Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Moses repeats certain laws about mercy, to be exercised even toward animals -- such as about lifting up the ox, about not taking the mother with the chicks, about not plowing with an ox and a donkey. Second, verse 13, a husband falsely charging his bride with fornication is commanded to be beaten and to pay one hundred shekels of silver. Third, verse 20, the adulterer and adulteress, even if she is only betrothed, are commanded to be stoned. Fourth, verse 25, he who forces an unbetrothed virgin is commanded to pay 50 shekels of silver, and to marry the virgin and keep her always.
Vulgate Text: Deuteronomy 22:1-30
1. You shall not see your brother's ox, or sheep straying, and pass by; but you shall bring them back to your brother, 2. even if your brother is not a neighbor, nor do you know him: you shall bring them to your house, and they shall remain with you as long as your brother seeks them, and receives them. 3. You shall do likewise with his donkey, and with his garment, and with every thing of your brother's that has been lost: if you find it, do not neglect it as if it were another's. 4. If you see your brother's donkey or ox fallen on the road, you shall not look away, but shall lift it up with him. 5. A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man use a woman's garment: for whoever does these things is an abomination to God. 6. If while walking along the road you find a bird's nest in a tree or on the ground, and the mother sitting upon the chicks or eggs, you shall not take her with the young; 7. but you shall let her go, keeping the young you have caught, that it may be well with you, and you may live a long time. 8. When you build a new house, you shall make a wall around the roof, lest blood be shed in your house, and you be guilty when another slips and falls headlong. 9. You shall not sow your vineyard with another kind of seed; lest both the seed which you have sown and what grows from the vineyard be alike sanctified. 10. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. 11. You shall not wear a garment woven of wool and linen together. 12. You shall make tassels on the fringes at the four corners of your cloak with which you cover yourself. 13. If a man takes a wife, and afterward hates her, 14. and seeks occasions to dismiss her, charging her with a bad name, and says: I took this woman as wife, and going in to her I did not find her a virgin; 15. her father and mother shall take her, and shall bring with them the tokens of her virginity to the elders of the city who are at the gate; 16. and the father shall say: I gave my daughter to this man as wife, and because he hates her, 17. he charges her with a bad name, saying: I did not find your daughter a virgin; and behold, these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. They shall spread the garment before the elders of the city: 18. and the elders of that city shall seize the man, and beat him, 19. condemning him moreover to pay one hundred shekels of silver, which he shall give to the father of the girl, because he brought a bad name upon a virgin of Israel: and he shall have her as wife, and shall not be able to dismiss her all the days of his life. 20. But if it is true what he charges, and virginity is not found in the girl, 21. they shall cast her out before the doors of her father's house, and the men of that city shall stone her, and she shall die: because she committed a crime in Israel, by fornicating in her father's house; and you shall remove evil from your midst. 22. If a man sleeps with another man's wife, both shall die, that is, the adulterer and the adulteress: and you shall remove evil from Israel. 23. If a man has betrothed a young virgin, and someone finds her in the city, and lies with her, 24. you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and they shall be stoned: the girl, because she did not cry out when she was in the city; the man, because he humbled his neighbor's wife: and you shall remove evil from your midst. 25. But if in the field a man finds a girl who is betrothed, and seizing her lies with her, he alone shall die: 26. the girl shall suffer nothing, nor is she guilty of death; for just as a robber rises against his brother and kills his life, so also the girl has suffered. 27. She was alone in the field: she cried out, and there was no one present to deliver her. 28. If a man finds a virgin girl who has no betrothed, and seizing her lies with her, and the matter comes to judgment: 29. he who slept with her shall give the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and shall have her as wife, because he humbled her: he shall not be able to dismiss her all the days of his life. 30. A man shall not take his father's wife, nor uncover her covering.
