Ezekiel 45

And when you begin to divide the land as a possession, set apart firstfruits to the Lord, a sanctified portion of the land, twenty-five thousand in length and ten thousand in breadth; it shall be sanctified in all its border round about. And of this there shall be a sanctified portion five hundred by five hundred, four-square round about, and fifty cubits for its suburbs all around. And from this measure you shall measure a length of twenty-five thousand and a breadth of ten thousand, and in it shall be the temple (or the sanctification) and the Holy of Holies. The sanctified portion of the land shall be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who approach to the ministry of the Lord; and it shall be a place for them for houses and for a sanctuary of holiness: twenty-five thousand of length and ten thousand of breadth. But the Levites who minister to the house, they shall possess twenty chambers (for which the Seventy translated: they shall hold a city to dwell in). And you shall give the possession of the city five thousand in breadth and twenty-five thousand in length, according to the separation of the sanctuary, to the whole house of Israel. To the prince also, on this side and on that, by the separation (or the firstfruits) of the sanctuary in the possession of the city, over against the face of the separation of the sanctuary and over against the face of the possession of the city, from the side of the sea to the sea and from the side of the east to the east, and of length along each part, from the western border to the eastern border, of the land: it shall be his possession in Israel, and the princes shall no more ravage (or lay waste) my people; and they shall give the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes. After the ceremonies of the priests, and their worship and their food — what they ought to take and what to avoid —, he now gives a description of the holy land; and before he divides the whole land among the tribes, he commands that out of all the tribes a place be chosen which should have twenty-five thousand in length and ten thousand in breadth — and since 'of cubits' or 'of feet' or 'of ells' is not set down, we are given to understand that it signifies 'the reed', which was in the man's hand and had a measure of six cubits and a sixth part of one cubit, that is, a παλαιστήν [palm, a handbreadth]: let the diligent reader reckon how many reeds make a thousand paces and how many thousands there were in length and breadth —; after this description he again commanded that, from the sanctified land which was chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, that is, of twenty-five thousand reeds in length and ten thousand in breadth, another land within, of five hundred reeds round about, that is, of two thousand, be chosen for building the sanctuary, that is, the temple of the Lord. And lest perhaps other buildings should be joined to the building of the temple, he commanded that for fifty cubits round about the land be empty 'for suburbs', or, as Symmachus, Theodotion and the Seventy translated, 'for a boundary' and 'a separation' and 'a space'.

But if we wish to compare spiritual things with spiritual and, following certain interpreters, to climb to higher things — they assert that the present things are a figure of things to come, and that all that is said pertains to the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all, and to the Church of the firstborn —, it will not indeed be difficult to say what has been said by others, but we fear that the prudent reader may by no means accept an exposition of this kind; hence all things are to be referred both to the present time and to the Church, which now labors in the world and hastens to go to heavenly things: so that out of the whole world some are chosen as a possession of God to possess the holy place, and others, who have advanced to greater things, to hold the Holy of Holies; in the ministries too the order of priests and Levites is different: some of them daily offer sacrifice to God by their prayers and virtues, others are in a second and lesser rank, so as to minister to these, and through those who have climbed to the summits of the virtues; and last of all there is a leader or prince who has such power that he receives a possession over against one tribe and by the merit of one balances the merits of very many, and first, while he lives in the world, possesses the breadth from sea to sea, then from the west, or from the sea, as far as the east, so that, leaving the present things behind, he may hasten to the things to come, and may have his own fixed possession, and the prince may by no means desire what belongs to others, and each tribe may hold its own part: which can properly be referred to bishops and presbyters, to whom it is said that they should no more lay waste and ravage the people of God, nor possess the land of Israel as an inheritance, but that each should have his own possession, the one appointed to his rank. Now the twenty-five thousand they refer to the senses, which are set down four times; and the ten thousand to perfect knowledge, so that in the one only the plain history is held, while in the other there is discussion also of θεολογίᾳ [theology] and of the heavenly powers, because ten is a perfect number. This too must be considered: that the priests, who are set in the higher rank, possess twenty-five thousand in length and ten thousand in breadth; but the rank of the Levites, that is, the lower one, has indeed the same number in length, that is, twenty-five thousand, but its breadth is bounded by the number five: hence too they hold only twenty chambers — the number in which the gifts for Esau are offered —; but the prince, who is truly a prince among the people and deserves to receive the name of leader, receives a possession of the sanctuary on this side and on that, namely from all who are subject to him of their own will, and he is a dweller in the city, and makes the salvation of many his own reward. In the first temple, which is called the sanctuary, five hundred reeds are described on each side, and again fifty cubits by which the whole possession of the priests is separated; but in the second sanctuary, where the Holy of Holies is, the breadth of the temple and its space are not described, but the number is uncertain: and this we find also in the possession of the prince, who has a possession among the people of Israel without any number, since the progress of all overflows to the prince: and the salvation of the disciples is the reward of the teachers.

