Commentary on Leviticus

Clement of Alexandria (150–215)

Through Moses God orders that two young birds, a pair of pigeons or of turtledoves, be offered for any sin. This means that the sinlessness of such gentle birds and their guilelessness and forgetfulness of injury is very acceptable to God. So he is instructing us to offer a sacrifice bearing the character of that against which we have offended. The plight of the poor doves, moreover, will instill into us a beginning of abhorrence for sin.

With whom then should we live? With the just, he replies, again under a metaphor. Everything "of split hoof and chewing the cud" is clean, because the split hoof obviously is a sign of evenly balanced justice, which chews the cud of its own food of justice, the word, which enters from without through instruction. And, once within, [it] is recalled as if from the stomach of the mind for the musings of reason. The just man chews the cud of spiritual nourishment, because he holds the Word in his mouth. Justice undoubtedly divides the hoof, in that it both sanctifies in this life and prepares us as well for the life to come.

See also

• More works by Clement of Alexandria

Enable JavaScript to read the full text and search the library.