Leviticus 17

Leviticus 17:10

Augustine of Hippo: What does the Scripture say when it prohibits eating the blood: The soul of all flesh is its blood? The entire passage explains it this way: If any man of the children of Israel or any of the proselytes living among you eats any blood, I will put my face on the soul that eats blood and exterminate it from its people. For the soul of all flesh is its blood. And I gave it to you to make atonement for your souls; for his blood will serve as expiation for the soul. That is why I said to the children of Israel: “No one among you will eat blood; nor the proselyte who lives among you will eat blood. " If we say that blood is the soul of an animal, must we also admit that blood is the soul of man? No way. Then, why does not the text say: The soul of all flesh of an animal is its blood, but says: The soul of all flesh is its blood? It is evident that the word “of all flesh” also includes the flesh of man. But, since there is something vital in the blood, because through it one lives, especially in the actual flesh, and the blood is diffused through the whole body through all the veins, is it perhaps called soul to the own body life, not the life that comes out of the body, but the life that ends with death? With this expression we say that this life is temporary, not eternal; mortal, not immortal, being immortal the nature of the soul, which is taken by the angels from the bosom of Abraham, and to which it is said: Today you will be with me in paradise (Lc 23,43), and that it burned in the torments of hell (Cf Lc 16,23). According to this meaning for which we also call this temporary life a soul, the Apostle said the following: For I do not consider my soul valuable to me (Acts 20,24). Here he wants to show that he was willing even to die for the Gospel. Because, according to the meaning by which the soul is called what comes out of the body, the Apostle made it all the more valuable the greater merit it gained him. There are other expressions similar to these. Thus, this temporal life is contained mostly in the body by blood. But what do these words mean: I have given it to you next to the altar of God, to make atonement for your soul? (Leviticus 17,11) It is as if the soul made atonement for the soul. Does blood atonement for blood perhaps, as if we had to be preoccupied with our blood when we want to make atonement for our soul? This is an absurdity. But it is much more absurd for the blood of an animal to make atonement for the soul of man, which can not die, when the Scripture expressly says in the Epistle to the Hebrews that the blood of the victims was of no avail to make atonement God for the sins of men, but it had meant something that would benefit. The text reads as follows: For it is impossible for the blood of goats and bulls to remove sins (Hb 10,4). Now, since for our soul makes the atonement that mediator was prefigured by all those sacrifices offered for sins, it is clear that soul is what is meant by the soul. The sign is usually designated by the name of the thing signified. Thus, the Scripture says: The seven ears are seven years. It does not say: they mean seven years. And the seven cows are seven years (Genesis 41,46), and many other similar examples. According to this, it is said: And the stone was Christ (1 Corinthians 10,4). It is not said: The stone meant Christ, but it is said as if it were this that evidently was not by essence, but by the meaning. So also the blood, since it means the soul, by a certain vital matter, is called soul mysteriously. In case anyone thinks that the soul of an animal is blood, there is no reason to argue about this matter. One should only carefully avoid thinking that the soul of man, who gives life to human flesh and is rational, is considered blood. This error must be refuted by all means. On the other hand, we have to look for expressions in which content means the continent. Thus, for example, as the soul is contained in the body by the blood - because if the blood spills, it leaves the body - the soul is better signified by the blood, and the blood receives its name from it. Thus, the church is called the place where the church meets, for men are the church, of whom it is said: and presenting it as a glorious church. But with this same name the house of prayer is designated. And this is witnessed by the Apostle himself, when he says: Do you not have houses to eat and drink? Do you despise the church of God? (1 Corinthians 11,22) The daily use of speaking has kept it from saying: Go to church or flee to church more than from one who has gone or fled to that place and its walls on which the congregation of the church is enclosed. It is also written: Blood is shed who removes the wages of the day laborer (Si 31 34,27). Here blood is called wages, because wages sustain life, which is called blood. But if the Lord says: If you do not eat my flesh and you do not drink my blood, you will not have life in you (John 6,53), what does it mean that the people are forbidden so insistently to take the blood of the sacrifices offered for sins, if with those sacrifices? Was this unique sacrifice meant to reach the true remission of sins? Well, not only is no one forbidden to take the blood of this sacrifice as food, but it is even exhorted to all who want to have life to drink it. It is necessary to investigate, therefore, what it means that in the law man is forbidden to eat the blood and be ordered to pour it out for God. Because, about the nature of the soul, because it is signified by the blood, we have already said what we thought convenient. — QUESTIONS ON LEVITICUS, Q. 57 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

Leviticus 17:11

John Chrysostom: In the case of the human person: first its body is created from the dust, and afterward the power of life is given to it, and this is the being of the soul. Accordingly Moses said about the beasts, “Its blood is its life.” But in the case of the human person its being is incorporeal and immortal and has a great superiority over the body, to the same extent as incorporeal form surpasses the corporeal. — HOMILIES ON Genesis 13:10

Origen of Alexandria: The troubling utterance is the following: “The soul of all flesh is the blood” — behold an extremely difficult passage, which has shaken those who did not understand it! … According to my measure of understanding, and with prayer for help in the knowledge of the Divine utterances … I have observed that incorporeal things are given the same names as corporeal things, and thus corporeal things are related to the outer man, while those bearing the same names as the corporeal are related to the inner man. Scripture says that in man there are two. … Therefore in each of us there are two men. Why does the Holy Scripture say that the soul of all flesh is the blood? This is a difficult question. Just as the outer man is homonymous with the inner one, so also with respect to the parts of the body. One may say that each part of the body of the outer man is homonymous with the corresponding part of the inner man. … And so, everything that is in the sentient flesh you can find also in the inner man. Do not doubt, then, also concerning the blood, homonymous with the sentient blood, which, like the other parts of the body, the inner man has. It is precisely this blood of which the soul of the sinner is deprived. — DIALOGUE WITH HERACLIDES