Verse 1: You Shall Not See Your Brother's Ox Straying
1. YOU SHALL NOT SEE YOUR BROTHER'S OX (that is, of a Jew, who is of your nation and race, as well as your religion. Under "ox" understand the horse, mule, and other animals: for the reason is the same for all) STRAYING, AND PASS BY: BUT YOU SHALL BRING IT BACK TO YOUR BROTHER. -- God ordained this to foster and practice mutual charity among the Jews. For the same reason He commands in verse 4 that a neighbor's donkey that has fallen be lifted up. Why then should not Christians do the same, even if they are farmers and peasants? Alfonso of Aragon, King of Naples and Sicily, while traveling through Campania, came upon a mule-driver whose pack animal, laden with flour, was stuck in the mud, and the driver was begging the help of passersby; the king himself, dismounting from his horse, lent his effort to the driver in pulling the donkey from the mud; and when the driver recognized the king, falling on his knees he asked pardon; the king dismissed him with kind words, and by this deed won over the people of Campania. The witness is Panormitanus, in his Life, Book 1.
Mystically, if God commands a donkey lying under a burden to be lifted up, how much more does He command a man groaning under sin to be raised and led out? St. Bernard, letter 203: "The virgin of Israel," he says, "has fallen, and there is none to raise her up. How long shall gold lie in the mud? Take up the pearl, take up, lift the most brilliant and most precious gem from the dung-heap, lift her up, before she is trampled under the feet of swine, that is, of foul spirits."
Verse 5: Cross-Dressing Forbidden
5. A WOMAN SHALL NOT WEAR A MAN'S GARMENT, NOR SHALL A MAN USE A WOMAN'S GARMENT -- both because this is in itself indecent, namely that a man should by his clothing pretend to be a woman, or a woman by her clothing pretend to be a man; and lest an opportunity be given to secret lusts and other vices; for the best guardian of chastity is honesty of dress: for, as the Poet says:
What modesty can a helmeted woman display, Who flees from her sex?
And Herodotus: "A woman," he says, "puts off her modesty along with her garment." See Rabanus. See also St. Ambrose's letter to Irenaeus, where he thoroughly discusses this law of Deuteronomy, and gives four reasons for it. "First, why," he says, "man, do you not wish to be seen as what you were born? Why do you assume for yourself a foreign appearance? Why do you pretend to be a woman, or you, woman, a man? Nature clothed each sex with its own garments. Indeed, the use, the color, the movement, the gait, the strength, and the voice are different in man and woman. Second, in birds too there is a proper comparison of clothing between them and humans. For in them the natural garments themselves distinguish the sex. Male peacocks are beautiful; females are not similarly painted with various colors of feathers. Pheasants too have a different color that distinguishes the distinction of sex. What about chicks? 'Certainly the appearance of the rooster is different from the hen.' Do they change their appearance? Why do we desire to change ours? Third, lying is disgraceful even in word, much more so in dress. Indeed in churches, where there is falsehood of faith, there is also falsehood of nature; there for men to assume women's dress and feminine gestures is considered sacrilege (that is, execrable, sacrilegious). Hence the law says: For unclean before the Lord is everyone who does these things. Fourth, rightly chastity is not preserved where the distinction of sex is not maintained." Hence it follows: "For whoever does these things is an abomination to God." Wherefore a Jew using women's dress, and a Jewess using men's dress, seems to have sinned mortally. Hence this precept seems to be partly natural, partly ceremonial, and now abolished, insofar as it bound under mortal sin. For now it is not a mortal sin if a man or woman exchanges the garments of their sex out of frivolity, if scandal is absent, and the intention and danger of lust, as St. Thomas, Cajetan, and from them Navarrus teach, Enchiridion chapter 23, number 22.
Tropologically Cyril, Book 5 of On Adoration, folio 87: God abominates, he says, and considers it a most disgraceful spectacle, both the pretense of courage in a soft life, and the languor of a soft spirit in a strong man.
Again Rupertus: A woman, he says, puts on a man's garment when he who does not know how to hold the governance of his own life dares to become a judge of another's life, and presumes to rule who has not yet learned to be subject. Conversely, a man uses a woman's garment when a spiritual man, or a doctor or prelate, who as a man presides in the Church, follows soft vices: whence it happens that the preaching of one whose life is despised is itself despised.
