But if her husband utterly refuses on whatever day he hears, all her vows and her bindings which she has bound against her soul shall not remain, since the husband refused for her, and the Lord will cleanse her. The law did not will that a woman under her father before she marries, and a married woman under her husband, should thus vow anything to God against her soul—that is, in the abstinence from certain lawful and permitted things—so that in these vows the feminine authority should prevail, but the masculine; so that if the father, while she was still unmarried, had already granted her to pay her vows, and if, before she pays them, she marries and this is known to her husband and does not please him, she shall not pay them, and shall be altogether without sin, because the Lord will cleanse her, as it says, that is, will judge her clean;
nor is this to be thought as done against God, since God Himself commanded this, willed this. Then it follows concerning widows or women cast off by their husbands, that is, those not established under the authority of a husband or a father, and it says that their vows are free for the paying, in this manner. And the vow, it says, of a widow and of one cast out, whatever she shall have vowed against her soul, shall remain to her. Then it speaks of the married woman, if, already established in her husband's house, she has vowed some such thing. For before it had spoken of her who had vowed in her father's house and had married before she paid. Concerning this one, then, who vowed in her husband's house, it speaks thus:
But if in her husband's house is her vow or her binding which is against her soul with an oath, and her husband hears and holds his peace at her and does not refuse her, then all her vows shall stand, and all the bindings which she has bound against her soul shall stand against her. But if her husband on whatever day he hears utterly takes away, all things whatsoever that have gone forth from her lips according to her vows and according to the bindings which are against her soul shall not remain to her; her husband has taken them away, and the Lord will cleanse her. Every vow and every oath of a bond to afflict her soul, her husband shall establish for her, and her husband shall take it away.
But if he keeps utterly silent to her from day to day, then he establishes for her all her vows and the bindings which are upon her he establishes for her, because he was silent to her on the day he heard. But if her husband utterly takes away after the day on which he heard, then he shall bear her sin. It is manifest that the law willed the woman to be under the husband in such a way that none of her vows, which she has vowed for the sake of abstinence, are to be paid by her, unless the husband is the sanctioning author by permitting it. For when it willed it to pertain to the sin of that same husband, if he first permitted and afterwards forbade, yet even here it did not say that the woman should do what she had vowed, because she had first been permitted by the husband. It said it was the husband's sin, because he refused what he had first granted;
yet neither did it, even on this account, give the woman permission such that, when the husband had first granted it to her, she should hold him in contempt if he afterwards forbade it. But whether these things pertain also to vows of continence and abstinence from intercourse is rightly inquired, lest perhaps only those things are to be understood as vowed against the soul which are in food and drink. This also seems to be signified where the Lord says: is not the soul more than food? and when a precept is given concerning fasting, it is thus given: you shall afflict your souls. But I do not know whether it can anywhere be read that a vow is said to be against the soul which is about abstinence from intercourse:
especially because, whereas here the law grants authority to the husband, not to the woman who is subject to the husband, so that the woman's vows are then to be paid if the husband approves, but if he refuses, are not owed—the Apostle nevertheless, when he was speaking of the intercourse of married persons, there gave no greater authority to the husband than to the woman, but said: let the husband render to the wife her due, and likewise the wife to the husband. The wife has not power over her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband has not power over his own body, but the woman.
When therefore in this matter He willed the power of both to be equal, I think it is suggested to us to understand that this rule concerning lying together or not lying together does not pertain to those vows in which the man and woman do not have equal power, but the man's is the greater and belongs, one might say, to him alone. For the law does not say that the husband ought not to pay his vows if the wife forbids, but that the wife should not, if the husband forbids. Whence it does not seem to me that in vows and bindings and obligations of this kind, which are made against the soul, those matters ought also to be included which the husband and wife have agreed between themselves concerning lying together or abstaining from lying together.
