Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The degrees of consanguinity and affinity are prescribed, in which it is not lawful to contract marriage. First, therefore, in the degrees of consanguinity, it forbids marriage and intercourse with father and mother, verse 7; with a stepmother, verse 8; with a sister, verse 9; with a granddaughter, verse 10; with a stepsister, verse 11; with a paternal aunt and maternal aunt, verses 12 and 13. Second, in the degrees of affinity, it forbids marriage and intercourse with the wife of a paternal uncle, verse 14; with a daughter-in-law, verse 15; with the wife of a brother, verse 16; with the daughter and granddaughter of a stepchild, verse 17; with the sister of one's wife, verse 18. Third, verse 20, it forbids adultery, sodomy, bestiality, and offering one's seed to Moloch, as the Canaanites did, whom God therefore threatens to expel from their land.
Vulgate Text: Leviticus 18:1-30
1. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2. Speak to the children of Israel, and you shall say to them: I am the Lord your God; 3. you shall not do according to the custom of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelt; and according to the manner of the region of Canaan, into which I will bring you, you shall not act, nor shall you walk in their ordinances. 4. You shall do My judgments and keep My precepts, and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. 5. Keep My laws and judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them. I am the Lord. 6. No man shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness. I am the Lord. 7. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, or the nakedness of your mother: she is your mother, you shall not reveal her nakedness. 8. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife: for it is the nakedness of your father. 9. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister by father or by mother, whether born at home or born abroad. 10. You shall not reveal the nakedness of your son's daughter or your daughter's granddaughter: because it is your own nakedness. 11. You shall not reveal the nakedness of your father's wife's daughter, whom she bore to your father, and who is your sister. 12. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister: because she is the flesh of your father. 13. You shall not reveal the nakedness of your mother's sister, because she is the flesh of your mother. 14. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother, nor approach his wife, who is joined to you by affinity. 15. You shall not reveal the nakedness of your daughter-in-law: because she is your son's wife, nor shall you uncover her shame. 16. You shall not reveal the nakedness of your brother's wife: because it is the nakedness of your brother. 17. You shall not reveal the nakedness of your wife and of her daughter. You shall not take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter, to reveal her shame: because they are her flesh, and such intercourse is incest. 18. You shall not take your wife's sister as a rival to her, nor uncover her nakedness while your wife is yet living. 19. You shall not approach a woman who suffers her monthly courses, nor shall you uncover her uncleanness. 20. You shall not lie with your neighbor's wife, nor be defiled with mingling of seed. 21. You shall not give of your seed to be consecrated to the idol Moloch, nor defile the name of your God. I am the Lord. 22. You shall not lie with a male as with a female: because it is an abomination. 23. You shall not copulate with any beast, nor be defiled therewith. A woman shall not lie down to a beast, nor copulate with it: because it is a heinous crime. 24. Do not defile yourselves with any of these things, with which all the nations have been contaminated, which I will cast out before you, 25. and with which the land is defiled: whose crimes I will visit, that it may vomit out its inhabitants. 26. Keep My ordinances and judgments, and do not commit any of these abominations, whether native or stranger who sojourns among you. 27. For all these abominations the inhabitants of the land who were before you committed, and defiled it. 28. Beware, therefore, lest it vomit you out also in like manner, when you shall have done like things, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 29. Every soul that shall commit any of these abominations, shall perish from the midst of his people. 30. Keep My commandments. Do not the things which they did who were before you, and be not defiled therein. I am the Lord your God.
Verse 3: Nor Shall You Walk in Their Ordinances
3. Nor shall you walk in their ordinances. — "Ordinances" means laws, especially ceremonial laws; for this is what the Hebrew chuckot properly signifies, that is: You shall abhor the rites and ceremonies of the Gentiles by which they worship their idols and demons.
