Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The eunuch, the Ammonite and the Moabite are forever barred from the Church of God; likewise the Idumean and the Egyptian up to the third generation, and the mamzer up to the tenth. Second, verse 10, God commands the camp to be clean from pollution and excrement. Third, verse 17, He forbids fornication. Fourth, verse 19, He forbids lending at interest to a brother, but allows it to a foreigner. Fifth, verse 21, He commands that a vow be paid without delay.
Vulgate Text: Deuteronomy 23:1-25
1. No eunuch, with bruised or cut off testicles, and cut off member, shall enter the Church of the Lord. 2. No mamzer, that is, one born of a harlot, shall enter the Church of the Lord, up to the tenth generation. 3. The Ammonite and Moabite, even after the tenth generation, shall not enter the Church of the Lord, forever: 4. because they would not meet you with bread and water on the way, when you came out of Egypt; and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Mesopotamia of Syria, to curse you: 5. and the Lord your God would not hear Balaam, and turned his curse into a blessing for you, because He loved you. 6. You shall not make peace with them, nor seek their good all the days of your life forever. 7. You shall not abominate the Idumean, because he is your brother; nor the Egyptian, because you were a stranger in his land. 8. Those born of them in the third generation shall enter the Church of the Lord. 9. When you go out against your enemies in battle, keep yourself from every evil thing. 10. If there is among you a man who is polluted by a nocturnal dream, he shall go out of the camp, 11. and shall not return until he is washed with water in the evening: and after sunset he shall return to the camp. 12. You shall have a place outside the camp, to which you go out for the necessities of nature, 13. carrying a paddle in your belt, and when you sit down, you shall dig around, and cover with earth 14. what you have relieved yourself of (for the Lord your God walks in the midst of the camp, to deliver you and to give your enemies over to you); and let your camp be holy, and let nothing unseemly appear in it, lest He abandon you. 15. You shall not hand over a slave to his master who has fled to you; 16. he shall dwell with you in the place that pleases him, and shall rest in one of your cities: do not grieve him. 17. There shall be no harlot from the daughters of Israel, nor a fornicator from the sons of Israel. 18. You shall not offer the hire of a prostitute, nor the price of a dog, in the house of the Lord your God, whatever it may be that you have vowed: because both are an abomination to the Lord your God. 19. You shall not lend to your brother at interest, whether money, or produce, or any other thing; 20. but to a foreigner. To your brother, however, you shall lend without interest what he needs: that the Lord your God may bless you in all your work in the land that you are entering to possess. 21. When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, because the Lord your God will require it; and if you delay, it shall be counted to you as sin. 22. If you do not wish to promise, you shall be without sin. 23. But what has once gone forth from your lips you shall observe, and do as you promised the Lord your God, and spoke with your own will and mouth. 24. If you enter your neighbor's vineyard, eat grapes as much as you please: but do not carry any out with you. 25. If you enter your friend's grain field, you may pluck the ears and rub them with your hand: but you shall not reap with a sickle.
Verse 1: No Eunuch Shall Enter the Church
1. NO EUNUCH, WITH BRUISED OR CUT OFF TESTICLES, AND CUT OFF MEMBER (the male organ), SHALL ENTER THE CHURCH OF THE LORD. -- By "Church" some understand the court of the temple or tabernacle; for so it seems to be explained in Lamentations chapter 1, verse 10, where it says: "She saw the nations enter her sanctuary, concerning whom You had commanded that they should not enter Your Church." So Theodoretus, Olympiodorus, and Dionysius the Carthusian on Lamentations 1:10. Second, Cajetan and Oleaster understand by Church the leading men of the Church and assembly of the Jews, as if to say: The eunuch, etc., shall not be among the magistrates of the Jews.
But I say that for "he shall not enter the Church of the Lord," the Hebrew is "he shall not enter the congregation of the Lord," so that he may be of the holy people, that he may be counted an Israelite and a son of Abraham, that he may have the right to marry an Israelite woman, that he may enjoy the rights of the Jews. Therefore to enter the Church of the Lord is to be numbered among the Israelite people, and to enjoy the graces and privileges that Israelites enjoyed under the law, such as that money not be given to them at interest, that they enjoyed the privileges of the seventh year of remission and the jubilee year, as I discussed at Leviticus 25:44, and many other things. Therefore eunuchs, Ammonites, Moabites, etc., are not here barred from Judaism, the faith, salvation, and the temple; for this would seem foreign to the goodness of God: they could therefore become proselytes, and so be admitted to the Passover and other sacred rites of the Jews, as is clear from Exodus 12:48. They are therefore barred only from the political society of the Jews, so that they are not considered citizens, nor have civic rights among the Jews. So "Church" is taken for the assembly of the people, Numbers 20:4, and Judges 20:2, where it says: "All the tribes of Israel assembled in the Church of God."