When this description is finished, another measure, of a sanctification to be set apart, is prescribed afresh: that after the former measure another land be measured, of twenty-five thousand reeds in length and ten thousand in breadth, in which there is by no means the temple, that is, the holy place, but the Holy of Holies.

And in it let the priests dwell who approach to the ministry of the Lord; and let them dwell there at the time when they discharge the priestly office: and let this possession be, as we have said, of twenty-five thousand reeds in length and ten thousand in breadth.

Further, the Levites, who serve the priests and have ministries of their own, will receive a place for building twenty 'chambers' — according to Aquila; 'exedras' according to Symmachus; 'cells' according to Theodotion; or, as the Seventy translated, 'a city', by which we understand that a certain separate place for the dwelling of the Levites is called by the name of a city —, a place which is to have five thousand reeds in breadth and twenty-five thousand in length. All these things, that is, the sanctuary and the second sanctuary, and the Holy of Holies, and the dwellings of the priests and the houses of the Levites who minister to the priests, are called places separated and consecrated for ministry and for sanctification for the house of Israel.

After the fourfold description of the holy land a fifth division is set down: that the prince or leader of the people should receive on this side and on that, that is, on either side of the sanctuary, for his possession, and should dwell in the city, and that his possession should face the place set apart for the temple and the face of the city, and should be from the side of the sea, that is, from the west, as far as the other side of the sea, having the breadth which the prophet describes below in the description of the individual tribes. Then follows: But in length along each part — which the individual tribes receive — from the western border — that is, of the sea — as far as the eastern border — where this ends we learn in the description of the tribes —; and this will be the possession of the leader or prince in the land of Israel. These things have been said for the present so that the plain account of the history may be known.

Thus says the Lord God: Let it suffice you, princes in Israel; leave off iniquity and plunder, and do judgment and righteousness: separate your borders from my people, says the Lord God. For 'plunder' the Seventy translated 'misery'; for 'borders', 'oppression'. And the sense is: 'Since you have received your portion, O princes — as Scripture says: To the prince also on this side and on that, in the separation of the sanctuary, in the possession of the city (understand: you shall give) —, and your power is so great that your possession has received the portion of one tribe: therefore I command and admonish you that it suffice to have committed iniquity and plunder up to now, while you invade and snatch away what belongs to others; and — since it is written: Put away evil and do good, and conversely: Do judgment and righteousness, judging for the orphan and justifying the widow —: Separate your borders from my people, namely so that you do not move the boundaries, and because the very neighborhood harms the humbler man, who cannot bear the haughtiness of one greater and more powerful. Let this be said for the present to the people of that time; but the command can also be fitted to our own princes — who after the manner of Pharaoh and the Egyptians oppress the children of Israel through their power, and do not remember that it is written: Have they made you leader? Do not be lifted up, but be among them as one of them —, and also that which the Lord says in the Gospel κατὰ [according to] Luke: But if that servant says in his heart: My master delays to come; and begins to beat his men-servants and maid-servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk: the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect and at an hour that he does not know, and will divide him, and will put his portion with the unbelievers; his disciples too he instructs with these precepts in the Gospel according to Matthew: You know that the princes of the nations lord it over them, and those who are greater exercise power over them; it shall not be so among you, but whoever wishes to be great among you shall become your minister, and whoever wishes to be first, let him be the servant of all. Just as the Son of man came not to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give his life as a redemption for many: there are many passages, if I wished to unroll them from the sacred Scriptures, where the pride of the greater is restrained and all are called to the humility of the Lord, who says: Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.