Verse 4: You Shall Do My Judgments and Precepts
4. You shall do My judgments and precepts. — "Judgments," that is, judicial precepts, which establish justice and honest relations between you and your neighbor: hence the following marriage laws pertain to these judgments; "and precepts," namely, ceremonial ones, by which you may properly worship Me. For these are chuckot, as the Hebrew again has it.
Verse 5: He Shall Live in Them
5. Which if a man do, he shall live in them — that is, by keeping these My laws, he shall be gifted by Me with a long and prosperous life, so that he may live long "in them," that is, through them; or "in them," that is, in their observance, in order to fulfill them again, and to walk in them and live. So say Abulensis, Oleaster, and Vatablus; indeed the Apostle himself implies the same, Romans X, 4, 5, and 13, where he insinuates this difference between the New and Old Testaments: that the Old promised to live in them (its laws), that is, it promised temporal life for continuing to fulfill them; but the New absolutely promises eternal life and salvation. Yet those Jews who were pious and holy kept these old laws out of charity: hence through this they also merited eternal life. But this is not what is literally discussed here: for elsewhere too the goods that are promised to the Jews are earthly and temporal, not heavenly and eternal, as is clear from Exodus XXIII, 26; Deuteronomy VII, 13; Isaiah I, 19; Haggai II, 20; Malachi chapter III, 10. The Chaldean also intended this by translating: He shall live the life of the age, that is, a long life, although the Translator of the Royal Bibles rendered it: He shall live an everlasting life.
Anagogically: The saints, says Radulphus, taught by the Spirit, referred this life to the land of the living in heaven, as he who sang: "I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living;" and Tobias, chapter II: "We are children of the saints, and we look for that life which God will give to those who never change their faith from Him."
Verse 6: No Man Shall Approach His Near of Kin
6. No man shall approach to any that is near of kin to him (not just anyone, but only the one whom the following discourse will specify, says Radulphus) to uncover their nakedness. — "Nakedness" refers to the shameful parts, which in Hebrew are called "nudity," by antiphrasis, because it is least fitting that they be naked. To uncover someone's nakedness, therefore, is to know her carnally and to have relations with her, whether in marriage or outside of it. It is a Hebrew and modest metalepsis.
I am the Lord — who loves honesty and modesty, to whom commanding this you must be obedient, unless you wish to experience Him as an avenger.
Verse 7: The Nakedness of Father and Mother
7. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, or the nakedness of your mother. — Marriage and intercourse with father and mother are here forbidden; for so great was the corruption of the Gentiles, that Theodoret, Question XXIV, asserts this about the Persians: "The Persians," he says, "to this very day are joined by the law of marriage not only to sisters, but also to mothers and daughters. In like manner among the Egyptians, marriages of brother with sister were customary, as Diodorus attests, book I, chapter II. Hence Theocritus celebrates the marriage of Ptolemy Philadelphus with his sister Arsinoe, as the marriage of Juno and Jupiter. Finally, verse 3 here sufficiently indicates that the morals of both the Egyptians and the Canaanites in these marriages and lusts were most corrupt. Regarding other barbarian nations, hear Euripides in Andromeda: Such is every barbarian race, Father with daughter, son with mother; Sister mingles with brother.
That the Indians, Ethiopians, and Medes were accustomed to lie with their mothers and daughters is attested by St. Jerome, book II Against Jovinian.
Indeed, regarding the Romans, hear St. Gregory's response to Augustine's question, chapter VI: "A certain earthly law, he says, in the Roman republic permits that either brother or sister, or the son and daughter of two brothers or of two sisters, may be joined together; but we have learned from experience that offspring does not usually grow from such a union."
Many take "the nakedness of your father" in the active sense, that is: her whom your father has uncovered, or has the right to uncover — in other words, do not lie with your father's wife, whether she is your mother or your stepmother. Hence they hold that the words "and (that is, namely) the nakedness of your mother" were added for the sake of explanation. Nor did any legislator ever think of forbidding such a crime as uncovering the father's own pudenda, after the example of the impious Ham.
