Leviticus 20

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. [Leviticus 20:7] And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

But when we wish to examine the very letter of the words as given by Matthew, "He that speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death," consider whether it was taken from the place where it was written, "Whoso strikes his father or mother, let him die the death; and he that speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death." For such are the exact words taken from the law with regard to the two commandments; but Matthew has quoted them in part and in an abridged form, and not in the very words.

Among the other sins therefore which are punished with death, the divine law reports that also "he who shall have cursed his father or mother, by death let him die". The name of father is a great mystery, and the name of mother is a hidden reverence. Your father according to the spirit is God; your mother is the "heavenly Jerusalem". Learn these things from prophetic and apostolic testimonies. This same Moses writes in the canticle: "is not this same one your father who acquired you and possessed you?". But the Apostle says concerning the "heavenly Jerusalem" that: "she is free", he says, "who is the mother of us all". First, therefore, your father is God, who begot your spirit, who also says: "I have begotten sons and exalted them". But James the Apostle also says: "let us obey the father of spirits and we shall live". Secondly, your father is the father of the flesh, by whose ministry you were born in the flesh and came into this world, who carried you "in his loins"; as it is said of Levi that: "he was still in the loins of Abraham, when Melchizedek met him", "returning from the slaughter of the kings, and he blessed him, and received tithes from him". Because therefore the name of father is so sacred and so venerable, for that reason "he who shall have cursed his father or mother, by death let him die". Similar things are to be reckoned also concerning the mother, by whose labor, by whose care, by whose ministry you were both born and nourished. And you ought, according to the Apostle, to render an equal thanks to your parents. For if you dishonor your carnal father, the contumely of this returns to the "father of spirits"; and if you do injury to your carnal mother, the injury overflows to that "mother, the heavenly Jerusalem". So too a slave, if he is irreverent to his master, hurls contumely through this bodily master upon the "Lord of majesty"; for that Lord imposed his own name upon this carnal master. And therefore in no manner is a contention to be had against father or mother, not even in word, nor contradiction to be stirred up. He is a father, she is a mother; as seems good to them, let them act, let them do, let them say; they themselves shall know. However much of obedience we render, we do not yet repay the return of the grace by which we were begotten, by which we were carried, by which we drew in the light, by which we were nourished, perhaps also educated and instructed in honorable arts. And by them perhaps as authors we came to know God and came to the Church of God and heard the word of the divine law. On account of all these things, therefore, "whoever shall have cursed his father or mother, by death let him die". But if these things are decreed concerning bodily parents, what will they do who provoke God the Father with cursing voices? who deny that he is the founder of the world, or who, understanding with unworthy senses the "heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all", drag the prophetic sayings to the condition of some earthly city? It is good therefore to take care that we never venerate either the carnal father or the heavenly one with less than worthy honor, and likewise the mother; to observe also every commandment which commends to us modesty and chastity, so that neither in the present life may we be liable to death according to the law, nor according to the spiritual law may the future penalty of eternal fire await us; from which may our Lord Jesus Christ grant to us all to flee and escape, "to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen!".

