We find that also made clear in Numbers when Korah and Dathan and Abiram claimed for themselves the liberty of sacrificing in opposition to Aaron the priest. There also the Lord teaches through Moses that the people should be separated from them lest they be bound by the same guilt with the criminals and contaminate themselves by the same crime.Keep away, he says, from the tents of most shameless wicked men, and do not touch anything that is theirs, lest you perish at the same time in their sin. Because of this, a people who obey the precepts of the Lord and fear God ought to separate themselves from a sinful leader and should not take part in the sacrifices of a sacrilegious bishop, especially since they themselves have the power either of electing worthy bishops or of refusing the unworthy.

In the Old Testament, as, for instance, in the case of Korah and the men who dared to enter the priesthood without being called to it and by the severity of the wrath which came upon them to their utter destruction, we see how grave a thing it is to do that which is unsuitable as regards the person. See also

Then there were the miracles of the seditious among the people of God. They separated themselves from the divinely ordered community. They were swallowed alive by the earth, as a visible token of an invisible punishment.

It is evident that those who are alive know and feel what is done to them, but the dead feel nothing. People would be dead in going down to hell if they did evil out of ignorance; but if they have knowledge of evil and yet commit it, they go down alive—wretched and conscious—to the hell of iniquity.

When the divine lesson was read just now, dearly beloved, we heard that our Lord told Moses to forge the censers in which those haughty, rebellious men had offered incense, beat them flat and fasten them to the altar as a sign of the rebellious and proud. Because the sinners have consecrated the censers at the cost of their lives, said the Lord, have them hammered into plates to cover the altar, because in being presented before the Lord they have become sacred. By this figure it seems to have been shown that those censers which Scripture calls brazen represent the sacred writings. Heretics put strange fire in these writings, that is, they introduce a perverse meaning and a sense that is foreign to God and contrary to the truth, thus offering to the Lord an incense that is not sweet but abominable. If we bring these brazen censers, that is, words of the heretics, to the altar of God where there is divine fire, the true preaching of the faith, the same truth will shine all the better in comparison with what is false.

When their crimes were so great, heavenly solicitude was of no avail. As often as they were corrected, so often amendment did not follow. As we are not corrected, even though soundly scourged, so they, though constantly struck down, did not mend their ways. What is written? The following day all the multitude of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying ‘You have killed the people of the Lord.’ What followed? Fourteen thousand and seven hundred men were struck down and consumed by divine fire.

Since the multitude all had sinned, why were not all punished, especially since, as I have said, none escaped from Korah’s mutiny? Why did God wish the whole assembly of sinners to be killed on the former occasion but only a portion at the latter time? It is because the Lord is filled with both justice and mercy and in his indulgence he gives way to his love, and in his will to teach a lesson he gives way to his severity.

Clearly the man [Aaron], who is proposed as a leader to all, is worthy. For when fateful death crept into the midst of the people because of the insolent, he threw himself between the living and the dead to restrain death, lest many should perish. Truly the man is priestly in mind and heart who throws himself with pious love before the flock of the Lord like a good shepherd. In this way he broke the sting of death.^[1] He held off the attack; he put an end to the dying. Piety assisted merit, since he offered himself for those who resisted.

Then Moses encouraged the high priest to offer incense in the camp and to pray for the people: For the people have already begun to be destroyed. Moses saw in spirit what was happening, and therefore Aaron departed to offer incense for the people. He stood between the living and the dead, and the Lord’s fury was alleviated. If you know the course of history and have been able to perceive with your eyes, so to speak, the priest standing in the middle between the living and the dead, rise now to the loftier heights of these words. See how the true priest, Jesus Christ, took the censer of human flesh, put fire on the altar which doubtless is that splendid soul with which he was born in the flesh, further added incense which is his pure spirit, stood between the living and the dead and did not allow death to proceed any farther.