A just balance and a just 'oephi' and a just batus you shall have; the 'oephi' and the batus shall be equal and of one measure, so that the batus holds a tenth part, and the 'oephi' a tenth part: according to the measure of the 'corus' shall be their equal balancing. And the shekel has twenty obols; moreover, twenty shekels and twenty-five shekels and fifteen shekels make a mina. (LXX: "A just balance and a just measure and a just choenix you shall have for measure, and likewise there shall be one choenix for receiving: the tenth part of the gomer the choenix, and the tenth part of the gomer the 'oephi'; in relation to the gomer it shall be equal, and for weight twenty obols: twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels and fifteen shekels shall be your mina.") This passage, according to the Seventy, does not hang together and cannot be understood at all, since they changed not only the numbers of the measures but also the names: for in place of 'oephi' they translated 'measure', a general name for a specific one, and in place of 'batus' 'choenix'; in place of the Hebrew 'omer' too, which in Greek is called 'corus', they translated 'gomor', and again in place of 'batus' 'choenix'. Let us therefore speak according to the Hebrew and the letter, and let us explain more plainly what seems right to us in each particular. The 'balance', which in Hebrew is called 'mozene', is understood of the things that are weighed; but the 'epha', which in the Greek language is corruptly called 'oephi', pertains to the measure of various crops, for example wheat, barley, legumes; moreover the 'batus', which in Hebrew is called 'bath', is the same measure as the 'oephi', and only in liquid kinds, wine and oil and other things of this sort; the 'corus' holds thirty modii, and in both measures, that is, of dry things as well as of liquids, it holds the first place; the tenth part of the 'corus', in things that are measured by the modius, is called 'epha' — that is, three modii — and the tenth part of the 'corus' in liquid kinds is called 'batus' or 'badus': so that the 'epha' and the 'batus' are of the same measure; moreover the 'siclus' [shekel], which in Greek is called 'stater', has twenty obols; but the 'mina', which in Greek is called 'mna', has sixty shekels, which make one thousand two hundred obols; but what he says: Twenty shekels and twenty-five shekels and fifteen shekels make a mina, ought not to disturb the reader: for the difficulty is placed in the numbers for this reason, to make the hearer's mind attentive — whence also many things are spoken in parables and riddles, as: He who has ears to hear, let him hear; and all prophecy contains the truth in obscurity, so that the disciples may hear within, while the ignoble crowd placed outside may not know what is being said —. The divine Scripture therefore commanded that weights be just — saying: There shall not be in your purse a large measure and a smaller. A true and just balance you shall have, and a true and just measure you shall have; and in Proverbs it is said: A large balance and a smaller, both are abominable in the sight of God —, which indeed is to be observed by us not only in commerce and in the use of daily life, but righteousness must be guarded in all things — as Scripture says: By your words you shall make a balance and a weight —, so that, in words and in deed and in thoughts, we may do all things by weight and reason. That the obol, that is, the twentieth part of the 'siclus' or stater, is the smallest little portion, we read in another place: To the one who is faithful, the whole world of riches; but to the one who is unfaithful, not even an obol — as if he had said in other words: 'The unfaithful man possesses nothing in the world, but lacks even the smallest portion', of which it is said in another word in the Gospel: He shall not come out from there until he pays the last quadrans, that is, even the very last and smallest coin —; we read of ten minas handed over to individual servants for trading, and in another parable of talents divided among servants, and of the debtor of five hundred denarii, and of fifty, and of the laborers of the vineyard who each receive a denarius, and of the widow woman who lost a drachma and scarcely found it again by lighting a lamp: what sense all these things have, this is not the time to discuss.