Verse 8: The Nakedness of Your Father's Wife
8. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife — that is, you shall not have relations with your stepmother. For it is the nakedness of your father. — In Hebrew, for it is the nudity of your father, that is, your father uncovered her and knew her: hence it is altogether improper and shameful for you to know her.
Verse 9: The Nakedness of Your Sister
9. The nakedness of your sister by your father (who has the same father as you, but a different mother), or by your mother (who has the same mother as you, but a different father), whether born at home or born abroad, you shall not uncover her nakedness. — "Born at home" means she who was born from a legitimate marriage and wife; for a wife alone legitimately belongs to the husband's house. Hence "born abroad" means she who was born from a concubine or paramour. So say Radulphus and Abulensis. But more simply you should take the words as they sound; for lest anyone think that only marriage with a sister born at home was forbidden, the law added "or born abroad:" such is, for example, she whom the mother had borne from a prior husband, and with whom she had come into the house when she married this second husband; that is: no one shall marry a uterine sister, even one born outside the household. So says St. Augustine, whose excellent saying this is, book XVII of the City of God: "The mingling of brothers and sisters, the more ancient it was under the compulsion of necessity, the more damnable it later became when prohibited by religion." So Amnon paid for his incest with his sister Tamar by death, II Kings XIII, 32.
Verse 10: The Nakedness of Your Granddaughter
10. You shall not reveal the nakedness of your son's daughter, or your granddaughter through your daughter, because it is your own nakedness — because, namely, your granddaughter descends from you in a direct line, and therefore is reckoned as one with you, so that if you uncover her nakedness, you uncover both your own and her nakedness; and if you abuse her shameful parts, you act as unworthily as if you were abusing your own. So say Abulensis and Oleaster.
Verse 11: The Daughter of Your Father's Wife
11. You shall not reveal the nakedness of your father's wife's daughter, whom she bore to your father, and who is your sister — that is, you shall not marry nor know the daughter of your stepmother, who is to you as an agnate sister.
Verse 12: Your Father's Sister
12. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister (that is, you shall not marry or know your paternal aunt), because she is the flesh of your father — because, namely, she is a blood relative of your father. In Hebrew it is, because she is a remnant of your father: for father and paternal aunt were cut from one parent and one flesh, of which the father has one part and his sister the other, who is the aunt of the nephew. That is: Because the aunt is closely connected to your father, so that she seems to be one flesh with him, hence it is not fitting that you uncover her nakedness, just as it is not fitting that you uncover the nakedness of your father. Abulensis thinks that here by parity of reasoning the marriage of an uncle with a niece is also forbidden, just as the marriage of an aunt with a nephew is forbidden: for the degree of consanguinity is the same in both cases. But Cajetan more correctly holds that it is not forbidden, because it is not expressly stated, as are all the other things that are so exactly and minutely described here by Moses. Hence an example of such a marriage is found in Othniel and Achsah, Judges I, 13.
You may ask: why did God forbid marriage with a paternal aunt rather than with a paternal uncle? I answer: The reason is that since the husband is the head of the wife, if a nephew were to marry his aunt, she would have to be subject to her nephew; but this is indecent. In the other case, however, the niece is subject to the uncle, which is more fitting.
Verse 14: Your Father's Brother's Wife
14. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother (that is, so as to marry or know his wife, even after his death. Whence Moses explains by adding): nor approach his wife. — The preceding degrees that have been forbidden up to now were of consanguinity; here begin the degrees of affinity that were formerly forbidden, which arise from carnal union, just as the preceding degrees of consanguinity are derived from the same common origin, namely, from the same father, grandfather, or great-grandfather.
Verse 15: Your Daughter-in-Law
15. You shall not reveal the nakedness of your daughter-in-law — you shall not have relations, nor join in marriage with the wife of your son, even after his death. Nor shall you uncover her shame — that is, her nakedness (in Hebrew, nudity), namely, of the daughter-in-law, not of the son, as Abulensis would have it. This is clear from the Hebrew.
