Someone can dwell in some city in many ways. For either [he] is a part of the city [a citizen], or not; and if not, [he] is either a slave, or free. And if free, [he] is either a native or a newcomer; or [he] stays only for a certain time and, as it were, lodges [as a traveler], as guests and foreigners are wont [to do]; or [he] abides constantly in the same place, and fixes [his] seat, as the inquilini [resident-tenants] do. First: therefore [it] is certain [that] guests and foreigners, who passed through these cities, could have a lodging here. For what city [is] so barbarous [as to] deny this? Then [it] is certain [that], in some of the Levites’ cities, [those] dwelt who had fled [there] for the cause of homicide — concerning whom [it was] treated [in] this and the previous chapter. Thirdly: [it] is certain [that] in all cities and towns [there] must be various craftsmen, who prepare and make the various [things] for the necessary uses of men — such as bakers, butchers, cooks, shoemakers, tailors, barbers, day- and night-guards of the gates and walls, masons, carpenters, smiths, [and] others: as [was] wisely shown by Aristotle (bk. 7 of the Politics), [and] Plato (bk. 2 On the Commonwealth); and truly also by our Ecclesiasticus, who (ch. 36, from v. 26), when [he] had praised farmers, smiths, architects, potters, and (by the likeness of these) other manual craftsmen, subjoined (v. 35): “All these have trusted in their hands, and each one is wise in his [own] art. Without all these a city is not built” (Sir. 38:36–39). If the Levites, therefore, could not perform these duties by themselves, other inhabitants were necessary. If [they] could, [there] was no need of others. But whether [they] could, or not, [there] was also, in their cities, a place and dwelling for others. For, as [it] appeared above (q. 9) from Lev. 25, [it] was lawful for them to sell their houses to others. But as to the works or crafts above mentioned, [it] was permitted to the Levites to practice not a few [of them] by themselves. For what forbade [them] to keep the watches of the gates and walls — since [it] was lawful for them to be present at battles, to join combat with the enemy, and to fight it out with the sword, as we see in the history of the Maccabees, and [in] Exod. 32:26 & following? And did [they] not, in the temple, act as cooks, bakers, and butchers? (Matt. 12:5; Mark 2:26.) But in the smith’s art, architecture, and other similar [arts], what [is there] either sordid or illiberal [unbecoming]? Rabbi Gamaliel, son of Rabbi Judah the prince, said (ch. 2 of the book Pirke Avoth [Sayings of the Fathers]): “Beautiful is the study of the law with a craft adjoined. For the labor of each induces a forgetfulness of sin” — so that, namely, to sin [one] neither desires, nor [does it] come into [one’s] mind. “The Greeks,” says St. Augustine (in the book On the work of Monks, ch. 13), “had shoemakers much honored among themselves” — among whom indeed was “Menedemus,” who, as Muretus observes (bk. 11 of the Antiquae Lectiones, ch. 11), was a “σκηνογράφος [skēnographos]” [“a scene-painter”]. What of our Paul? Was [he] not most learned, and most knowing of the Mosaic law? And yet [he] was a “σκηνορράφος [skēnorraphos]” [“a tent-maker”], as St. Luke shows (Acts 18:3). St. Chrysostom (on 1 Cor., homily 20 & 24; homily 5 to
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[…continued from col. 1246.] to the people; the homily on St. Paul) — or “σκυτοτόμος [skytotomos]” [“a cobbler / leather-cutter”], as [Paul] is called by the same [Chrysostom] (on 2 Tim. 2, homily 5). The Levites, therefore, could join to the studies of the divine law, and to the sacred functions of the temple, some sedentary and manual arts. Yet two [things] seem [true] to me in this matter. One: [that] if the Levites had practiced these works of the hands, [they] practiced [them] neither assiduously, nor for gain, nor mercenarily. For assiduity [constant practice] would have hindered the more liberal and more sacred thoughts of the mind, and the necessary administration of the sacred [rites]; but the greed of much gain and wages [would have hindered] their authority. The other: [that] the same [Levites] did not [actually] touch [practice] these crafts. 1. Because I have hitherto been able to hear or read no one who asserts otherwise. 2. We read of no works of this kind done by them outside the temple. 3. [Otherwise] they themselves would have built Solomon’s temple — if not the whole, at least in the greatest part. 4. In the return from Babylon, when [there] was a greater need of workmen, and [a greater] poverty of the people — when the restoration and building of the temple was urged most by the Prophets, Haggai & Zechariah — if the Levites were architects and masons, stone-cutters and builders, why did [they] not put [their] hand to the work? why did [they] not build the new temple? why did [they] not relieve, by [their] greatest expense and labor, the distressed people [just] returned from the Babylonian prison? 