Verse 2: No Mamzer Shall Enter
2. NO MAMZER SHALL ENTER THE CHURCH OF THE LORD. -- "Mamzer" is an outsider, a bastard, an illegitimate child, born not from one's own legitimate wife, but from another, namely born of a harlot, from the root zur, that is, foreign, alien: or because the adulterous mother passes him off to her husband, though he is from another, as if he were his own offspring.
UP TO THE TENTH GENERATION. -- The eleventh therefore, the descendant descending from the mamzer, the stain and mark of birth being now as it were wiped away, could be received into the assembly and marriage of the Jews.
Tropologically, the eunuch signifies the barrenness of the soul, the mamzer evil fruit: these are to be kept from the Church of God. So Theodoretus, Questions 25 and 26.
Verse 6: You Shall Not Make Peace with Them
6. YOU SHALL NOT MAKE PEACE WITH THEM (the Ammonites and Moabites, who were your enemies and hired Balaam against you to curse you), NOR SEEK THEIR GOOD -- as if to say: You shall have no dealings with them as regards daily life and temporal commerce, lest they again be a scandal to you, and strive to seduce you as if from an inborn hatred, to entice you to idolatry and destroy you. God here bars eunuchs, mamzers, Moabites, and Ammonites from His people, both for the honor and dignity of His people -- for which reason St. Ambrose would not admit actors to the Christian Church; and because of the inborn crimes and hatred of the Ammonites and Moabites toward the Jews, as I have already said. Hence Theodoretus: Moab, he says, and Ammon are barred from the Church of God because of their tainted root and their impiety. Women are excepted; for Ruth the Moabitess married Boaz, the great-grandfather of David.
Tropologically, Moab signifies concupiscence, which is from the father the devil, likewise the carnal senses, which will never enter the heavenly Church of God: so Origen, homily 5 on Genesis, Ambrose, Gregory, and others.
Verse 8: The Third Generation of Egyptians and Idumeans
8. THOSE BORN OF THEM (Egyptians or Idumeans) IN THE THIRD GENERATION SHALL ENTER THE CHURCH OF THE LORD. -- This third generation was to be counted from the one who had first converted to Judaism, and had crossed over from the Egyptians and Idumeans to the Jews by dwelling in Judea.
Verse 9: Keep Yourself from Every Evil Thing
9. WHEN YOU GO OUT TO BATTLE, KEEP YOURSELF FROM EVERY EVIL THING -- from thefts, pillaging, fornication, perjuries, blasphemies, and other vices with which soldiers are wont to be infected and to infect the camp. Thus Julius "Caesar desired in a soldier no less modesty and self-control than valor and greatness of spirit," as he himself says, Book 6 of the Gallic War.
Scipio the Younger, seeing in the camp much license, wantonness, superstition, and luxury, immediately expelled the soothsayers along with the pimps: indeed he ordered all vessels to be removed except a pot, a spit, and an earthen cup. He decreed that the soldiers should eat their lunch standing, food not cooked by fire; but for dinner, reclining, bread or plain porridge alone, and roasted or boiled meat. He himself, covered with a military cloak, walked through the camp, saying "he mourned the disgraces of the army." So Plutarch in the Roman Apophthegms.
King Theodoric, in Cassiodorus, Book 7, ordains thus: "The soldiers entrusted to you shall live with the provincials under civil law, nor let the spirit of one who feels himself armed grow insolent, because that shield of our army ought to provide peace for the Romans."
Sergius Galba in the most serious wars kept his soldiers under the strictest discipline: to such an extent that as soon as he arrived at the camp, the following trochaic verse immediately spread: "Learn, soldier, to be a soldier; it is Galba, not Getulicus."
Alexander Severus, on campaigns, if anyone strayed from the road onto someone's property, beat him with rods or sticks; if the offender was a man of rank, he severely rebuked him: "Would you want this done in your own field, what you do in another's?" He often cried out what he had heard from the Christians, and had it proclaimed by a herald whenever he punished anyone: "What you do not want done to you, do not do to another." So Lampridius.
The Emperor Aurelian, when he received a letter from his deputy requesting that he write back how matters should be conducted, immediately wrote back thus: "If you wish to be a tribune -- nay, if you wish to live -- restrain the hands of the soldiers: let no one seize another's chicken, let no one touch a sheep, let no one carry off a grape." So Vopiscus in his Life of Aurelian.
