Leviticus 16

Leviticus 16:8

Tertullian: May I offer, moreover, an interpretation of the two goats which were presented on “the great day of atonement”? Do they not also prefigure the two natures of Christ? They were of like size and very similar in appearance, owing to the Lord’s identity of aspect. He is not to come in any other form. He had to be recognized by those by whom he was also wounded and pierced. One of these goats was bound with scarlet and driven by the people out of the camp into the wilderness, amid cursing, and spitting, and pulling and piercing, being thus marked with all the signs of the Lord’s own passion. The other, by being offered up for sins and given to the priests of the temple for meat, afforded proofs of his second appearance, when (after all sins have been expiated) the priests of the spiritual temple, that is, the church, are to enjoy the flesh, as it were, of the Lord’s own grace. The rest will deport from salvation without tasting it. — AGAINST MARCION 3.7.7

Theodoret of Cyrus: I will however mention the sacrifice in which two goats were offered, the one being slain and the other let go. In these two goats there is an anticipative image of the two natures of the Savior; in the one let go, of the impassible Godhead, in the one slain, of the passible manhood. — DIALOGUE 3

Augustine of Hippo: About the two goats, one that had to be immolated and the other that had to be sent to the desert, called by the Greeks apopompaion, there is usually discussion, and some say that the one that should be immolated must be interpreted in a good way, and the that had to be sent to the desert must be interpreted in the bad. But this interpretation can not be sustained, precisely because when the man who brought the goat with his hand to the desert returns, he is ordered to wash his clothes and his body with water and thus enter the camp ( Cf Leviticus 16,26 ) as if this were also an indication for interpreting in a bad sense the matter of the goat, from whose contagion man had to be cleansed; but it is also said that those who take the flesh of the other goat and the bull and wash them outside the camp must be washed, because it is commanded that this be done with the goat and the bull, and that once immolated it is done sprinkling with their blood (Cf Leviticus 9,8-12) and offering both as a sacrifice for sins. And for that reason, the distinction between these two goats must be considered carefully from the allegorical meaning. Similarly, when the tenth day of the seventh month is established as Saturday of Saturdays (Cf Leviticus 16,29-32) so that the one priest who succeeds his father would do the purification mentioned above, the Scripture says, when speaking of that priest: He will make atonement for the saint of holy. And I do not know if the phrase should be interpreted in any other way than this one: “He will make atonement in the saint’s saint”, thinking that it is a way of expressing himself. He will do it, then, in that holy place where only the high priest entered, a place that was beyond the veil, where was the ark of the covenant and the altar of incense. Naturally, he will not make the atonement of that place as if it were God, but he will make the atonement there to God, that is why it is said: He will make atonement for the saint of the saint. In Greek, this phrase is also placed in neutral gender: tò agion tou agíou. Or is it perhaps the Holy Spirit of the holy God, that is to say: tò agion pneuma tou agíou zeou? Or will “make atonement” not be rather “making atonement purify”? Because the words are united like this: And he will make atonement for the saint of the saint and for the tabernacle of the testimony and will make atonement for the altar and make atonement for the priests and for the whole assembly (Leviticus 16,33). And how will he make the atonement to the tabernacle and altar more than, as we have said, interpreting the word thus: “making the purification purify”? 56 (Leviticus 17.3.4). There is a text that says: Whoever kills a bull or a sheep or a goat inside the camp and who kills them outside the camp and does not take them to the entrance of the tabernacle of the testimony. In what has just been said there is a sin and a punishment is threatened to whoever does it. And it does not refer to animals that are killed for food or for similar things, but to offer them in sacrifice. Private sacrifices are therefore forbidden, so that no one dares to be a priest in any way for himself, but to bring the victims where they are offered to God through the priest. In this way they will avoid making sacrifices to the vanities, since this has also been tried to be avoided with that custom. Therefore, since it was not lawful to offer sacrifices except in the tabernacle to which the temple later happened - therefore, the king of Israel, Jeroboam even dared to make two calves for the people to offer sacrifices to them, so that, moved by the necessity of this law, were not seduced by the temple those who belonged to his kingdom, while they went to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices in the temple of God, and in this action was condemned by the Lord (Cf 1R 12,28-30), we can ask with all reason why Elijah could have offered sacrifices lawfully outside the temple of God, when he not only impelled fire from heaven, but he overcame the prophets of demons (Cf 1R 18,36-39). It seems to me that it does not defend itself with any reason other than that with which it also defends the action of Abraham with which it intended to sacrifice his son by order of God (Cf Genesis 22,3-10). Because when the one who makes the law commands to do something that has been prohibited in the law itself, the mandate itself is considered law, because it is proper to the author of the law. Besides the sacrifice, other miracles could not be missed by means of which the prophets of the sacred forests would be overcome and defeated. But the spirit of God, which had been in Elijah with respect to everything he did in this matter, can not go against the law, since he is the giver of the law. — QUESTIONS ON LEVITICUS, Q. 55 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