Verse 16: Your Brother's Wife
16. You shall not reveal the nakedness of your brother's wife: because it is the nakedness of your brother. — Except if the brother dies without children: for then the brother of the deceased not only may, but must take his wife, in order to raise up seed and children for his brother, as is commanded in Deuteronomy XXV, 5. Therefore what is forbidden here is only that a brother should marry a sister-in-law, that is, his brother's wife, if children survive from her, or if she has departed from a brother still living through divorce. So says St. Augustine, Question LVIII. Hence it is evident how wrongly Henry VIII, King of England, wished to repudiate Catherine his wife on the basis of this law, as if the marriage contracted with her were invalid because she had previously been married to Arthur, Henry's brother; for Arthur had not begotten offspring from Catherine, and therefore, according to the law of Deuteronomy XXV, 5, Henry should have married Catherine in order to raise up seed from her for Arthur his brother. For Henry claimed that this law was of the natural law, and therefore still binding on Christians: whether this is true I shall discuss at verse 18. Tertullian too errs, in his book On Monogamy, chapter VII, by understanding "brother" here as any Jew, or non-foreigner, as if this law forbade the wife of a deceased Jew from being married by any other Jew, and commanded monogamy for him; for it is certain that "brother" is here taken in the proper sense: for thus are properly taken "father," "mother," "sister," and the other terms of kinship that are listed here.
Verse 17: Your Wife and Her Daughter
17. You shall not reveal the nakedness of your wife and of her daughter — take the "and" as a conjunction, that is: You shall not contract marriage with both mother and her daughter, that is, your stepdaughter, so as to have both as wife either simultaneously or successively. You shall not take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter, to uncover her shame (in Hebrew, nudity), because they are her flesh (because, namely, they are joined to and close in blood to your wife, and therefore it is altogether indecent for you to uncover their nakedness), and such intercourse is incest. — In Hebrew, it is an abomination; in the Septuagint, it is impiety; in the Chaldean, it is the counsel of sinners.
On the Nature of Incest
Moreover, incest is the abuse of blood relatives or those related by affinity, and therefore it is a distinct species of lust for a threefold reason, says St. Thomas, II-II, Question 154, article 9: "First, because man naturally owes a certain honor to his parents and relatives, to such an extent that among the ancients, as Valerius Maximus reports, it was not permitted for a son to bathe together with his father, nor for them to see each other naked; second, because persons joined by blood must necessarily associate with one another, and thus they would continually have occasion for lust, and would become too soft; third, because through this the multiplication of friendships would be impeded, as St. Augustine teaches, Book XV of The City of God, chapter XVI. Aristotle adds, fourthly, in Politics II, that since a man naturally loves a blood relative, if the love that comes from sexual union were added, there would arise an excessive ardor of love, and the greatest incentive to lust, which is repugnant to chastity."
Hence "incest" is said to be, as it were, "not chaste": although others derive it from cestus, that is, the girdle with which a wife, when marital fidelity was pledged to her, was girded by her husband, or rather ungirded, as Phyllis says in Ovid's epistle to Demophoon: "To whom my virginity was offered under unlucky birds, And the chaste girdle was unfastened by a deceitful hand." Thus therefore incest is an illegitimate union for which the girdle, the mark of lawful marriage, cannot be applied on account of consanguinity.
Finally St. Augustine, and it is found in XXXII, Question VII, chapter Adulterii: "The evil of adultery," he says, "surpasses fornication; but is surpassed by incest. For it is worse to lie with one's mother than with another man's wife."
Verse 18: Your Wife's Sister
18. You shall not take your wife's sister as a rival, — In Hebrew it is added, "to afflict her," namely if she should see her sister brought in over her as a concubine, and thus rivalry and jealousy would arise between them. See Genesis 30:1.
Nor shall you uncover her shame while she is still living, — because once she is dead you may take your wife's sister as a spouse: for this was permitted under the old law, but in the new it is no longer allowed. For now affinity up to the fourth degree invalidates a marriage, just as consanguinity does.
