Gregory the Dialogist — Commentary on Scripture

Leviticus 3:9

The law commands that the tail of the victim is to be offered in sacrifice. Now the tail is the end of a body, and that person makes a perfect offering who carries out the sacrifice of a good work to its due completion.

HOMILY 25

Leviticus 6:5

Some people consider the commandments of the Old Testament stricter than those of the New, but they are deceived by such a shortsighted interpretation. In the former theft, not miserliness, is punished; wrongful taking of property is punished in the latter by fourfold restitution. In this place the rich man is not censured for having taken away someone else’s property but for not having sufficiently given away his own.

HOMILY 40

Leviticus 11:4-13

Believing people are forbidden to use fish without its fins for food. Fish with fins and scales even leap up above the water. What do the fish with fins represent if not chosen souls? They alone pass over into the body of the heavenly church.

HOMILY 31

Leviticus 11:10

Hence again, fish that do not have fins are forbidden from being eaten by the faithful people. For fish that have scale-fins are also accustomed to leap above the waters. What therefore is figured by finned fish except elect souls? These alone indeed pass into the body of the heavenly Church, who, supported by the fins of virtues, know how to leap through heavenly desire, so that they may reach toward things above through contemplation, although they fall back again into themselves from mortal flesh.

Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 31

Leviticus 19:14

To speak evil of the deaf is to disparage one who is absent and does not hear. To put a block before the blind is to do a thing that is proper of itself but which affords an occasion of scandal to one who fails to understand the propriety of it.

PASTORAL CARE 3.35

Leviticus 19:18

A person who does not divide with his needy neighbor what is necessary to him proves that he loves him less than himself. The command is to share two tunics with one’s neighbor: he could not have spoken of a single tunic, since if one is shared no one is clothed. Half a tunic leaves the person who receives it naked, as well as the person who gives it.

HOMILY 6

Leviticus 21:20

Hence also it is said through Moses that whoever is burdened with a hump should by no means be advanced to the priesthood. And all of us who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ are made members of that same high priest. Whence also it is said to us through Peter: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood." But he who bears a hump always gazes at the lowest things. Therefore he is driven from the priesthood, because whoever is intent only on earthly things is himself a witness to himself that he is not a member of the high priest.

Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 31

Leviticus 27:30

What is said by the law is less exacting than what is commanded by the Lord. The law prescribed the giving of a tithe, but our Redeemer ordered those who would follow the way of perfection to give up everything.

HOMILY 40