Verse 6: The Bird's Nest
6. YOU SHALL NOT TAKE THE MOTHER WITH THE YOUNG -- you shall not catch the mother with the chicks in the nest. The reason for this law was that through it the Jews might be led to piety and mercy, to be exercised even toward animals; so that more easily, says Tertullian, Book 2 Against Marcion, chapter 17, "humanity, practiced beforehand in cattle and beasts, might be trained for the relief of men." So also Theodoretus, Question 21. For the same reason God forbade them to cook a kid in its mother's milk, that is, a suckling, Exodus 23:19; and to plow with an ox and a donkey, in this chapter, verse 10; and to muzzle the ox treading out grain, Deuteronomy chapter 24, verse 4.
Verse 8: A Wall around the Roof
8. WHEN YOU BUILD A NEW HOUSE, YOU SHALL MAKE A WALL AROUND THE ROOF. -- In Palestine the roofs of houses were flat, on which people walked about, just as we do on upper floors; therefore, lest anyone happen to fall from the height around the edges to the ground, God here commands them to be enclosed with a wall or barrier.
Hear Maldonatus on Jeremiah chapter 48, verse 38: "In Judea," he says, "the roofs were open above and leveled, paved with bricks and plastered with cement, such as today there are many in our Baetica and in Italy, as even St. Jerome noted in his letter to Sunnia and Fretella, and he says they are called at Rome sun-terraces or balconies. And so on the roofs in winter they basked in the sun, in summer they dined at night; and they slept in the open air, and the Jews often gathered there to converse. From which that saying is understood: What you hear in the ear, preach upon the housetops, Matthew 10:17. And Peter, Acts 10:9, went up to the roof to pray."
Verse 9: Mixed Seeds in the Vineyard
9. YOU SHALL NOT SOW YOUR VINEYARD WITH ANOTHER KIND OF SEED (as if to say: You shall not sow among the vines two species of seed, or heterogeneous seeds: for these in Hebrew are called kilayim): for example, wheat with spelt, oats with barley. For in Palestine, a warm region, something was usually sown between the rows of vines, says Vatablus. But here God forbids this from being done with different seed; and gives the reason: LEST (the grapes and crops) BE ALIKE SANCTIFIED -- that is, polluted, because crops from this sowing of mixtures forbidden by God are considered unclean, and as it were pollute even the neighboring grapes which they touch and surround: for so God ordains here; see the discussion at Leviticus 19:19. Note: The Hebrew kadash, that is, to sanctify, is one of those words of contrary signification: hence in certain places, as here and elsewhere, it means to pollute.
Others explain it thus, as if to say: Lest out of greed and excessive desire for profit and produce, you sow some seed among vines and grapes: because the vineyard demands free soil for itself, and alone requires all its richness. So Rupertus, St. Augustine, and Procopius. But the former sense is more genuine.
The explanation of Theodoretus, Question 23, is also too remote: "Lest it be sanctified," he says, as if to say: I want you to sanctify to me, that is, to offer, such mixed seeds and crops: therefore do not sow such things, lest you be compelled to offer them to me.
Verse 10: Not Plowing with Ox and Donkey
10. YOU SHALL NOT PLOW WITH AN OX AND A DONKEY TOGETHER. -- The reason is that their strengths are unequal, and so the donkey paired with the ox would be overburdened beyond what is fair.
Tropologically St. Gregory, Book 1 of the Moralia, chapter 16, as if to say: "Do not pair a fool with wise men in preaching, lest through him who cannot accomplish the task you hinder the one who can." So Plato, pairing his two disciples, namely Xenocrates, who was of slower intellect, with the keen Aristotle: "Alas," he said, "am I to yoke a donkey with a horse? This one needs the bridle, that one needs the spur." So Plutarch in his Life of Plato.