Whether These Degrees Are Prohibited by the Law of Nature
One may ask whether all these degrees which are enumerated in this chapter are so absolutely prohibited by the law of nature that they invalidate marriage, and the Pope cannot dispense in them.
Henry VIII affirmed this, who invoked this law for his divorce from Catherine; certain Doctors in various universities affirmed the same at the same time, but they were corrupted by Henry's gold.
Their argument was that the Canaanites who sinned against these laws were punished by God, as is evident from verse 24; but the Canaanites had no other law than that of nature: therefore these laws are laws of nature.
But the contrary is a matter of faith: it is proved first from the definition of the Council of Trent, Session XXIV, canon 3: "If anyone," it says, "shall say that only those degrees of consanguinity and affinity which are expressed in Leviticus can impede a marriage from being contracted and dissolve one already contracted, and that the Church cannot dispense in some of them, or establish that more degrees constitute impediments, let him be anathema."
Second, Jacob had two sisters, Rachel and Leah, as wives, which nevertheless is forbidden here in verse 18. Third, if what is said here, that no one should take his brother's wife, is absolutely a natural precept, then it would not likewise have been permitted by the law of nature to take that same wife in the case where a brother had died without children: yet this was permitted, as is evident from Deuteronomy 25:5; for what is absolutely forbidden and evil by the law of nature is permitted in no case. Again, if this were a law of nature, the marriage of an uncle with a niece should have been prohibited here just as much as that of an aunt with a nephew. For that cause of distinction and disparity which I gave at verse 12 is slight, and does not suffice to overturn the law of nature, nor does it remove the equal bond of consanguinity in the same degree.
Fourth, the same thing is evident from the common practice of the Church, which has often dispensed and does dispense in the degrees prohibited here, as the Pope dispensed with Catherine, the wife of Arthur, so that upon his death she might marry Henry VIII, Arthur's brother, king of England.
Finally, the common opinion of the Doctors is that only the degrees of consanguinity in the direct line between ascendants and descendants, and at most the first degree in the collateral line, which is that of brother with sister (although Cajetan himself denies even this), invalidate a marriage by the law of nature.
Therefore these degrees were forbidden to the Jews by the divine positive law, which has now been abolished and does not bind Christians: the Church, however, has renewed this law and forbidden the same degrees in Christian marriages (and has even added others besides); and this firstly because nature and natural modesty shrink from them, and to go against this without just cause is sinful: hence the Canaanite nations who acted against this are said here to have been punished and expelled by God, verse 24. Yet note there that those nations were expelled more on account of idolatry, sodomy, and other crimes, as I shall say at verse 28.
Second, because the law of nature inclines toward this, that such marriages be invalidated by positive law, upon which accordingly dispensation may fall, when otherwise a greater common good demands it, and easily compensates for and covers the indecency, and whatever might otherwise seem contrary to natural modesty in such a union. And from this it is clear what must be answered to the argument brought to the contrary. And the Council of Toledo, Session II, chapter V, intended only this when, alluding to these Levitical laws, it said: "We decree that no one of the faithful should desire to be joined in marriage to a blood relative, as far as the lineaments of affinity are known by the succession of the family; since it is written: No man shall approach his near kin; nor is this without the pronouncement of a sentence; for it adds: The soul that shall have done any of these abominations shall perish from the midst of his people."
Verse 19: A Woman in Her Monthly Separation
19. Nor shall you uncover the foulness (that is, the shame) of her, — for in Hebrew it is eruat, that is, nakedness, which our translator everywhere here renders as "shame."
Of a woman in the separation of her monthly flow, — that is, who suffers menstruation, or who suffers any flow of blood from the womb. See above, chapter XV, 19.
This law is moral, and obliges in the new law; because it contains a precept about not approaching a menstruating woman; which is also prohibited by natural reason, both because it is an indecent and foul thing, and because such intercourse is harmful to offspring, if any should result from it, since a child conceived from it is often leprous, deformed, or weak: so the consensus of physicians. Indeed in a grave necessity of circumstances, when one faces danger of death, it is generally only a venial sin.
