUESTIONS ON LEVITICUS, Q. 39 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

Leviticus 12:8

Bede: 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. — HOMILY XV. ON THE PURIFICATION OF BLESSED MARY