And these are the firstfruits which you shall take: the sixth part of an 'oephi' from a 'corus' of grain, and the sixth part of an 'oephi' from a 'corus' of barley. The measure of oil also, a batus of oil, is the tenth part of a 'corus'; and ten bati make a 'corus', because ten bati fill a 'corus'. (LXX: "And these are the firstfruits which you shall set apart: the sixth part of a measure from a gomor of wheat and the sixth part of an 'oephi' from a 'corus' of barley. And the ordinance of the oil: a cotyle — that is, a cyathus — of oil from ten cotylae, because ten cotylae are a gomor.") Here too, the names of the measures having been changed, everything in the edition of the Seventy is confused, so that what is said cannot be understood: for they who above had said 'measure' for 'oephi', and 'choenix' for 'batus', and 'gomor' for 'corus', 'weight' for 'siclus', here too say 'measure' for 'oephi', for 'corus' now 'gomer', now 'corus' itself, and in the measure of oil 'cotyle', that is, 'cyathus', for 'batus'. Let us therefore speak first according to the letter. Δεκάτας — that is, the tenth part — of all crops the people owed by the law to the Levitical tribe; again, from these very tithes the rank of the Levites — that is, of the lower ministers — gave tithes to the priests, and this is what is called δεύτερον δεκάτη [the second tithe] — there were also other tithes, which each one of the people of Israel set apart in his own granaries, so that he might eat them when he went to the temple in the city of Jerusalem, and in the vestibule of the temple they would invite both priests and Levites to banquets; and there were also other tithes, which they stored up for the poor, which in the Greek language are called πτωχοδεκάται [poor-tithes] —; but the firstfruits which they offered from their crops were not defined by a specific number but left to the discretion of those offering, and we have received a tradition of the Hebrews, not commanded by the law but grown into custom by the discretion of the teachers: he who gave the most gave the fortieth part to the priests, he who gave the least the sixtieth; between the fortieth and the sixtieth it was permitted to offer whatever they wished; what therefore was left doubtful in the Pentateuch is here specifically defined on account of the avarice of the priests, so that they may not exact more from the people in the bringing of firstfruits, that is: that they offer the sixtieth part of the things that grow from the earth — for if the 'corus', which in Hebrew is called 'omer' and by the Seventy is called 'gomer', holds thirty modii in dry kinds as well as in liquids, and the 'epha' and the 'batus' too, according to what we said above, are the tenth part of the 'corus', and it is commanded that the sixth part both of the 'oephi' and of the 'batus' be given to the priests in offering the firstfruits, which out of three modii makes half a modius, it is clearly reckoned that the priests ought to receive the sixtieth part as firstfruits —. Let it suffice for the meantime to have perceived and heard these things according to the letter and according to the Hebrew truth. Now let us return to the spiritual understanding, in which it must first be asked how it is said: 'Honor the Lord from your righteous labors, and give him the firstfruits of the fruits of your righteousness, so that your storerooms may be filled with grain, and your winepresses may overflow with wine, so that, after you have offered the firstfruits of your labors and virtues and have said: Behold, now I have brought you the firstfruits of the fruits of the earth, which you gave me, O Lord, you may deserve to hear: Blessed are you in the city and blessed in the field; blessed the children of your womb and the produce of your land, and the fruit of your beasts and so on, and you may possess — according to the Apostle — every blessing of spiritual things in the heavenly places in Christ, while you hold that whatever you have is not of your own virtue but of the mercy of him who gave the crops'. And if indeed we have so much knowledge of the Scriptures that we lay open all the mystical things and teach men, that is, the rational animal, we give the firstfruits of our grain; but if, after ἀναγωγὴν [anagogy, the higher sense], we follow only the pure history, which can nourish the simple — according to what is written: Men and beasts you will save, O Lord —, we give the firstfruits of our barley — which barley: Isaac also served in the land of the foreigners, and it rose for him a hundredfold —. He who gives the firstfruits of barley can say: The Lord feeds me, and I shall lack nothing: in a place of pasture, there he has placed me, beside the waters of refreshment he has brought me up, but he who feeds rational living creatures with grain turns the sentence and says: You have prepared a table in my sight against those who trouble me, and after he has offered the firstfruits of oil and wine he joins on and says: You have anointed my head with oil, and your cup that inebriates, how splendid it is: with that oil which is prepared, most pure, without dregs, for the lamp of the Lord — and whoever has prepared it: His face is gladdened with oil, with the oil of exultation with which Christ was anointed above his fellows, and, made an olive tree, he will sing with the prophet: But I, like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God —, and with that wine which overflows from the true vine in the winepresses of the Savior — as the Lord says: I am the vine, you the branches, my Father the vinedresser —; of these winepresses we read three psalms, Psalm 8, Psalm 80 (81) and Psalm 83 (84), all of which refer to the mysteries of the Church. And indeed in the old law the firstfruits were without measure and number: For God did not give the Spirit by measure; but in the second building of the temple, which the prophecy of Ezekiel contains, there is a fixed measure, that is, the number sixty: by which the world is filled up, and it is said to us: With whatever measure you have measured, it will be measured back to you.