Verse 20: Your Neighbor's Wife
20. You shall not lie with your neighbor's wife, — for this is adultery, contrary to the justice owed to one's neighbor.
Verse 21: The Idol Moloch
21. You shall not give of your seed to be consecrated to the idol Moloch: nor shall you defile the name of your God. — One may ask, what was the idol Moloch? Note that Moloch is the same as Molech (as the Hebrews now point and pronounce it), and the same as Melech, that is, king; and the same as Melchom, that is, their king. Hence St. Jerome in Isaiah 57 calls Moloch "king," and the Seventy here translate Moloch as archonta, that is, prince. He was therefore called Moloch, that is, king and prince, namely of men and gods, on account of the remarkable devotion and worship given to that idol, as if he himself were the supreme God of all. Thus also the Ethiopians still call God emlach, that is, king, from the Hebrew Melech, that is, king.
I say first: Moloch was Baal, that is, the god of the Ammonites, to whom the Jews offered not only their seed through licentiousness and idolatry, but also their sons through murder and idolatry, burning them with fire. This is clear from 4 Kings chapter 23:10, where Josiah decreed "that no one should consecrate his son or daughter through fire to Moloch." And Jeremiah 32:35: "That they might initiate their sons and daughters to Moloch;" and Psalm 105, verses 37 and 38: "And they sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons," namely Moloch.
The Statue of Moloch
I say second: The Hebrews, and from them Lyranus, Abulensis, Adrichomius, A Castro, and generally the more recent authors relate that the idol Moloch was a hollow statue having broad hands, in which the child to be sacrificed was placed, and burned by fire set beneath the statue, or was led through fire, that is, pushed through fire into the arms of Moloch, so that he would be cremated as if by its embrace, and thus a pleasing sacrifice would be made to the god Moloch, and then they would say the child had been snatched to the heavens by the gods. For such is the statue of Saturn (who was either similar to or the same as Moloch) described by Diodorus, Book XX; although others, but few, think that the child was thrown through the mouth of Moloch into its belly and burned there. But this mouth would have been excessively vast and horrible. If, however, they offered sons and daughters not to be burned but to be initiated into the rites of Moloch, then they drove them through the middle of two pyres toward the idol. See Plutarch, in his book On Superstition.
Now, lest the wailing of the children, whether thus driven or burning and dying, should be heard by the parents, the priests and other ministers of the idol would beat the toph, that is, the drum: hence the place was called Tophet, just as from its possessors, namely the sons of Hinnom, it was called Gehennom, that is, the valley of Hinnom. Hence from a similar cruelty and burning, hell is called by Christ "Gehenna," Matthew 5:23. Moreover, it is certain that the Jews in the desert worshipped Moloch, as is evident from Acts chapter 7, verse 43. And indeed it is conjectured that they were very much addicted to it, from the fact that its worship is studiously forbidden to them both here and in chapter 20, above all other idols. Perhaps the Jews were incited to this by the example of Abraham their forefather, who sacrificed his son Isaac to God; but wrongly so. For Abraham did this by a particular and express command of God, and sacrificed his Isaac not to an idol, but to the true God. For from this cause many think that the Moloch of the Jews had the head of a calf, because the Jews in the desert worshipped Seraphim, that is, a calf.