Leviticus 16:16

Augustine of Hippo: What do the following words mean, when the Lord commands how the high priest should enter the saint, who is behind the veil: And he will make atonement for the saints from the impurities of the children of Israel and their injustices [and] all your sins? How will he make atonement for the saints, if he makes it from the impurities of the children of Israel and from the injustices of all their sins? As it does not say in favor of (pro) the impurities of the children of Israel, but De (ab) impurities, shall it be understood that it will make atonement for the saints from the impurities of the children of Israel? That is, by those who are holy, free from the impurities of the children of Israel, who do not consent to their impurities; not because the expiation had to be made only for them, but because it had to be done for them, but that no one should believe that they were so holy, that there was nothing in them for which the expiation should be made, even if they were oblivious to the impurities of the children of Israel and their injustices. The phrase: Of all your sins, it means the injustices that came from all your sins. The meaning of the phrase: He will make atonement for the saints of the impurities of the children of Israel, it can also be this: it is a question of making atonement for them, so that they will be protected from the impurities of the children of Israel . But it will make the atonement can not be taken in any other sense than in the one that means the verb will make propitious. That is why it is also called a propitiatory to what others translate as an expiatory offering, which in Greek is called ilastérion. And what the Latin author translates in this passage: he will make expiation (exorabit) for the saints, corresponds to the Greek exilásetai, which only applies to sins. That is why it is said in the psalm: That it is propitious in all your iniquities (Ps. 102,3). According to this, the most accurate sense of the passage is to think that the priest also makes God propitious in favor of those who are holy, free from the impurities of the children of Israel, and that, even if they are so holy that they do not consent to the impurities of the children of Israel and in the injustices, nevertheless, they have something for which it is necessary to have God propitious. But in a Greek text we find: And he will make atonement for the saint, not for the saints, and the word “holy” is certainly in the neuter gender (sanctum), which corresponds to the Greek tò agion. In effect, it could be understood: He will make atonement to the holy God, and there would be no problem. But it would be difficult to say how it could be understood: for the atonement to this holy, unless it is understood that which is holy, whatever it may be, which is God, because it is also Holy Spirit, which is certainly God. In Greek it is said, in neutral gender, tò pneuma tò agion. And perhaps - if that codex that seemed more correct is truer - the phrase exilásetai tò agion would be equivalent to tò pneuma tò agion, which in Latin can not be said in neutral gender. In spite of everything, in three other codices, one Greek and two Latin, we have only found what we said before, that is: He will make atonement for the saints, and this phrase can also be interpreted in the sense that it does not refer to the holy men, but to holy things, such as the tabernacle and anything else that was consecrated to the Lord in those holy things. The meaning of the phrase: He will make atonement for the saints to free them from the impurities of the children of Israel, it would be: He will make God propitiate to the things consecrated to the Lord, freeing them from the impurities of the children of Israel, because the tabernacle was in the midst of them. For the text goes on like this: after saying: He will make atonement for the saints of the impurities of the children of Israel and the injustices of all their sins, immediately adds: The same will do with the tabernacle of the testimony, which has been made between they, in the midst of their impurities (Leviticus 16,16). Thus, that appropriation for holy things seems necessary for the tabernacle and for all the things that are called holy in it. For a little later it is said, about the altar, that the priest should purify it with the sprinkling of blood and sanctify it by freeing it from the impurities of the children of Israel. — QUESTIONS ON LEVITICUS, Q. 53 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

Leviticus 16:20

Augustine of Hippo: And he will fulfill expiating the saint. Will it fill the saint? Or will he expiate the saint, according to what we said before? For here also in Greek is tò agion in neutral gender. So, doing the atonement to the Lord, will he fulfill the saint, that is, he will perfectly sanctify what he has sanctified? Or will it be fulfilled at the expiation of the saint, that is to say, that holy thing which is tò pneuma tò agion (the Holy Spirit)? — QUESTIONS ON LEVITICUS, Q. 54 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

Leviticus 16:29

Caesarius of Arles: “On the days of your solemn feasts you shall mortify yourselves.” Why did he say this? Because fasts and vigils and holy mortifications afflict bodies that are humbled, but they purify hearts that have been defiled. They may take strength away from limbs, but they add a bright sheen to conscience. Sins of pleasure are redeemed by bodily weariness while the physical delights of dissipation are punished by the distresses of a hard cross. Thus by present mortification the sentence of future death is suspended. — SERMON 197.1