But most excellently and briefly St. John the Baptist answered the soldiers asking, "What shall we do to be saved?": "Do not extort from anyone, nor make false accusations, and be content with your pay," Luke 3.
Wherefore Valerius Maximus, Book 2, rightly concludes: "Military discipline requires a harsh and severe type of punishment; because its strength consists in arms, which, when they have strayed from the right path, will oppress unless they are themselves oppressed."
Verse 10: Nocturnal Pollution
10. HE WHO IS POLLUTED BY A DREAM SHALL GO OUT OF THE CAMP. -- Tropologically St. Gregory, Book 9 of the Moralia, 40: "A nocturnal dream," he says, "is a hidden temptation. For the polluted to go out of the camp is for one laboring under shameful assault to despise himself in comparison with the continent. He who is washed with water toward evening -- when, seeing his defect, he turns to the laments of penance; but after sunset let him return to the camp, because when the heat of temptation has subsided, he must once again take up confidence toward the society of the good."
Verses 12-13: A Place outside the Camp
12 and 13. YOU SHALL HAVE A PLACE OUTSIDE THE CAMP, TO WHICH YOU GO OUT FOR THE NECESSITIES OF NATURE, CARRYING A PADDLE IN YOUR BELT, etc. -- and this for the decency and cleanliness of the camp; hence verse 14 says: "Let your camp be holy," that is, pure and clean: for God, who is the fountain of all purity and the most pure Spirit, loves cleanliness both internal and external; second, for the health of the camp; third, to avoid offending the priests, who passed through the camp with the ark and the holy vessels. The Hebrews were able to address these inconveniences in the Promised Land; hence there in the cities they had their privies as we do. Wherefore Abulensis thinks this precept was binding only in the desert: add also in time of war, in the camps. The Essenes indeed, as men most zealous for both the law and purity, strictly observed this law even in Judea, as Josephus teaches, Book 2 of the Jewish War, chapter 7.
Tropologically St. Gregory, Book 31 of the Moralia, 22, and from him Rupertus: "We must carry a paddle under our belt, so that, always girded to reprove ourselves, we may have about us the sharp goad of compunction, which may unceasingly pierce the ground of our mind with the pain of repentance, and may hide what erupts foully from us." Hence also Cyril in the Glaphyra takes the paddle to mean each person's cross.
Verse 15: The Fugitive Slave
15. YOU SHALL NOT HAND OVER A SLAVE TO HIS MASTER WHO HAS FLED TO YOU -- namely when the master unjustly wishes to afflict, harm, or kill him, as is clear from what follows, until the master has been appeased and reconciled with him; for then the slave is to be restored to his master.
Verse 17: No Harlot or Fornicator in Israel
17. THERE SHALL BE NO HARLOT FROM THE DAUGHTERS OF ISRAEL, NOR A FORNICATOR. -- The law warns first, daughters and sons to beware of fornication; second, parents, not to permit them to fornicate, nor to prostitute their daughters; third, the magistrate, not to tolerate in his polity public fornication and brothels. For if a harlot is forbidden to Jewish Israelites, much more is a foreign Gentile woman forbidden, from whom there was a danger of idolatry, as the outcome proved with the Midianite and Moabite women, who led the Hebrews to worship Baal-peor; hence God raged against them, Numbers chapter 25.
THERE SHALL BE NO FORNICATOR FROM THE SONS OF ISRAEL. -- For "fornicator" it can be translated with Vatablus and Pagninus as a male prostitute, namely a catamite or pathic boy. For the Hebrew kadesh aptly signifies this. Our Vulgate elsewhere translates it as "effeminate," just as its feminine kedeshuh here and elsewhere signifies a female prostitute or harlot. Others, however, with our Vulgate also rightly translate it as "fornicator."
Verse 18: The Hire of a Prostitute and the Price of a Dog
18. YOU SHALL NOT OFFER THE HIRE OF A PROSTITUTE, NOR THE PRICE OF A DOG IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD. -- Philo rightly infers from this: "If the gifts of a woman compliant to lovers are called profane, how much more those of the fornicating soul, which has prostituted itself to be violated by violence, gluttony, pleasure, ambition, and greed?"
Again St. Jerome on Isaiah 66:3, citing this passage of Deuteronomy: "Beautifully," he says, "the dog and the harlot are coupled together, because both animals are inclined to lust." Both also men abominate for their impudence, baseness, filthiness, and stench, especially the Hebrews. Hence that saying of Abner, 2 Kings 3:8, to Ishbosheth who was reproaching him with lust and intercourse with the concubines of his father Saul: "Am I a dog's head?" And David to Saul, 1 Kings 24:15: "Whom do you pursue, O king of Israel? A dead dog."
