First: the cities were of almost every size: some great, others small. For certainly great was Hebron, Dabir, Gabaon, Ramoth, [and] others. II. [There] were many illustrious and renowned in fame, as [those] already mentioned; others [were] more obscure. III. [They] were so of the [property] right of the Levites, that [they] were not only usufructuaries, but true Owners. For [in] Lev. 25:33 we read [it] written: “The houses of the Levites, which are in the cities, can always be redeemed; if [they] be redeemed, in the jubilee [they] shall return to [their] owners — because the houses of the cities of the Levites are, among the children of Israel, for [as] their possessions.” IV. [They] were situated not in some one part of the Canaanite dominion, but far and wide — scattered through absolutely all the parts and tribes, on this side and beyond the Jordan; and that, by the most wise counsel and will of God. First: that [they] might be everywhere the Interpreters and Masters of the divine law, who should instruct the whole people, admonish [it], [and] keep [it] in [its] duty — [being], as [it were], its Pedagogues (Deut. ch. 23, v. 10 [recte 33:10]), especially in the Hebrew, where [it is] thus: “they teach ([the Levites]) thy judgments to Jacob himself, and thy Law to Israel.” And in the 70: “Δηλώσουσι τὰ δικαιώματά σου τῷ Ἰακὼβ, καὶ τὸν νόμον σου τῷ Ἰσραήλ [Dēlōsousi ta dikaiōmata sou tō Iakōb, kai ton nomon sou tō Israēl]” [“They shall declare thy judgments to Jacob, and thy law to Israel”]. Secondly: [it] is pleasing to God that, in various places, Schools of wisdom, assemblies of the wise, and colleges of religious men should flourish. But what else were the cities of the Levites? Thirdly: [it] pertains to God’s glory, that [there] be as many as possible of his ministers, in as many places as possible. For just as not only in the palace and hall are the King’s ministers, so too [there were] not only in the city of the tabernacle or temple the Priests and other Levites. Fourthly: lest [the Levites], drawn apart from one another, grow accustomed to the common vices and morals of others. Fifthly: that, joined, and enclosed as [it were] in certain monasteries or colleges, [they] might rouse themselves — and more, one another — to a life worthy of their order and rank. Sixthly: thus the worship of God — which flourished chiefly in one city and place — seemed more to belong to all the tribes, because its ministers [were] in all these [cities]. Seventhly: thus [they] could more easily receive from the people the necessaries which pertained to life — both [those] owed and [those] spontaneous. Nor does Abulensis’s disputation here (q. 4) refute these [reasons].
V. The same cities were furnished with certain suburban spaces [pastures], as will be explained below. In the number of them were six — the cities of refuge, concerning which [in] the previous chapter. First: that a greater benevolence and authority toward God’s ministers might be procured among all, from whose cities [there] was so much of protection and safety (Abulensis, q. 7, Num. 35). Then, that where the best and wisest Doctors and judges [were], there [the people] might dwell, who could be freed by their judgment, instructed by [their] company, and made better. This, and several other causes, St. Ambrose brings forward (bk. On the Flight of the World, ch. 2, & bk. 2 On Cain & Abel, ch. 4): “The cities of the Levites,” he says, “Moses signified [as] redeemers [redemptresses]; because he who flees to them — [to] the soul in which the Word of God dwells (which [soul] is fortified and walled like a city) — acquires for himself perpetual liberty. For just as, in the cities of the Levites, [there] was a remission of penalties — so that, if anyone had fled to them who had committed a non-voluntary slaying of a man, [it was] permitted to no one to kill him, [provided he was] placed only within the cities — so [one] who repents of his own sin (which [he] committed either imprudently or unwillingly), if [he] cleave to the dwelling of the Levites, and think [he] must not depart from these teachers who dispense God’s commands, the law itself frees him from all penalty and punishment of the committed misdeed. Nor think [it] absurd, that the criminal dwell together with the pious, the stained with the consecrated: for they who are polluted by some contagion of offenses have need to be purified. And in a manner, [the] cause concurs by a different kind. For just as the Levite — cut off from worldly pleasures — is an exile from guilt; so the one