After these things it is written: "keep", it says, "my precepts and do them, I am the Lord", and to these it added: "a man, a man, if he shall have cursed his father or his mother, let him die"; and after many things which it commanded, to which it also appended the penalties of transgression, it adds in the conclusion: "and keep all my precepts and my justifications and my judgments". Whence it seems to me consequent to inquire what is indicated in these single terms. For my part, according to what I have been able to observe, a "precept" or "commandment" is that which, for example, in the decalogue is said: "you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery"; for this only is enjoined, and the penalty of the deed is not appended. But now indeed the same things are repeated, but with penalties added; for it is said: "a man, a man, whoever shall have committed adultery with the wife of a man and the wife of his neighbor, by death let him die, he who commits adultery and she who is committed adultery with. And if anyone shall have slept with the wife of his father, he has uncovered the shame of his father, by death let them die, both are guilty". Concerning these, however, precepts had already been given in the former passages, but what penalty awaited the one not observing them had not been appended. Now therefore the same things are repeated and the penalty of each single sin is decreed; and therefore these are rightly called justifications and "judgments", by which he who sins is judged to receive what is just. But observe the order of divine wisdom; it did not straightway establish the penalties together with the first precepts. For it wills that you should keep the precepts of the Father not from fear of punishment, but from love of piety; but if you have despised them, the punishment is now enjoined not so much upon a man as upon a despiser. First, therefore, you are summoned by kindness as a son: "for I have said: you are gods, and sons of the Most High, all of you". But if you are unwilling to be an obedient son, you are struck as a despiser, like a slave. After these things it says: "and if anyone shall have slept with his daughter-in-law, by death let them both die, they have done impiety, they are guilty". And these laws or these precepts he had given above without penalties; for he had said: "the shame of your daughter-in-law you shall not lay bare, since she is the wife of your son, you shall not reveal her shame", and all that follows. And this passage he appended in a like manner there without punishments, but here with various kinds of punishments. In which place I recall that word which the blessed Apostle Paul, writing to the Hebrews, says: "anyone making void the law of Moses dies without any mercy under two or three witnesses; of how much greater punishments will he be thought worthy, who shall have trodden underfoot the Son of God and reckoned the blood of the testament polluted, in which he was sanctified, and done contumely to the Spirit of grace?". But for what cause I have made mention of this scripture, listen. According to the law the adulterer or "adulteress by death used to die", nor could they say: we seek repentance and we implore pardon. There was no place for tears, nor was any faculty of amendment conceded, but it was necessary in every way that he be punished who had incurred the law. And this was observed also in each and every crime to which the penalty of death was appended. Among Christians, however, if adultery has been committed, it is not commanded that the "adulterer or adulteress" be punished with bodily destruction, nor is power given to the bishop of the Church to condemn the adulterer to present death, as then according to the law was done by the elders of the people. What then? Shall we say that the law of Moses is cruel which commands the "adulterer or adulteress" to be punished, and that the gospel of Christ, through indulgence, dissolves its hearers into what is worse? It is not so. For this reason we set forth above the word of Paul saying: "by how much more is he worthy of worse punishments who shall have trodden underfoot the Son of God" and so forth. Hear therefore how neither then was the law cruel, nor now does the gospel seem dissolute on account of the largess of pardon, but in both the kindness of God is maintained by a different dispensation. This, that according to the law, for example, the "adulterer or adulteress" was punished with present death: on account of this very thing, that he bore the penalty of his sin and paid the worthy punishments of the crime committed, what will there be after this that threatens vengeance to their souls, if they have transgressed in nothing else, if there is no other sin which condemns them, but they committed this alone and only then, when they were punished and bore the punishment of the law for this? "The Lord will not take vengeance twice for the same thing"; for they received back their sin and the penalty of the crime is consumed. And therefore this kind of precept is found to be not cruel, as the heretics assert, accusing the law of God and denying that anything of humanity is contained in it, but full of mercy, for the reason that through it the people would be purged from their sins rather than condemned. But now the penalty is not inflicted upon the body, nor does the purgation of sin come about through bodily punishment, but through repentance; whether one bears this worthily, so as to be able to merit pardon for it, see to it. For there are many who neither are inclined to this nor seek the refuge of repentance, but, when they have fallen, are unwilling to rise up any further; for they delight to wallow in that mire in which they have stuck. We, nevertheless, do not forget that precept in which it is said: "with what measure you shall have measured, with the same it will be measured back to you". For we say also to God: "you have given us the bread of tears, and have given us to drink in tears in measure". There are therefore those "sins" which are said to be "unto death"; whence it is also consequent that, as often as anyone commits such a sin, so often does he die. For that there are many deaths of sin the Apostle Paul also signifies, when he says: "who has snatched us from so many deaths and will snatch us; in whom we hope that he will still snatch us". What deaths then does he here commemorate as many, except those of sins? For if he were not saying this concerning the deaths of sins, Paul would seem, according to his own opinion, to be going to remain immortal from this common death, who says: "he has snatched us from so many deaths and will snatch us; in whom we hope that he will still snatch us". For if he both "has snatched" and "will snatch", there will never be a time when he dies, whom the Lord will always "snatch". And therefore, according to those things which we have discussed, it must be seen whether perhaps it is even somewhat graver for us, who are by no means punished with this death for a common sin, than for those whom the sentence of the law condemned bodily; because for us vengeance is stored up for the future, while for them the paid punishments of their deed used to absolve them. But even if there is anyone who perhaps has been overtaken in sins of this kind, being now admonished by the word of God let him flee for aid to repentance, so that, if he has committed it once, he may not do it a second time, or, if he has already been overtaken a second time or even a third, he may add no further. For with a just judge there is a moderation of the penalty, not only according to the quality, but also according to the quantity.

