Deuteronomy 22

Deuteronomy 22:1

Clement of Alexandria: Scripture teaches us by means of natural fellowship to treat the object found as a trust and not to hold hatred of an enemy. — The Stromata Book 2

Gregory of Neocaesarea: Let no one deceive himself, nor put forward the pretext of having found such property. For it is not lawful, even for a man who has found anything, to aggrandize himself by it. For Deuteronomy says: “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray in the way, and pay no heed to them; but thou shalt in any wise bring them again unto thy brother. And if thy brother come not nigh thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring them together, and they shall be with thee until thy brother seek after them, and thou shalt restore them to him again. And in like manner shalt thou do with his ass, and so shalt thou do with his raiment, and so shalt thou do with all lost things of thy brother’s, which he hath lost, and thou mayest find.” Thus much in Deuteronomy. And in the book of Exodus it is said, with reference not only to the case of finding what is a friend’s, but also of finding what is an enemy’s: “Thou shalt surely bring them back to the house of their master again.” And if it is not lawful to aggrandize oneself at the expense of another, whether he be brother or enemy, even in the time of peace, when he is living at his ease and delicately, and without concern as to his property, how much more must it be the case when one is met by adversity, and is fleeing from his enemies, and has had to abandon his possessions by force of circumstances! — CANONICAL EPISTLE 4

Deuteronomy 22:4

Caesarius of Arles: You are commanded to pull out the ass or the ox which is lying in the mud. Do you then see a Christian like yourself, who was redeemed by the blood of Christ, lying in the sewer of drunkenness and wallowing in the mud of dissipation, and remain silent? Do you pass by and not stretch forth the hand of mercy? Do you merely shout at him or rebuke him or instill fright in him? — SERMON 225.4

Deuteronomy 22:5

Ambrose of Milan: Now, if you will consider it well, that which nature herself abhors must be incongruous. For why do you not wish to be thought a man, seeing that you are born such? why do you assume an appearance which is foreign to you? why do you play the woman, or you, O woman, the man? Nature clothes each sex in their proper raiment. Moreover in men and women, habits, complexion, gestures, gait, strength and voice are all different. — Letters 61-70

Augustine of Hippo: The objects of the man will not be on the woman. It is about the warlike objects, that is to say, the weapons, as some translators have already translated. — QUESTIONS ON DEUTERONOMY, Q. 32 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

Deuteronomy 22:8

Origen of Alexandria: When you build a house, you do not quit before building the protective parapet of the house. It is this parapet that prevents one who has ascended onto the house from falling. So it is with the house of the Word. Consequently those who fall because of unfinished buildings fall only from houses which lack the parapet. Those architects and builders bear the blame for such slaughters and falls. — COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF John 6.7

Deuteronomy 22:10

Clement of Alexandria: There it is perhaps guessing at the disparity between the animals. It is at the same time showing clearly that we must not wrong any of those from other races by bringing them under the same yoke when we have nothing against them apart from their foreignness, for which they are not responsible, which is not an immoral trait and does not spring from one. It is my view that this is an allegory, meaning that we should not share the cultivation of the Logos on equal terms between pure and impure, faithful and faithless, as the ox is accounted a clean animal and the donkey unclean. — The Stromata Book 2

Gregory of Nyssa: What does Scripture mean by these riddles? That it is not right for evil and virtue to grow together in the same soul. Nor is it right, dividing one’s life between opposites, to reap thorns and grain from the same soul. Nor is it right for the bride of Christ to commit adultery with the enemies of Christ or to bear light in the womb and beget darkness. — ON THE CHRISTIAN MODE OF LIFE

Paterius: Man is forbidden to plow with an ox and an ass at the same time. This is as if to say you should not bring together fools and the wise to hear your teaching. Otherwise you will cause the one who cannot fulfill your words to stand in the way of the one who can. — EXPOSITION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT, Deuteronomy 10

Deuteronomy 22:13

Augustine of Hippo: If you marry a woman and cohabit with her, and you get an aversion and impose words of opportunity and spreads bad reputation and says: “I married this woman and, approaching her, I did not find her a virgin”, then the father and the mother of the girl, taking the evidence of the virginity of the girl, will bring them out to the elders, at the door, and the girl’s father will say to the elders: “This daughter of mine I gave as a woman to This man and he, taking hate, now imposes words of opportunity, saying: I have not found the virginity of your daughter. But here is my daughter’s virginity. " And they shall take up the cloth before the elders of that city, and the elders of that city shall take the man and punish him and impose a fine of a hundred shekels, and give them to the girl’s father, because he propounded a bad name to an Israelite virgin; and this will be his wife; he will not be able to repudiate her in all his life. But if this thing is true and the virginity of the girl is not found, then the girl will be taken out of the door of her father’s house and the men of that city will stone her with stones, and she will die, because she committed an infamy among the you children of Israel, prostituting the house of its father, and thus you will remove the evil of in the middle of you. This text clearly demonstrates how the law wanted women to be subject to their husbands and that wives were almost like maids, because, while the woman was stoned if it was proven true that the husband’s testimony was against her, the man was not stoned if it was shown that his testimony had been false. He was only punished and fined, and forced to remain for the rest of his life with the woman from whom he had wanted to separate. In other cases, the law mandates that the same penalty be applied to this man should be punished if it were true, to the one that the law ordered to be killed if the false testimony with which he had harmed someone was proven. — QUESTIONS ON DEUTERONOMY, Q. 33 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

Deuteronomy 22:28

Augustine of Hippo: Punishment of the man who has dishonored a virgin. “If a man finds a virgin who has not been betrothed, and does violence to him, he sleeps with her, and they are found; This man who slept with her will give the father of the daughter fifty silver didrachmas, and she will be his wife, because he has dishonored her, and he will never be able to repudiate her. It is rightly asked whether this is a punishment for the culprit of never being able to repudiate the one he has dishonored in a guilty and unlawful manner. Are we inclined to believe that the motive for which he can not, (Deut. XXIV, 1) that is, never send her away, is that she has become his wife? we immediately remember the permission given by Moses to make an act of divorce and to dismiss the wife, but it is precisely this right that he refuses to the one who has committed the crime to dishonor a virgin; he does not want anyone to play with her, and that one pretends to take her for a wife, instead of accepting it frankly and with good will. The law gives the same right to the woman wrongly accused by her husband of having married him, without finding her a virgin (Ib. XXII, 19). — QUESTIONS ON DEUTERONOMY, Q. 34 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)