And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;
All Commentaries on Luke 2:22 Go To Luke 2
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And when the days of her purification according to the law o Moses were accomplished, they brought Him to Jerusalem, to present Him to the Lord. Observe that here three different ordinances are intertwined and joined together. The first is that of Leviticus 12:2, et seq, that a woman, if she have borne a male child, shall remain unclean for forty days, and then be purified in the temple legally, that is by the sacrificial rite prescribed by the law. The second, that the mother offer to God a lamb, as a holocaust for her own purification (not that of her child, as S. Augustine would have it), and a young turtle-dove or pigeon as a sin-offering, if she be rich; but if poor, only a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons ( Leviticus 12:6-7). And the third, that if the offspring be a male, and the firstborn, it be set before God, and offered to Him as His due, and holy, that Isaiah , consecrated on account of the immunity of the firstborn of the Hebrews granted them by God, when the firstborn of Pharaoh and the Egyptians were smitten by the angel in the time of Moses ( Exodus 13:1). The child, however, so offered might be redeemed by his parents for five shekels ( Numbers 3:47). Symbolically, these five shekels stood for the five wounds of Christ, with which, as with a price, He redeems the human race.
The days of her purification. In the old law the woman bearing a child was unclean, with a natural, a legal, and a moral uncleanness; but especially because she bore a child whom she conceived in original sin. The natural uncleanness was that physically incidental to her gestation and delivery; and the legal defilement was consequent upon this, for the law, on account of these impurities, regarded her as impure, and directed that she be kept away from the temple, and be held, as it were, "unclean" for forty days, until, on the fortieth day, she was purified by the prescribed rite.
With reference to the question whether the Blessed Virgin suffered this impurity, S. Jerome ( Ephesians 22ud Eustochium), John of Avila, commenting on Lev. xii, and Erasmus on this same passage, affirm that she did. All other authorities, however, agree in the contrary view, since the Virgin"s parturition was perfectly pure. See S. Augustine (de Quinque hæresibus, ch. v). This point has been treated in what has been said on v7 of the present chapter. Hence the Blessed Virgin incurred no defilement, and therefore was not bound by the law of purification. Yet, in her zeal for humility, in order to make herself like other women who bear children, that she might not give scandal in seeming to be singular, and that she might conceal her virginity and her conception by the Holy Ghost, the Blessed Virgin was willing to be purified, even as Christ, for similar reasons, was willing to be circumcised. Hence S. Bernard (Serm3On the Purification) says: "In this conception, and in this child-birth, there was nothing impure, nothing sinful, nothing that had to be purged, for this offspring is the fount of purity, and is come to make a cleansing of sins. What is there in me for a legal observance to purify—in me, who, by this immaculate parturition, am become most pure? Truly, 0 Blessed Virgin, thou hadst no need for purification; but had thy Son need of circumcision? Be thou among women as one of them, for so too is thy Son among men."
Tropologically, the purification of the soul is penance, and this the Blessed Virgin underwent, not for her own sins, seeing that she had none, but for those of others, as Christ did. Still she did not undergo the Sacrament of Penance, because she had no sins of her own to confess. See S. Chrysostom, Tertullian, S. Augustine, and S. Ambrose in his book "On Penance."
To present Him to the Lord. The Syriac version has "in the presence of the Lord." The Blessed Virgin, holding Christ in her hands, on bended knee, offered Him to God with the greatest reverence and devotion, saying, "Behold, 0 Eternal Father, this is Thy Son whom Thou hast wished to take flesh from me for the salvation of men. To Thee I render Him, and to Thee I offer Him entirely, that Thou mayest do with Him and with me as it shall please Thee, and by Him mayest redeem the world." So saying, she presented Him to the priest as to the representative of God; and then she redeemed Him with five shekels, as the law prescribed.