Verse 19: You Shall Not Lend at Interest
19. YOU SHALL NOT LEND TO YOUR BROTHER AT INTEREST. -- "Interest" in Hebrew is called nesech, that is, a bite, namely a dog's bite. Since therefore no one wanted to be considered a hungry dog who feeds himself by biting others, hence to escape the disgrace they called interest tarbit, that is, increment, just as it was called by the Latins by the respectable name usura. God, to counter such deceits and pretexts, here joins both names and condemns them. Hear Rabbi Solomon: The increment, he says, is called nesech (usury), because it is like the bite of a serpent, which makes a small wound on someone's foot, so that he does not feel it, but soon it creeps and spreads its venom until it reaches his head. So too the increment of interest operates: for it is not felt or noticed until it grows so much that it exhausts someone's entire substance. Hence interest is called by the Chaldeans chabulia, that is, perdition, because it destroys and devastates all wealth. Hence nesech alludes by metathesis to nachash, that is, serpent, because like a serpent it gnaws and kills a man. Hence St. Chrysostom on Matthew chapter 5: The money of the usurer, he says, is like the bite of an asp. For one bitten by an asp, as if delighted, goes to sleep, and through the sweetness of his slumber dies, because then the venom runs secretly through all his limbs; so the one who takes money at interest, at that time feels it as a benefit, but the interest runs through all his resources and converts everything into debt, that is, it devours the man. Wherefore St. Ambrose, Book 3 of the Offices, calls interest homicide. So Cato testifies that thieves were formerly condemned to double restitution, but usurers to quadruple; and when asked what lending at interest was, he answered: It is to kill a man. For usury exhausts the poor and kills them with hunger. Hence also the philosophers condemned interest as repugnant to natural reason; for it is manifestly unjust that profit should be exacted from a non-productive thing, namely money, and this to the grave harm of one's neighbor, especially of the poor.
The Romans, by the law of the twelve tables, provided that no one should lend at more than one-twelfth interest; soon by a tribunician measure the rate was reduced to one-twenty-fourth, then immediately to one-half, then to one-third; finally Lucius Gemutius, tribune of the people, proposed to the people that all lending at interest should be entirely prohibited; the gradually reviving interest Caesar again cut down. Lucullus was praised for having freed Asia from usury, Cato for having freed Sicily.
Cornelius Tacitus relates that among the Germans all lending at interest was unknown and execrated. The Indians never admitted usury. Agis, the Athenian leader, so detested interest that, having lit a fire in the forum, he arranged for all the account-books of the usurers to be burned, at which Agesilaus exclaimed that he had never seen a more magnificent and brilliant fire.
Verse 20: But to a Foreigner
20. BUT TO A FOREIGNER -- to an alien, who is not of your nation, whether he persists in infidelity or has converted to Judaism. God therefore permitted the Jews to lend at interest to foreigners, and permitted foreigners to lend to Jews, because of the hardness of their hearts, lest the Jews, craving profit, should lend at interest to their fellow Jews; He permitted it, that is, He did not punish it. For that all usury was forbidden, even under that old law absolutely, without distinction of brother or stranger, is gathered from Psalm 14:5, Psalm 54:12, Ezekiel 18:8. So Lyranus, Cajetan, and others.
The Jews therefore wrongly seek in this passage a pretext for their usuries, by which they lend at interest to Christians and other nations. Especially because the Jews call and believe the Romans to be Idumeans. But the Idumeans were brothers of the Jews; for their ancestor Esau was the brother of Jacob or Israel. If therefore Christians are Idumeans, then they are brothers of the Jews; therefore it is not lawful to lend to them at interest. For the law says: "You shall not lend at interest to your brother."
St. Ambrose, in the book On Tobias, chapter 15, by "foreigners" understands hostile nations, such as the Amalekites, Amorites, Canaanites, etc., as if to say: Exact interest from those whom it is no crime to kill. For where there is the right of war, there is also the right of usury. And so by a double right, namely first of reprisal and second of war, the Jews could lend at interest to these nations.
Finally, St. Bernardine of Siena piously and truly said "that interest can be practiced without sin, if money were entrusted to those who could not even return the capital sum," namely if it were given to the poor.
Verses 24-25: Gleaning in Vineyards and Fields
24. IF YOU ENTER A VINEYARD. -- What is said here about plucking and eating your neighbor's grapes and ears of grain, provided they are not carried out, understand by analogy the same of fruits and other produce. So Abulensis.
25. IF YOU ENTER YOUR FRIEND'S GRAIN FIELD -- namely of a Jew, your fellow countryman. For the Jews were called brothers and friends or neighbors; for with the Gentiles the Jews scarcely had friendship.