Then, because these too are called 'justifications,' and we remember that in those justifications which in Exodus are recorded under this same name, many things are enjoined which cannot be received according to their literal sense nor are observed in the New Testament—as concerning the boring through of the servant's ear and anything of that kind—it is not absurd to understand that here too something is said figuratively; so that, since there are many abstinences of ceremonies that are irrational and sometimes even hostile to truth, perhaps He willed it here to be understood that they are then ratified when they are rational, that is, when reason approves them—reason, which in the husband's stead ought to govern every animal impulse, which arises not only in desiring but also in abstaining:
so that, if it is decreed by mind and reason, then let it be done; but if it is disapproved by the counsel of reason, let it not be done. But if reason afterwards disapproves what it had first decreed ought rightly to be done, let there be a sin of counsel, yet even so let that impulse consent to nothing but reason. What is: and Moses sent them, a thousand from a tribe and a thousand from a tribe with their strength? Does He wish 'their strength' to be understood as 'their leaders'? Or the strength given them by the Lord, or obtained through Moses himself? Or rather does He call 'their strength' those things by which their strength would be sustained? It may seem a question, how, when the Israelites had defeated the Midianites, Scripture says that Balaam was slain, who had been hired to curse the people of Israel.
Since above, when he was compelled to bless, Scripture had thus concluded that same action, when it said: and Balaam rising up departed and returned to his own place; and Balak departed to himself. If then Balaam had returned to his own place, how was he slain here, since he came from so far off, that is, from Mesopotamia? Or perhaps he returned to Balak, and Scripture did not say this? Although it can also be understood that he returned to his own place in the sense that from that place where he was offering sacrifices he returned to that place from which he had gone out to it, that is, where he had his lodging as a sojourner. For it is not said 'to his own house' or 'to his own homeland,' but: to his own place. And every sojourner too has his own place, where he dwells for a time.
But concerning Balak himself, who had hired him, it is not said 'to his own place,' but: to himself, that is, where he dwelt as ruler. It could therefore be said 'to his own place' of both the ruler and the sojourner; but 'to himself' I do not see how it could be said of a sojourner, since he had come to his lodging. And they took as spoil the women of Midian and their furnishings and their cattle and all that they possessed, and they plundered their strength. When it had already said the women, the furnishings, the cattle, and all that they possessed, what did it then add: and they plundered their strength? For assuredly this is to be understood as the strength of which above it was said that they had sent a thousand from each tribe with their strength.
Or perhaps the food by which they were sustained was called their strength, by the supplying of which their forces suffice and by the withdrawal of which their forces fail? Whence through the prophet God, when He was threatening, said: I will take away the strength of bread and the strength of water. And Moses too had sent those thousand men with provisions, which is what was said: with their strength; and these men, when the Midianites were conquered, had plundered even this of theirs among the rest. Why have you kept alive every female? For these were to the children of Israel, according to the word of Balaam, that they might make them depart and despise the word of the Lord for the sake of Peor.
This malicious counsel—that women be put before them as an enticement, through whom they might commit fornication not only bodily but also spiritually by worshipping the idol—Scripture did not say when Balaam gave it; and yet it is evident that it was done, since it is here mentioned. So then Balaam too, who had already gone to his own place, could have returned, so that we understand his place not to be the lodging of his sojourning, although Scripture was silent about this. What is it that it says: and the cities shall be to you refuges from him who avenges blood, and he who has slain shall not die until he stands before the congregation for judgement?
Since it speaks of those who kill unwillingly, and elsewhere says that then each one in such a case among those fleeing for refuge is free to leave the city to which he had fled, when the high priest has died—how then does it here say: and he who has slain shall not die until he stands before the congregation for judgement, unless because he is therefore judged, so that then it may be lawful for him to be in the city of refuge, if it is made manifest in the judgement that he killed unwillingly? What is it that it says: he who avenges blood, he himself shall kill the manslayer; when this man meets him, he shall kill him? For thus it sounds to those who understand ill, as though license to kill the slayer of one's kinsman had been given to the avenger of a kinsman's death indiscriminately and without judgement.