And one ram from a flock of two hundred, from those which they nourish in Israel, for a sacrifice and for a holocaust and for peace offerings, to make expiation for them, says the Lord God. All the people of the land shall be bound to these firstfruits for the prince of Israel; and upon the prince shall be the holocausts and the sacrifice and the libations, at the solemnities and at the calends and at the sabbaths: at all the solemnities of the house of Israel: he shall make the sacrifice for sin and the holocaust and the peace offerings, to make expiation for the house of Israel. Above he said what portion of the things that are weighed, and of the measures too, both of dry kinds and of liquids, ought to be offered to the prince; now he keeps the same order of firstfruits in living creatures, and commands Israel to offer one out of a flock of two hundred rams: Which Israel nourishes, for a sacrifice and for a holocaust and for peace offerings, to make expiation for the people of Israel, says the Lord God. What we translated: From those which Israel nourishes, is written in the Hebrew 'memmasce', which Aquila and Symmachus translate ἀπὸ τῶν ὑδάτων, the Seventy and Theodotion ἀπὸ τῶν ποτιστηρίων: of which the one means from irrigated places, the other from channels or pools, so that, evidently, the firstfruits of the prince are nourished nowhere else but in irrigated places.

And as in the preceding we read that the sixtieth part of the things that are weighed and that are subject to measure ought to be offered to the prince, so now the two-hundredth part of the living creatures is commanded to be offered, and the whole people is subject to the precept of this law and of this command: that it offer to the leader or prince, because, of course, through him holocausts and sacrifices and libations are offered for the people at each solemnity, and the house of God is expiated; from which it is to be noticed that, as the people is debtor to offer firstfruits to the prince, so the prince is debtor to the people to offer victims for it; and him, according to tropology, we can understand as none other than God the Savior. He receives a ram out of two hundred living creatures — or, as the Hebrew word shows more significantly, βόσκημα [a grazing beast], which can refer to all living creatures and not properly to a ram —, and he receives the animal or ram which has been nourished in irrigated places, namely those of the holy Scriptures, and can say: The Lord feeds me, and I shall lack nothing: into a place of pasture, there he has placed me, beside the waters of refreshment he has brought me up; these were the irrigated places, nay rather these the channels, to which Jacob too led his flocks, so that in them they might drink and conceive and, according to the color of the rods, bring forth offspring for the Lord. In place of 'sacrifice', that is, θυσίᾳ, Aquila and Symmachus translate 'gift', which in the Hebrew is called 'manaa', and it properly pertains not to a victim but to the things which are offered in sacrifice from fine flour and parched grain and oil; but the 'holocaust' is what is offered whole to God and consumed by the sacred fire; the 'peace offerings', when we are reconciled to God: and on our behalf the Apostle says: We pray on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God, and in another place: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. But this prince, to whom the firstfruits of living creatures are offered, is himself the king, as is shown also in the title of the cross in Hebrew and Greek and Latin letters — and when the Jews strove to have the triumphal title taken down, the throng of the Gentiles, in Pilate, answered: What I have written, I have written —. Upon the prince, he says, shall be: finely is the priestly dignity reminded to what office it is subject, so that it may know that it ought to offer for the people the sacrifice and the libations which are offered from wine at all the solemnities: namely at the calends, that is, the new moons, as well as at the sabbaths, when, with darkness covering all things, there is the beginning of the moon's light, in the rest of the sabbaths: so that he may make, namely, for sin, to make expiation for the house of Israel, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth: for this is the house of the living God and the house of Israel, which needs the expiation of its sins.