The Identity of Moloch
I say third: Oecumenius on Acts 7, and Arias Montanus on Amos 1, think Moloch was Mercury: for they say he was called Moloch from malach, that is, messenger, because he was considered the conductor of souls and the messenger of the gods. Cajetan thinks Moloch was Priapus. Others think Moloch was Jupiter: for he is Melech, that is, king of the gods. Others, among whom is Christophorus a Castro on Jeremiah 32:35, opine — and perhaps more plausibly — that Moloch was Saturn: for although the Gentiles offered human blood not only to Saturn, but also to Jupiter, Diana, Bacchus, Mars, Pallas, Agraulus, and Diomedes, as Cyril testifies in Book IV Against Julian, after the beginning, and Eusebius teaches the same at length in Book IV of the Preparation, chapter 7, from Diodorus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Manetho and others: yet Eusebius above, and Philo in Book I of the History of the Phoenicians, Curtius in Book IV, and Diodorus in Book XX, teach that the Phoenicians or Canaanites (to whom the Jews were neighbors) and the Carthaginians who descended from them, were accustomed to sacrifice their dearest friends and their own children specifically to Saturn, especially in some grave calamity in order to avert it. Hence Imilce, the wife of Hannibal, when her son Aspar was to be slaughtered: "Me, me," she said, "who bore him, consume with your vows." So Silius Italicus, Book IV of the Punica.
Hence also Plato, Plutarch, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus teach that among the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Rhodians, and Cretans it was the custom that infants distinguished by princely honor, whom the casting of lots had designated, would be sacrificed to Saturn in royal garb. When the Carthaginians later fell away from these rites, having been defeated by Agathocles and believing that the gods were therefore angry, they slaughtered two hundred sons of nobles and sacrificed them to the gods, says Festus as cited by Lactantius, Book I of On the False Religion, chapter 21.
And for this reason the Poets invented the story that Saturn wished to devour the children of his mother Rhea, but that the noise and voice of the mother, and the crying of the infant Jupiter, turned him aside and deterred him. So St. Augustine, Book VII of The City of God, chapter 9.
Similar Idolatry among the Indians
A similar idolatry flourished in our own age among the Indians: for the Mexicans annually sacrificed up to 20,000 men to the demon; and in Michoacan a city demon demanded to be offered that which was dearest to the citizens, such as a bride, or a beautiful infant: for that reason the natives, loathing so savage a god, embraced the faith of Christ with open arms, as the chiefs of Michoacan testified to Father Antonio Mendoza, the Provincial of our Society. Learn here the cruelty of the demon, who in return for the meager gifts he bestows on his own, demands such costly, ruinous, and fatal victims for himself. The same is experienced today by witches, indeed by all sinners, who for a cheap pleasure sell their souls to the devil for eternal torments.
The Piety of Constantine
Hear, on the other hand, the piety and kindness of the Emperor Constantine, who, having been struck with leprosy, was, on the advice of certain persons, to be washed in the blood of little children. Hearing the mothers wailing, and having learned the cause of such great mourning, he said with tears: "The dignity and greatness of the Roman Empire has its true fountain and root in piety. Therefore, to show that I have come from it, I set the health of my body below the lives of innocent children." So Nicephorus, Book VII of the Histories, chapter 34. Hence God repaid him with health through baptism, and such great glory and splendor of empire.
Tropological Sense: Giving Seed to Moloch
Tropologically, those give their seed to Moloch who do something good for the sake of acquiring vain praise or earthly honor, says Radulphus.
Far more truly do those give their seed to Moloch who devote their children to the demon, who raise them in heresy, lusts, robberies, and other sins.
But to whom? To Moloch, that is, the most cruel king, the greatest tyrant, namely the devil. "It is unjust," says St. Gregory, "to serve the devil, who is appeased by no service." And St. Augustine, Sermon 4: "What," he says, "is more depraved? What more malicious? Or what more wicked than our adversary? who sowed war in heaven, fraud in paradise, hatred among the first brothers, and weeds in all our works. For in eating he placed gluttony, in generation lust, in labor sloth, in social life envy, in government avarice, in correction anger, in authority or dominion pride. In the heart he placed evil thoughts, in the mouth false speech, in the limbs wicked deeds: in waking he stirs to depraved works, in sleeping to shameful dreams. The joyful he moves to dissolution, the sad to despair. But to speak more briefly, all the evils of the world have been committed through his wickedness." Hence comes the fire of concupiscence, with which this Moloch burns his own, so that he may consume them with himself in the fire of Gehenna.
