095: The Special Laws, III (Part 2)
THE SPECIAL LAWS, III - Part 2*
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XII. (72) Some people think that a licensed concubinage is an offence something between seduction and adultery, when the two parties come together, and agree to live as man and wife by a certain agreement, but before the marriage ceremony is completed, some other man meeting with the woman, or forcing her has connection with her; but in my opinion this also is a kind of adultery; for such an agreement as is here mentioned is equivalent to a marriage, for in it the names of the woman and of the man are both registered, and all other things which were to lead to their union; (73) on which account, the law orders both the parties to be stoned if with one and the same mind they agree together to commit adultery; for it is impossible that, unless they both set out with the same intention, they should be looked upon as equal in iniquity, if they and not both sinned in an equal degree; (74) at all events it often happens that the offence is enhanced or diminished, with reference to the difference of place in which it is committed. For, as it seems, such an offence is greater if it be committed in a city, and less it if be committed outside the walls of any city, in a wilderness; for in such a place there is not one to assist the maiden, even though she may have said and done everything, which could conduce to the preservation of her virginity, unattacked and undefiled; but in a city there are halls of council, and courts of justice, and great assemblies of generals, and aediles, and rulers of the markets, and other magistrates; and besides all these there is the people; (75) for there is in the soul of every man, even though he may be a private individual, a feeling which is hostile to iniquity, which, when it is excited, makes the man who cherishes it a champion for the time being, and a spontaneous and voluntary defender of the person who appears to be unjustly treated.
XIII. (76) Therefore justice in every case pursues the man who has committed violence, nor is his iniquity excused by the difference of the place, so that cannot be any plea to defend him from the consequence of his violence and lawlessness; but as I have said before, there will be compassion and pardon for the damsel in the one case, and in the other inexecrable punishment will visit her. (77) And concerning her the judge must examine the matter very carefully, not referring everything to or making everything depend upon the place; for it is possible that a woman may be ravished against her will even in the middle of the city; and on the other hand even if outside the city, she may have voluntarily given herself up to an illicit connection. Wherefore the law, making a very careful and very admirably conceived defence, on behalf of a damsel ravished in the wilderness, says, "for the damsel cried out, and there was no one to help Her;" (5) [Deu 22:27] so that if she neither cried out nor resisted, but willingly consented to her ravisher, she must be looked upon as guilty, having only put forward the fact of the place, as a sophistical excuse to make it appear that she had been ravished. (78) And yet in the city what advantage can her efforts be to a damsel, who is willing to do everything for the sake of preserving her own reputation, but who is unable to succeed by reason of the strength of the man who is assaulting her? for what advantage could she derive from those who live in the same house if he were to bind her with ropes, or to gag her mouth, so that she could not utter even a word; for in some sense she then, although dwelling in a city, is in reality in a wilderness, inasmuch as she is destitute of all protection; but if she be in a wilderness, and yet willingly gives herself up to her ravisher, she is in no different condition from a woman in a city.
XIV. (79) There are also some persons easily sated with their connection with the same woman, being at once both mad for women and women haters, full of promiscuous and irregular dispositions, who at once give themselves up to their first impulses whatever they may be; letting those passions proceed without restraint which they ought to curb, and like blind men, without any consideration, without any prudence, stumbling upon any bodies or any things, upsetting, and overturning, and confusing everything in their violent impetuosity and haste, and suffering evils as great as those which they inflict; (80) and concerning these men we have this law enacted. When those men who marry virgins in accordance with the law, (6) [Deu 22:13] and who have sacrificed on the occasion and celebrated their marriage feast, and who yet afterwards preserve no natural affection for their wives but treat them with insolence, and behave to freeborn citizens as if they were courtesans, if they seek to procure a divorce, and to being able to find any pretext for such a separation, then betake themselves to bringing forward false accusations, and from an absence of any clear grounds of impeachment direct all their charges at things which cannot be made certain, and come forward and accuse them, saying that though they fancied that they had been marrying virgins, they found on the first occasion of their having intercourse together, that they were not so. When, I say, these men make such charges let all the elders be assembled to decide on the case, and let the parents of the woman who is accused also appear, to make their defence in this their common danger. (81) For in such a case, not only are their daughters themselves in danger, as to their reputation as having preserved the chastity of their bodies, but their guardians are likewise imperilled, not only because they have not kept them safe till the important period of their marriageable age, but because they have given in marriage as virgins those who have been defiled by others, deceiving and imposing upon those who have taken them to wife. (82) Then if they appear to have justice on their side, let the judges impose a pecuniary fine on those who have invented these false accusations, and let them also sentence those who have assaulted them to corporeal punishment, and let them also pronounce, what to those men will be the most unpleasant of all things, a confirmation of their marriage, if their wives will still endure to cohabit with them; for the law permits them at their own choice to remain with them or to abandon them, and will not allow the husbands any option either way, on account of the false accusations which they have brought. THE LAW CONCERNING MURDERERS