If then we have learned spiritual solemnities, we shall consequently be taught spiritual victims too: a calf is taken from the herd — or a bull, as Symmachus translated —, free and pressed by no yoke, that is, by the burden of sins, and without blemish: Who did no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth, a young calf putting forth horns and hoofs: so that in him the sanctuary may be cleansed and expiated.

Thus says the Lord God: In the first month, on the first of the month, you shall take a calf from the herd without blemish, and you shall expiate the sanctuary. And the priest shall take of the blood of what will be for sin, and shall put it on the doorposts of the house and on the four corners of the ledge of the altar and on the doorposts of the gate of the inner court. And thus you shall do on the seventh of the month for each one who was ignorant and was deceived by error, and you shall make expiation for the house. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall have the Passover, a solemnity; for seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten. And the prince shall make on that day, for himself and for all the people of the land, a calf for sin; and in the solemnity of seven days he shall make as a holocaust to the Lord seven calves and seven rams without blemish daily for seven days, and for sin a he-goat of the goats daily; and the sacrifice he shall make of an 'oephi' for each calf and an 'oephi' for each ram, and a 'hin' of oil for each 'oephi'. In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, at the solemnity he shall do as has been said above, for seven days, both for sin and for the holocaust, and in sacrifice and in oil. (I have set down the whole chapter so that, divided into its single parts, it should not confuse the reader's mind; and first we must speak about the variety of the translation; where we translated: On the four corners of the ledge of the altar, the Seventy translated: And upon the four corners of the temple and upon the altar; and where we said: For each one who was ignorant and was deceived by error, they put: For the ignorant and the little one; also in the place where we said: And the sacrifice he shall make of an 'oephi' for each calf, an 'oephi', and an 'oephi' for each ram, and a 'hin' of oil for each 'oephi', their edition has: And the sacrifice and a cooking for the calf and a cooking for the ram you shall give, and a 'hin' of oil for the cooking; in the last little verse too, where we said: In sacrifice and in oil, they said: As in the manaa, as in the oil.) In the first, he says, month and on the first day of the month — no doubt he means Nisan —, and: You shall take a calf from the herd, not one which has been nourished at home but one in the herd, that is, from the flock and number of many; on the seventh day of the same month too: these two solemnities, that is, the first day of the first month and the seventh of the same, are not found in the Mosaic law; but the fourteenth day of the month, on which the Passover is celebrated, Moses too commanded to be observed: when we eat unleavened bread for seven days; but the fourth solemnity, of which he says: In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, at the solemnity and so on, seems to me to signify the Scenopegia [the feast of Tabernacles], which he has set down here without a name. Let us run back, then, to the particulars, and briefly discuss what seems right to us. That there are spiritual solemnities too the Apostle teaches: Let no one therefore judge you in food or in drink or in solemnities or of the new moon or of sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come; and if God says through Isaiah: Your new moons and your sabbaths and the great day I do not accept: the fast and the holidays and your new moons and solemnities my soul hates, it is manifest that he who hates the solemnities of the Jews loves his own, namely the sabbath which is left for the people of God: That we may see the things that have been given to us by God: and may speak not in the learned words of human wisdom, but in the teaching of the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual: for in the present age, which is set in the evil one, we cannot see good days, but in the new, of which days the Holy Spirit sings in the Mosaic song: Remember the days of antiquity, understand the years of the generation of generations, of which the holy man also spoke in the psalm: In the night I meditated in my heart, and again: And I had the eternal years in mind and I meditated; let him who has not accepted this understanding answer how he can expound what Isaiah prophesies about the future and new age: There shall be month from month and sabbath from sabbath, and all flesh shall come to worship the Lord, when the true worshipers will by no means worship on Mount Gerizim nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit and truth, when there will be a new heaven and a new earth and: The whole creation shall be freed from the servitude of corruption into the liberty of the children of God and the sun will receive seven times as much light and the moon will be compared to the sun: We have come, indeed, to Mount 'Sion', which means 'watchtower', and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to thousands of angels' solemnities, of which solemnity another prophet also speaks: What will you do in the days of assembly and in the days of the solemnity of the Lord? this is what is also said elsewhere: Celebrate, Judah, your festivals, pay your vows.