5. [There] would have been no need [for] so great a care to be undertaken concerning them by God — [that] he should so often, and so seriously, command the people concerning them, [that] faithfully and abundantly to them the first-fruits, tithes, and the best, most-ample, most-frequent oblations be given, [and that there] should never be a forgetting of them; [that] they be called even into a participation of the triennial tithes; [that] in almost all ways [they] be maintained, liberally and amply, by the people (if indeed [the people] wished to be grateful and religious toward God). For by [their] hand and art [they] could have sustained their own life, [and] driven away want and poverty. 6. Finally, although these arts are not really unworthy of a man — even a free, polished, learned, and sacred [one] — in themselves, yet, in the judgment of men, [they] are held [to be] rather illiberal [unbecoming], meaner, and more contemptible; and the “βάναυσοι χειροτέχναι [banausoi cheirotechnai]” [“vulgar manual-workers, mechanics”] are wont to be despised — as in Dionysius of Halicarnassus on the Romans (bk. 2), in Aelian (bk. 1 of the Various History, num. 1, concerning Alcibiades), in Heraclides on the Thespians, in Horapollo (bk. 1, ch. 38), and others on other [matters]. And therefore, if those ministers of God had been occupied and engaged in these [arts], [something] would have been detracted — in the [eyes] of very many — from their authority, from the excellence of the divine worship, [and] from the majesty of God himself, among the rude and unskilled common crowd, [and] among others too who are not much wiser than this [crowd], of whom [there] is everywhere a great nation [multitude]. That vileness of mechanical arts of this kind Ecclesiasticus seems to describe, after the words cited a little before, when, concerning the [otherwise] necessary craftsmen, he subjoins: “And [they] shall not dwell [in high places], nor walk about, and [they] shall not leap over into the Church [assembly]; upon the seat of the Judge [they] shall not sit; and the covenant of judgment [they] shall not understand; nor shall [they] make open [manifest] discipline and judgment; and in parables [they] shall not be found” (Sir. 38:37–39). 7. We know, finally, what the Priests of the idols did, and in what place [esteem] [they] were among their [own people]. For, for example, those [priests] among the Egyptians — “φιλοσοφίαν [philosophian],” says Strabo (bk. 17), “ἄσκουν καὶ ἀστρονομίαν, ὁμιληταὶ τῶν βασιλέων [askoun kai astronomian, homilētai tōn basileōn]” [“[they] practiced philosophy and astronomy, [being] associates of the kings”]; and [they] were nourished not by the works of a craftsman and of the hands, but by royal and public expenditures (Gen. 47:22). We know, besides, how scoffing, bitter, [and] slanderous [against] the Jews those same Gentiles were — as, of the Romans, Tacitus, Martial, Juvenal; of the Greeks and Egyptians, Strabo (bk. 16), Manetho, Chaeremon, Lysimachus, and, most troublesome of all, Apion (against whom Josephus fights in two books, in the former of which [are] those [matters]). If the mystae [initiates] and priests of the Jews had been from the common crowd of cobblers, patchers, stone-cutters, shepherds, and cowherds — how [much] would [the Gentiles] have derided the sacred [rites] of the Jews? how petulantly would [they] have despised the Deity of the Jews, and mocked the whole nation? Yet [they] never objected anything of this kind — nay rather, [they] always spoke amply and magnificently of their [the Jews’] Priests and Levites. And truly, if any of the Levites were perhaps excluded — on account of some bodily defect — from the ministry of the sacred [rites], for [their] whole life, the Lord did not command [that] they be assigned to common works of this kind, or seek [their] livelihood through them; but [he] willed [that] they too be sustained from the sacred revenues (Lev. 21:17 & following). [It is] therefore to be thought [that there] were others, whose work the Priests and Levites used, in their cities, for the necessity of works of this kind — whether those [others] were slaves, or other Israelites. And of these, at the beginning of this donation and habitation, [it] behooved [there] to be a very great number — even for this cause alone, that the sum [total] of Priests was then a very small number. Our [fellow] Gretser moreover (bk. 2 of the Considerations, counsel 11): “I pass over [in silence],” he says, “[that they] had their own cities, and in them Magistracies, to which PERHAPS, from all Israel, for the sake of obtaining justice, [people] either went of their own accord, or were summoned.” But “PERHAPS” [was] prudently added. For this cannot be proved; and [it] seems [to be] rather disproved by Josephus (bk. 4, last ch.) — when (as [was] said above, q. 5) [Josephus] adjoins Levites to the Judges and Magistrates, but in all cities; and [when he] remands some weightier [matters] to Jerusalem, to the examination and tribunal of the Pontiff, [the] Prophet, and the Senate [Sanhedrin].
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