But it willed this to be understood: that according to what was said above, he who has slain should flee to one of the cities of refuge, until he stands for judgement, lest before that he be found by the kinsman and slain; because, even if he slew unwillingly, if he is found outside those cities he is slain. But when he has stood for judgement in one of those cities and has been judged a manslayer in one of them, into which flight is granted, he is not permitted to be there; then at last, being now judged, wherever he is found the kinsman may kill him. For there is no need for him to be brought to judgement, since he has already been judged a manslayer and on that account has been expelled from those cities. BOOK FIVE. QUESTIONS ON DEUTERONOMY. QUESTION I.
In that Moses recalls that he had said to the people who feared the enemies inhabiting the land into which they were to be brought: do not be terrified nor afraid of them; the Lord your God, who goes before your face, He Himself will fight against them together with you—it is sufficiently shown that God is a helper in such a way that men also do something. And Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through him, because the Lord our God had hardened his spirit and strengthened his heart, that he might be delivered into your hands as at this day. Moses, saying these things while he addresses the people, recalls something such as was said in Exodus: I have hardened Pharaoh's heart, and what is read in the Psalms: He turned their heart to hate His people.
Nor is the cause of this hardening here passed over in silence, since it is said: that he might be delivered into your hands as at this day, that is, that he might be conquered by you—which would not happen unless he resisted; but he would not resist unless with a hardened heart. If we should inquire into the justice of this matter, the judgements of God are unsearchable; yet there is no iniquity with God. Indeed it is to be noted that a heart may be said to be 'strengthened' even in evil. Nevertheless Og king of Bashan was left remaining from the Rephaim. By this name, which is Rephaim, giants are signified in the Hebrew tongue, as those say who know it. Whence the fact that very many codices have 'he was left over from the Rephaim' is put even more plainly:
he was left remaining, so that he himself is understood to have remained from among them, whose length and breadth of an iron bedstead is consequently mentioned to commend his great size. Do not commit iniquity and make for yourselves a graven likeness, any image. What difference there is between a likeness and an image is wont to be asked. But here I do not see what difference He willed there to be, unless either by these two words He signified one thing, or He called it a 'likeness' if, for example, a statue or image be made having a human form, yet the features of some particular man not being expressed, as painters or sculptors do when looking at those whom they paint or fashion; for that this is called an image no one would doubt.
According to which distinction, every image is also a likeness, but not every likeness is also an image. Whence if twins are like each other, a likeness of either may be said to be in the other, but not an image. But if a son is like his father, it is also rightly called an image, so that the father is the prototype, from which that image is seen to be expressed. Of which some are of the same substance, as a son, others not of the same, as a painting. Whence that which is written in Genesis: God made man to the image of God, is manifestly so said that the image which was made is not of the same substance. For if it were of the same, it would be said not made but begotten. But that it did not add 'and likeness,' whereas above it had been said:
let us make man to our image and likeness—to some it has seemed that likeness is something more than image, which was to be reserved for man afterwards, when he is reformed through the grace of Christ. But I wonder whether it did not therefore afterwards will to mention the image alone, because where there is an image, there is immediately a likeness also. Whence here too Moses forbids a likeness and an image to be made, according perhaps to the reasoning we have stated. But in the Decalogue it is said generally that no likeness ought to be made, and no image is mentioned. For when no likeness is made, without doubt no image is made either, since if there is an image, there is certainly also a likeness; but not, if a likeness is made, is an image immediately made.
Nevertheless, if there is no likeness, it follows that there is no image. Finally, where it forbade likeness and image, it willed the likeness of a man to be understood, where both a likeness can be made not of this or that man but of any man whatsoever, and an image, that is, of this or that particular man; but when it was speaking of beasts and irrational animals, it named the likeness alone. For who can be found who would set up for himself one particular dog or anything of that kind, and looking at it would paint or fashion its image? which is most usual with regard to men. But what is it that it says: the likeness of every fish, whatsoever are in the waters under the earth?
Did He wish water too, on account of its tractable corporeality, to be understood as 'earth,' and according to this, in that which is written: God made heaven and earth, ought we to understand the waters also? For assiduously Scripture, when these two parts are mentioned, wills the whole world to be understood, according to that: my help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth, and innumerable things of that kind. Or was it therefore said 'under the earth,' because the earth, unless it were higher than the waters, could not be inhabited by men nor have terrestrial animals? And that you, looking up to heaven and seeing the sun and moon and stars and all the array of heaven, be not led astray to adore them and serve them, which the Lord your God has distributed to all the nations that are under heaven.