A woman accused of adultery was brought by the Scribes and Pharisees to the Lord Jesus with the malicious intent, that, if He was to acquit her, He might seem to annul the Law, if He condemned her, that He might seem to have changed the purpose of His coming, since He came to remit the sins of all men. To the same purport He said above, "I judge no man." So when they brought her they said, "This woman was taken in adultery, in the very act; now Moses in the Law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what sayest Thou?"

While they were saying this, Jesus stooped down and wrote with His finger on the ground. And as they waited for His answer, He lifted up His head and said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." What can be more Divine than this sentence, that he should punish sins who is himself free from sin? For how can we endure one who takes vengeance on guilt in another and excuses it in himself? When a man condemns in another what he commits himself, does he not rather pronounce his own condemnation?

Thus He spake, and wrote upon the ground. What then did He write? This, "Thou beholdest the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye." For lust is like a mote, it is quickly kindled, quickly consumed; the sacrilegious perfidy which led the Jews to deny the Author of their salvation declared the magnitude of their crime.

He wrote upon the ground with the finger with which He had written the Law. Sinners' names are written in the earth, those of the just in heaven, as He said to His disciples, "Rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." And He wrote a second time, that you may know that the Jews were condemned by both Testaments.

When they heard these words they went out one after another, beginning at the eldest, and sat down thinking upon themselves. "And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst." It is well said that they went out who chose not to be with Christ. Without is the letter, within are the mysteries. For in the Divine lessons they sought, as it were, after the leaves of trees, and not after the fruit; they lived in the shadow of the Law, and could not discern the Sun of Righteousness.

Finally, when they departed Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. Jesus about to remit sin remains alone, as He says Himself, "Behold the hour cometh, yea is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone;" for it was no messenger, no herald, but the Lord Himself Who saved His people. He remains alone, because in the remission of sins no man can participate with Christ. This is the gift of Christ alone, Who "took away the sins of the world." The woman too was counted worthy to be absolved, seeing that, on the departure of the Jews, she remained alone with Jesus.

Then Jesus lifted up His head, and said to the woman, "Where are those thine accusers, hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee, go, and sin no more." See, O reader, these Divine mysteries, and the mercy of Christ. When the woman is accused, Christ stoops His head, but when the accusers retire He lifts it up again; thus we see that He would have no man condemned, but all absolved.

By the words, "Hath no man condemned thee?" He briefly overthrows all the quibbles of heretics, who say that Christ knows not the day of judgment. He Who says, "But to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give," says also in this place, "Hath no man condemned thee?" How is it that He asks concerning that which He saw? It is for our sakes that He asks, that we might know the woman was not condemned. And such is the wont of the human mind, often to enquire concerning that which we know. The woman too answered, "No man, Lord," that is to say, Who can condemn when Thou dost not condemn? Who can punish another under such a condition as Thou hast attached to his sentence?

The Lord answered her, "Neither do I condemn thee." Observe how He has modified His own sentence; that the Jews might have no ground of allegation against Him for the absolution of the woman, but by complaining only draw down a charge upon themselves; for the woman is dismissed not absolved; and this because there was no accuser, not because her innocence was established. How then could they complain, who were the first to abandon the prosecution of the crime, and the execution of the punishment?

Then He said to her who had gone astray, "Go, and sin no more." He reformed the criminal, He did not absolve the sin. Faults are condemned by a severer sentence, whenever a man hates his own sin, and begins the condemnation of it in himself. When the criminal is put to death, it is the person rather than the transgression which is punished, but when the transgression is forsaken, the absolution of the person becomes the punishment of the sin. What is the meaning then of, "Go, and sin no more?" It is this; Since Christ hath redeemed thee, suffer thyself to be corrected by Grace; punishment would not reform but only afflict thee.