Verse 12: Tassels in the Fringes
12. YOU SHALL MAKE TASSELS IN THE FRINGES. -- About these tassels and fringes of the Jews, I discussed at Numbers 15:38. Moreover, he commands these tassels to be made "at the four corners," that is, the edges or extremities, "of the cloak," that is, of the outer garment; because, as Abulensis says, the cloaks, that is, the outer garments of the Jews were open in front and behind, and at the two corners of each opening were two hyacinth-colored cords hanging down, and so there were four cords. So that these threads were in the fringes of the outer garment in front and behind, to the right and left -- I do not object. For so today we see the servants of certain princes sew their colors and coats of arms on these four sides of the cloak. Jews now in their Synagogues throw over their shoulders a rectangular garment to which these threads are sewn, as I discussed at Numbers 15.
Verse 14: Charging a Bad Name
14. CHARGING HER WITH A BAD NAME -- namely the crime of fornication and quasi-adultery; for nothing worse or more disgraceful can be said about a woman, especially a virgin. So Abulensis.
I DID NOT FIND HER A VIRGIN -- when she had represented herself as such to me before the betrothal, for otherwise I would not have wanted to marry her; and so this woman was presumed, from her own assertion, to have committed fornication after the betrothal, and therefore to be guilty of death, as is said in verse 21. For she herself had asserted she was a virgin when she was betrothed; and afterward the groom asserted he did not find her a virgin; therefore between the betrothal and the wedding, it was necessary to say she had been corrupted, and therefore she is condemned to death, verse 21. For if she had sinned before the betrothal, she was not punished with death, as is clear here and from Exodus 22:16. Moreover, immediately after the wedding was celebrated, the groom had to complain about the bride's fornication; otherwise his accusation would have been presumed false, and merely an occasion sought to dismiss her.
Verse 17: The Tokens of Virginity
17. BEHOLD, THESE ARE THE TOKENS OF MY DAUGHTER'S VIRGINITY. -- By these tokens, Abulensis and Lyranus understand the testimonies of the matrons who had examined the bride's virginity before the wedding; for the bride's parent had kept these preserved in writing. But commonly other interpreters, and even Abulensis himself in the end, take these tokens to be the garment, as is said in verse 17, that is, a linen cloth stained with blood, which physicians say flows from the bride at the first intercourse with the virgin. This linen cloth, therefore, the bride's father, in the presence of the groom and witnesses, received and stored away; and if the groom charged the bride with debauchery, he brought it before the judge, and thus refuted the groom's calumny. For this is what is meant first by "they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city;" second, verse 14, "going in to her, I did not find her a virgin." For if before the marital intercourse the matrons had examined and said she was not a virgin but corrupted, the groom would not have gone in to her, but would immediately have repudiated or accused her.
Verses 24-26: Betrothed and Unbetrothed
24. THE MAN -- not the one who betrothed her to himself, verse 23; but the one who humbled her who was betrothed to another, that is, violated her, as follows.
25 and 26. BUT IF IN THE FIELD (note: A betrothed girl, if she had suffered violation in the city, unless she had cried out and her cry had been heard, was considered to have consented to the violation, and therefore to be guilty of death: for if she had cried out, the neighbors would have rushed up and freed her; but if crying out in the field, even though her cry had been heard by no one, she was considered innocent: because there was scarcely anyone there who could hear and help her; hence about this girl it says): FOR AS A ROBBER RISES AGAINST HIS BROTHER, etc., SO ALSO THE GIRL HAS SUFFERED -- in Hebrew: for as someone rises against his neighbor and kills him with a blow of life, that is, with a blow by which the soul is separated from the body, so the matter stands.
Verses 28-30: Forcing an Unbetrothed Virgin
28. AND SEIZING HER -- that is, using force. Hence the Septuagint translates, biasamenos (having forced): for otherwise no law would be established here concerning those violently corrupted. So Tertullian, Book 4 Against Marcion, chapter 34; therefore he who by force had debauched an unbetrothed virgin is here commanded to marry her and keep her, and moreover to pay her father 50 shekels of silver.
30. NOR SHALL HE UNCOVER HER COVERING -- in Hebrew: you shall not uncover the skirt of your father's garment, that is, you shall not uncover the garment or covering by which the father's shame was covered; he calls the father's shame the private parts of the father's wife, as I discussed at Leviticus 18:6.