It was not so said as though God had commanded these to be worshipped by the nations, but by His own people alone not to be worshipped; rather it was said either in the sense that God foreknew that the nations would render worship to these heavenly bodies, and yet, foreknowing this, created them, but foreknew that His own people would be such as would not worship these; or 'distributed' was said so that we understand the use which is commended in Genesis: that they be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years—which use the people of God has in common with all the nations, but not the worship which the other nations have.
Do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which He established with you, and make for yourselves a graven likeness of all the things which the Lord your God has appointed for you. Here certainly, speaking generally, He set down 'likeness,' and passed over 'image' in silence, since, if no likeness is made, assuredly no image either, because where there is an image, immediately a likeness, although not where there is a likeness immediately an image. It must be inquired how it was said: ask the former days which were before you from the day when God created man upon the earth, and from one end of heaven to the other end of heaven; for 'ask' is understood. But it seems to signify the whole circuit of the earth.
But why it says 'from one end of heaven to the other end of heaven,' not 'from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth,' is not easy to discern. For there is a certain expression of this kind also in the Gospel, when the Lord says that His elect shall be gathered from the highest parts of the heavens to their bounds. Unless perhaps here He wills it to be understood that neither among men nor among angels has that been heard which He commends as done singularly among this people; for this follows: whether it has been done according to this great word, whether such a thing has been heard; whether a nation has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire, as you have heard and lived. But if this is so, that He says it was heard neither among men nor among angels, what then is that saying in the Gospel:
from the highest parts of the heavens to their bounds, when without doubt the Lord says this while He was speaking of the final gathering of His elect? What is it that it says: the Lord your God established with you a covenant in Horeb; not with your fathers did the Lord establish this covenant, but with you, you here all living today. Face to face the Lord spoke to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire? Is it because those who do not enter into the land of promise—for they all died—do not belong to this covenant, whose census was then taken, when those from twenty years of age and upward were numbered up to fifty years, fit for war? How then did the Lord speak to those who live today?
Is it because many could then have been of twenty years and under, who would well remember this, being free from that penalty which God appointed for those who were then numbered, that they should not enter into the land of promise? And He certainly addresses these, who, although they were not of twenty years and upward when God was speaking on the mountain, so that they could then be numbered, yet could be nineteen and under, down to childhood, an age which could both see and hear those things that were done and said, and retain them in memory. But what is it that it says: face to face the Lord spoke to you—to those whom shortly before He took special care to admonish that they had seen no likeness, but had heard only a voice out of the midst of the fire?
Is it on account of the evidentness of the matters and, in a certain manner, the presence of the manifested divinity, concerning which no one could doubt, that He used these words? But if this is so, what prevents this from being understood of Moses himself in that which is said of him, that the Lord spoke with him face to face, so that not even he saw anything with his eyes except the fire? Or is he understood to have seen something more, because it is written that he entered into the cloud or mist where God was? But even if he saw something more than they, yet that he did not see the substance of God with mortal eyes can be understood from those words of his, in which he says to God: if I have found grace before You, show me Yourself, that I may knowingly see You.
For it is not to be thought that this people, to whom Moses was speaking, then so saw God face to face, when He was speaking on the mountain out of the midst of the fire, in the way the Apostle says we shall see Him at the end, where he says: we see now through a glass in a riddle, but then face to face. But what and how great this would be, he consequently disclosed, saying: now I know in part, but then I shall know even as also I am known. Which itself too is to be received cautiously, lest a man be thought to be about to have as great a knowledge of God as God now has of man, but perfect in his own measure, so that nothing further is expected to be added to it:
so that, as perfectly as God now knows man—yet as God knows man—so then man shall perfectly know God, yet as man knows God. For not because it is said: be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect, ought we therefore to hope for the equality of the Father which the only-begotten Word has; although there have not been lacking those who thought this too would come to be, unless perhaps we understand too little what they are saying. What is it that it says: and I stood between the Lord and you at that time to announce to you the words of the Lord, as though the Lord were in a place, that is on the mountain, whence they heard the voices?
