LEVITICO. — Pentateuch (v.), called by the Palestinian Jews by its opening word voajiqra’; by the Alexandrian Jews Λεωτυκόν, whence the Vulgate Liber Leviticus, from its content (cf.
Eusebius, Hist. eccl., IV, 26, 14: PG 20, 396). Unlike Genesis and Exodus, L. consists in fact almost entirely of legislative texts concerning worship, codified according to a logical connection.
It consists of 4 principal parts and an appendix. 1) Chaps. 1–7: the “law of sacrifices” enumerates the various sacrifices (1,1–6,7) and gives the prescriptions concerning their offering by the people and their performance by the priests (6,8–7,38). 2) The 2nd part is the only historical section (8–10): it recounts the priestly consecration of Aaron and his sons; their assumption of office; the sin and punishment of the sons Nadab and Abihu. 3) Chaps. 11–15 deal with legal impurities and the means of recovering lost holiness; chap. 16 contains the legislation for the great day of atonement. 4) The “law of holiness”: holiness in social life (17–22); religious institutions, feasts, the sabbatical year, the jubilee (23–25); with the parenthetical conclusion concerning the blessings reserved by Jahweh for the faithful and the terrible punishments that will strike sinners (chap. 26). Chap. 27 serves as an appendix to the entire book, with prescriptions concerning vows, their commutation, and tithes.
The special purpose of L., intended to provide the ministers of worship (Lev. 17, 2; 21, 2; 22, 2, etc.) with the detailed code governing their status and functions, explains why the prescriptions of a moral order that permeate, for example, Deuteronomy, appear here under a legal aspect. Nevertheless, even ritual holiness, insistently inculcated upon priests and people, proceeds from a highly religious motive and is wholly imbued with supernatural ideas (11, 14; 21, 23; 22, 9, 16); it is inspired by Jahweh’s own holiness, which it takes as its model (19, 2; 20, 8, 24, 26; 21, 8; 22, 32). Laws and prescriptions have as their object the safeguarding of a truly religious life (cf. 18, 21; 19, 4, 26 ff., 31; etc.). The heart, like Israel’s worship, must belong solely to its God (19, 4, 12, 24). And the moral prescriptions complete and demonstrate this elevation of sentiment; cf. the prohibition and severe sanctions for sins against nature (18,6–18, 20, 22 ff.; 19, 20; 20, 10–22); for injustices against one’s neighbor (19, 11, 15 f., 35 f.); the duties of children toward their parents (19, 3); duties of humanity toward the elderly (19, 32), toward the infirm (19, 14); duties of charity toward the Israelite (19, 17 f.; cf. Mk. 12, 31) and toward the foreigner dwelling in Israel (Lev. 19, 32 f.). The Wellhausian conception of a ritual religion, codified in L., in opposition to the moral religion of the prophets (Deuteronomy), is one of the many artifices of that system.
Catholic criticism (v. PENTATEUCO) upholds the substantial Mosaic authenticity of L., without excluding the possibility that some precepts underwent additions or modifications. The antiquity of the law concerning sacrifices (chaps. 1–17) has received unsuspected confirmation from the Ras Shamra texts, dating from several centuries before Moses: the sacrifices listed in L. correspond exactly, even in name, to those of the ancient Phoenicians (R. Dussaud [V. BIBLICA.], p. 110 f.). Among the manuscripts recently discovered in the Judaean desert (1947), 4 fragments of L. were found on strips of leather: 19, 31–34; 20, 20–23; 21, 14–22, 3; 22, 4–5; written in the ancient script of the Lachish letters (6th cent. B.C.). If they are to be dated to the period when this script was in use (A. Neher), that is, at least to the 5th–6th cent. B.C., there would be another archaeological proof of the antiquity of the law of holiness, already existing at that time in a text exactly equal to the one in question (R. Dussaud). In any case, and pending a definitive conclusion, these fragments cannot be dated later than the 4th cent. (R. de Vaux), when another type of script was by then in use. — Vedi tav. LXXVIII.
(courtesy of Fr. Michele Lacke S. J.)
und theologisch gewertet, Stoccarda 1934; F. X. Kortrleitner,
Quo tempore Codex Sacerdotalis exstiterit?, Innsbruck 1935;
R. Dussaud, Ros Shamra (Ugarit) et l'Ancien Testament, Parigi
1936, pp. 109-13; F. Dornseiff, Antibes zum Alt. Test. 3. Levi-
tikon, Arithmol, in Zeitschr. für alttest. Wissenschaft, 14 (1937),
pp. 127-36; A. Zanolli, Di una vetusta catena sul L. per-
duta in greco e conservata in armeno, Venezia 1938; W. J. de
Wilde, Het offer aangenaam om te verzoenen (Lev. 1-Lc. 2),
in Nieuw theologische studien, 22 (1939), pp. 192-99; E. Robert-
son, The Priestly Code: the legislation of the Old Test. and Graf-
Wellhausen, in Bull. of the John Rylands library, 26 (1941-42),
pp. 369-92; R. de Vaux, La cachette des manuscrits hébreux, in
Rev. bibl., 56 (1949), p. 235; id., La grotte des manuscrits hébreux,
ibid., pp. 297-602, trav. xviii. Francesco Spadafora