guilty of blood is a fugitive from [his] fatherland. But this is the difference: that the latter deserts his own [people] by necessity, on account of fear of the law; but the minister of God renounces the fellowships of human passions, and cuts himself off from a certain bond of the carnal enticement, on account of the pursuits of virtue. That too is not far from the truth: that this [minister] too, as it were, lays certain hands upon himself, so that [he] may kill the pleasures of his [own] body, and work a certain destruction of his [own] flesh. For Moses killed the Egyptian, and became a fugitive from the land of Egypt, that [he] might avoid its tyrant. But [he] would not have killed that Egyptian man before, unless [he] had first slain in himself the Egyptian of spiritual wickedness, and renounced the luxury of royal honors — esteeming the reproach of CHRIST [as] a greater patrimony than the treasures of Egypt. Which [reproach] seems, to the foolish, [to be] a reproach; but to us, that reproach of the Lord’s cross is the power of God and wisdom. To [this] is added, that [there] are in God two chief kinds of powers: one by which [he] remits, the other by which [he] avenges. Sins are remitted through the Word of God, of which the Levite is the interpreter — and indeed the executor; [they] are remitted also through the office of the Priest, and the sacred ministry; [they] are also punished through men, as through judges, who use [their] power for a time: as the Apostle teaches, saying,
(col. 1239)
[…Ambrose’s quote, continued from col. 1238:] “[Wilt thou] not fear the power? Do good, and thou shalt have praise from it. For [it] is God’s minister to thee for good. But if thou do evil, fear. For not without cause does [it] bear the sword. For [it] is God’s minister — a Judge, unto wrath, for him who does evil” (Rom. 13:3–4). Sins are punished also through peoples [nations], as we read: because often the people of the Jews was subjected to foreigners (roused by God’s command), on account of the offense of the Divine Majesty. Nor indeed is he who has committed some homicide unwillingly outside the ministry. For the law says of him: “Because God delivered him into his hands” (Exod. 21:13). His hands, therefore, in the manner of an instrument, furnished [their] ministry to the divine vengeance. The Levite, therefore, is the minister of remission [forgiveness]; but the striker — who, however, committed homicide not of set purpose, but beside [his] will — [is] the minister of the divine vengeance.
But two little questions still remain. One: whether all the other cities of the Levites too were asylums? “All [of them],” says Arias, “were also Sacred, and dedicated to receiving and protecting innocent manslayers — although those six, by a singular prerogative, were [specifically] called asylums.” I, however, would not dare to assert this, because I see [it] asserted neither by Scripture, nor by any suitable authors. And indeed, what cause would [there] be, why so great a matter — so necessary and useful to the innocent, [and] so honorable to the whole tribe of the Levites — would nowhere be found [mentioned], not even by one little word? The other: whether the six cities [were] decreed for refuge before all [those] others [were] given to the Levites? Or [were] the 48 first given to the Levites, and [then] only afterward [were] six set apart from them for refuge? Two opinions. The former says the cities of refuge [were] constituted first; the latter, afterward. That [former] is Masius’s, at the beginning of this chapter; but this [latter] is Josephus’s (bk. 5, ch. 1) & Abulensis’s (Num. 35), where the text clearly first decrees to the Levites 48 cities [two out of fifty], [and] then, from those, chooses six which may be for the refuge of fugitives. And if we follow this, [it] will necessarily have to be confessed [that] the narrations of this and the previous chapter [are] transposed. But that [is] easier to believe in Num. (in the one ch. 35) — that there a transposition of one period [sentence] or another [was] made, rather than [a transposition] of whole chapters here; especially since, even in the Hebrew text, [there] is nothing which opposes this transposition; but here [in ch. 20] [there] is the beginning of ch. 20, which commands that the twelve tribes themselves give cities of refuge. But if [the tribes] had already given these [refuge-cities], together with the other [forty-two], to the Levites before, [then] not those [twelve] tribes, but the Levitic [tribe] alone, ought to have given them.