This is to be so received that we do not from this suspect that the substance of God is in any bodily place—He who is everywhere whole, and neither draws near nor recedes through intervals of place; but His manifestations in that creature which is not what He Himself is are not otherwise exhibited to human senses. Whence the Lord, wishing to take away our mind from suspicions of this kind, by which God is thought to be contained in some place, says: the hour is coming, when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
For the Father also seeks such as will worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. Moses therefore called himself a mediator, not by some interval of place set between God's substance and the people, but because it pleased the people to hear the remaining words of God through him, after they had been violently terrified upon hearing from the midst of the fire the voice of the Lord speaking the Decalogue of the law. But it is rightly asked how these words of Deuteronomy are to be understood, where Moses says: 'And I stood between the Lord and you at that time to announce to you the words of the Lord, because you were afraid before the face of the fire and did not go up onto the mountain,' saying: 'I am the Lord your God,' and the rest—which are now the words of God, which the Decalogue contains.
What then does he mean by adding 'saying'? For if we suppose a hyperbaton, so that the order of the words be: 'And I stood between the Lord and you at that time to announce to you the words of the Lord, saying: I am the Lord your God,' it will not be true. For it was not through Moses that the people heard these words, but from the midst of the fire; and being unable to endure this after they had heard the Decalogue, they begged to hear the rest through Moses. It remains, therefore, that we understand the word 'saying' to be put in place of 'when he said,' so that this is the sense: 'And I stood between the Lord and you at that time to announce to you the words of the Lord, because you were afraid before the face of the fire and did not go up onto the mountain, when he said: I am the Lord your God.'
So that we understand 'when the Lord said,' of course. For when the Lord was speaking these words, which the text then recounts in full from the Decalogue, the people were afraid before the face of the fire, did not go up onto the mountain, and asked that they might rather hear the words of the Lord through Moses. These words Moses recalls in Deuteronomy as having been said to him by the people, when they were now unwilling to hear the voice of God, but sought through him that what God was saying might be said to them, that is: 'Behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory, and we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire,' and the rest. These are not read exactly the same in Exodus, where they are first narrated—the things which are now repeated.
From which let us understand, as I have already noted several times, that it is not to be reckoned a falsehood if the same meaning is expressed in any other words whatever—on account of the words of the Evangelists too, which are censured by the unlearned and the slanderous as though contradictory. For it would have been no great matter for Moses to attend to what he had written in Exodus and to repeat those things in exactly the same words, were it not that it belonged to our holy teachers to instill this very thing into learners: that they should seek nothing else in the words of speakers than the intention for whose declaring the words were established. What is it that Moses says was said to him by the Lord concerning the Hebrew people: 'Who will grant that their heart be so within them, that they fear me and keep my commandments?'
Does he here wish it to be understood that this benefit is granted by his grace, so that there may be in men the righteousness of God from faith, not as it were their own righteousness as from the law? For he signifies this also through the prophet, saying: 'I will take away from them the heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh'—which is said with regard to the sense which flesh has and stone has not, the word of course being used figuratively. This same thing he says elsewhere also: 'Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will complete over the house of Israel and over the house of Judah a new testament, not according to the testament which I made with their fathers in the day when I took their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for this is the testament which I have made with them:'
'After those days, giving my laws into their heart, and I will inscribe them upon their mind, and their iniquities and their sins I will remember no more.' For here he distinguished the New Testament from the Old, in that in the Old the law was given on tablets of stone, but in the New in hearts, which is done through grace. Whence the Apostle also says: 'not on tablets of stone, but on the fleshly tablets of the heart,' and in another place: 'He made us fit,' he says, 'ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter but of the spirit.' As for what he says concerning the Lord: 'and by his name you shall swear,' it is not to be taken as a precept as though he had commanded swearing, but he forbade swearing in the name of any other god. It is better, however, if, according to the Gospel, you do not swear at all;