Nor shall you defile the name of your God. — For this would be a disgrace to Me and to My name, if, having abandoned Me, or to My injury, you were to worship idols, and especially Moloch with such an infamous cult.
Verse 22: Sodomy
22. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman, — such is sodomy, which is an abomination of nature and grace.
Verse 23: Bestiality
23. With any beast you shall not lie, — that is: You shall lie with no beast. Note: "every" is not the same as "none," even according to the rules of equivalences among our Logicians. "Not every" is different: for among Logicians this means the same as "some not"; but among the Hebrews it often means the same as "none." Hence it follows:
Verse 24: Do Not Defile Yourselves
24. Nor shall you defile yourselves in any of these things, — that is, defile yourselves in none of them.
Verse 25: The Land Is Defiled
25. By which the land has been defiled. — Learn from this that vices, especially enormous ones, are so horrible and foul that they not only defile the sinners themselves, but also sprinkle the land in which they dwell with this infamy, so that from its most wicked inhabitants the land itself is called wicked and defiled.
Whose (namely of the land, that is, of those who dwell in that land) crimes I will visit, — that is, I will punish; it is metonymy. For "the land," which was taken properly just before, is here taken metonymically for the inhabitants of the land. So St. Augustine, Question 58.
Verse 26: Both Native and Stranger
26. Both the native-born and the stranger. — "Stranger" is here called the settler who has passed into the colony and law of the Hebrews and "sojourns" among them, that is, dwells.
Verse 28: Lest the Land Vomit You Out
28. Take care therefore lest the land also vomit you out in like manner, when you shall have done the same things, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. — Note the word "vomited out," as if to say: When God expelled the Canaanites from their land through the Hebrews, even the land itself, as if rejoicing and approving, and not retaining but releasing them, in a way ejected them. He speaks of the future as if of the past prophetically: "vomited out," that is, will certainly and shortly vomit out. Again this is a Hebrew metaphor, by which for greater emphasis, the life and action of a living being is attributed to an inanimate thing.
By a similar trope the land is said to groan, cry out, be angry, and demand vengeance, as: "The water of the sea shall rage against them (the reprobate)," Wisdom chapter 5. "Every creature groans and travails until now," Romans 8. For by this trope Scripture wishes to signify the enormity of crimes, namely that the irrational creatures themselves, always obedient to their Creator and fighting for Him, detest such sinners, and the earth as it were vomits them out when they are expelled from it: they detest, I say, with a natural detestation and appetite, by which they are borne toward their own order, and toward fulfilling the order of the whole universe and the will of God, and shrink from those things that are contrary to these: and they would do the same by rational appetite, if they had one. Therefore the crimes of the Canaanites were the reason why they were driven from their possession by the Hebrews.
Note here that these crimes of the Canaanites were adulteries, idolatries, sodomies, bestialities, etc., concerning which see verse 20 and following, rather than marriages with nieces, in-laws, and blood relatives, enumerated above; because the latter were not invalid by the law of nature, but only had a certain indecency and immodesty, on account of which they seem to have been only venial sins: for the fact that they are now mortal, and that they invalidate marriage, they have from human positive law. So Cajetan, Bellarmine, and Sanchez, volume II On Marriage, Book VII, Question 52.
Of this expulsion of the Canaanites another cause is given by St. Augustine, Sermon 105 On the Times, and Epiphanius, Book II Against Heresies, chapter 66, and Andreas Masius on Joshua 1, namely that the land of Canaan fell to Shem and his descendants in the division of the world; but that the Canaanites, descendants of Ham, expelled the Shemites by force, and therefore it was justly restored by God to the Hebrews, the grandchildren of Shem; the argument for this being that Melchizedek, who either was Shem or was born from Shem, dwelt in the land of Canaan. [But I have shown in chapters 9 and 10 of Genesis that the land of Canaan fell to the Canaanites, not the Shemites, in the allotment of the world. Again, I have shown in Genesis 14 that Melchizedek was not Shem or a Shemite, but rather descended from Ham and Canaan.]