And the priest, he says, shall take of its blood which will be for the sin of all, who in other words is called a lamb in Exodus, and in the Gospel, as John the Baptist says: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world; and the blood itself is precious, in which we are redeemed in the passion of the Lord Savior, by whose flesh we are fed and with whose blood we are given drink, by which are touched the four corners of the ledge of the 'altar' — for which Theodotion put the Hebrew word itself, 'azara' [ledge, court], or of the 'temple', as the Seventy translated —, so that the house and the altar may be sanctified — for all the elements of the world are sanctified by this blood — so that, when someone has been expiated and cleansed, he may enter the gate of the inner court and be able to know the secrets of the Lord, and consequently come to the seventh day of the first month and attain rest and offer sacrifice to the Lord: both for ignorance — of which David speaks: The sins of my youth and of my ignorance remember not —, and for the little one — who, when he has come to the measure of the perfect man, destroys the things that belong to a little one and speaks confidently: When I was a little one, I spoke as a little one, I thought as a little one —, or for him who was deceived by error and sinned not so much by will as by the supposition of good.

And when the two solemnities of the first month have been completed, that is, of the first day and of its seventh, he comes to the fourteenth day of the month, on which is the solemnity of the Passover, of which it is written: For our Passover has been sacrificed, Christ; then we eat unleavened bread for seven days in rest and security of all things, when, destroying the leaven of malice and wickedness, we eat the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, while our prince offers all these things for us: and first 'for himself' — for he took up a human body and for sin destroyed sin, he who grieves for us and bears our infirmities —, then 'for his house' — which is written in the Seventy but is not found in the Hebrew — that is, for the Church, and for all the people of the land, namely the whole human race: He is the Savior, indeed, of all men and especially of the faithful; and he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for us, but for the whole world.

And when the calf has been offered for all the people of the land, on the seven remaining days of the Lord's passion seven calves and seven rams without blemish are offered daily, so that they may be burned up as a holocaust and by the Lord's fire: and the seven calves and seven rams are those who are conformed to the Lord's passion, so that they may imitate the true calf and the true ram, and by the blood of the martyrs through seven days the sins of the whole world may be cleansed; a he-goat of the goats too is offered for sin daily, namely for seven days.

And it must be noted more carefully that in the sacrifice an 'oephi' for each calf and an 'oephi' for each ram and a 'hin' of oil are offered, which are commanded by the law, but in the offering of the he-goat neither an 'oephi' nor, as the Seventy translated, a 'cooking' is set down — they who for 'oephi' translated πέμμα, that is, 'cooking' —; but the 'hin', which is a fixed measure of oil, of which we have already spoken before, is taken up in the sacrifice of the calf and of the ram, so that we may receive the fuel of everlasting light, and rest from labor, and healing from weariness after the appeasement of sins.

In the seventh month too, on the fifteenth day of the month, that is, of the Scenopegia, the same order of oblation and sacrifices is to be kept: Both for sin and for the holocaust and in sacrifice and in oil, so that, darkness having been put to flight and the light of the oil having risen, we may attain the festival of the Lord, and may have brighter solemnities, in which all our sins are forgiven us.