XV. (83) The name of homicide is that affixed to him who has slain a man; but in real truth it is a sacrilege, and the very greatest of all sacrileges, because, of all the possessions and sacred treasures in the whole world, there is nothing more holy in appearance, nor more godlike than man, the all-beautiful copy of an all-beautiful model, a representation admirably made after an archetypal rational idea. (84) We must therefore, without hesitation, pronounce the homicide or murderer an impious and atrociously wicked person, committing as he does the greatest of all atrocities and impieties, and he ought to be put to death as having done things which can never be pardoned, since, being worthy of ten thousand deaths, he escapes by one only, because the way to death being easy, does not permit his existence to be protracted, so as to endure a multitude of punishments; but there can be nothing wrong in his suffering the same treatment as that which he has inflicted on others, (85) and yet how can it be the same, if it be different as to its time, as to its mode of infliction, as to the intention, and as to the persons? Does not the beginning of acts of violence come first, and the repelling or retaliating them come subsequently? And is not murder the most lawless of all things, but the punishment of murderers the most lawful action possible? Again, he who has slain a man has satisfied his desire which he entertained when he slew him; but he who has been slain, inasmuch as he is now put out of the way, can neither attack him in retaliation, nor can be gratify himself by taking revenge. Moreover, the one was able by his own hands to carry out the designs which he conceived by himself; but the other can never succeed in procuring his punishment, unless his relations and friends become his champions, taking compassion on him for the calamity which has befallen him. (86) If now any one aims a blow with a sword at any one, with the intention of killing him, and does not kill him, he will still be guilty of murder, since he was a murderer in his intention, even though the end did not keep pace with his wish. Again, let that man be liable to the same punishment who, by previous contrivance and machinations (not daring to behave bravely, and to stand face to face with his enemy and attack him openly), treacherously plots and compasses his slaughter; for such a man is equally liable to the curse denounced against murderers, and even though he may not be one with his hands he is so in his soul; (87) for as, in my opinion, one must not only look upon those people as enemies who fight against us by sea or by land, but also those who are prepared for either kind of warfare, and who are erecting battering rams and engines against our harbours and our walls; and as we do in fact judge thus of them, even though they come to no actual conflict, so also we must consider murderers, not only those who perform the mere act of killing, but those who do anything which tends to slaying, whether openly or secretly, even if they do not eventually perpetrate the action. (88) And if out of fear or out of audacity, two very contrary feelings, but both blameable, they venture to flee to the temple as if they would there find an asylum, we must prevent their doing so, if we can: but if they are beforehand with us, and do effect their entrance, then we must take them out and give them up for execution, affirming the principle that the temple does not give an asylum to impious men; for every one who commits actions of incurable guilt is an enemy to God; and murderers do commit such actions, since those who are murdered have suffered disasters which are incurable. (89) Or shall we say that to those who have done no wrong the temple is still inaccessible until they have washed themselves, and sprinkled themselves, and purified themselves with the accustomed purifications; but that those who are guilty of indelible crimes, the pollution of which no length of time will ever efface, may approach and dwell among those holy seats; though no decent person, who has any regard for holy things would even receive them in his house?
XVI. (90) Therefore, since they have heaped iniquity upon iniquity, adding lawlessness and impiety to murder, they must be dragged out of the temple to undergo their punishment, since, as I have said before, they have committed actions worthy of ten thousand deaths instead of one; as otherwise, the temple would be shut against the relations and friends of the man who has been so treacherously murdered, if the murderer were to be dwelling in it, since they could never endure to come into the same place with him. But it would be absurd that, for the sake of one man, and him the most lawless of men, a great number of persons, and those too the very persons who have been injured by him, should be excluded from the temple--men who, besides that they have done no wrong themselves, have even sustained an unseasonable affliction through his actions. (91) And perhaps, indeed, the lawgiver seeing far into futurity by the acuteness of his reasoning powers, was, by such commandments, providing against any bloodshed ever taking place in the temple by the entrance of any of the friends of the murdered man into it, whom natural affection, a very ungovernable feeling, would urge, full of enthusiasm and violent rage as they would be, almost to slay the murderer with their own hands, while if such an event were to take place it would be most impious sacrilege; for then the blood of the sacrifices would be mingled with the blood of murderers; that which has been consecrated to God with that which is wholly impure. It is on this account that Moses commands that the murderer shall be given up, even from the altar itself.
XVII. (92) But some persons who have slain others with swords, or spears, or darts, or clubs, or stones, or something of that kind, may possibly have done so without any previous design, and without having for some time before planned this deed in their hearts, but may have been excited at the moment, yielding to passion more powerful than their reason, to commit the homicide; so that it is but half a crime, inasmuch as the mind was not for some long time before occupied by the pollution. (93) But there are others also of the greatest wickedness, men polluted both in hands and mind, who, being sorcerers and poisoners, devoting all their leisure and all their solitude to planning seasonable attacks upon others, who invent all kinds of contrivances and devices to bring about calamities on their neighbours. (94) On which account, Moses commands that poisoners and sorceresses shall not be allowed to live one day or even one hour, but that they shall be put to death the moment that they are taken, no pretext being for a moment allowed them for putting off or delaying their punishment. For those who attack one openly and to one’s face, any body may guard against; but of those who plot against one secretly, and who disguise their attacks by the concealed approaches of poison, it is not easy to see the cunning beforehand. (95) It is necessary, therefore, to anticipate them, inflicting upon them that death which other persons would else have suffered by their means. And again, besides this, he who openly slays a man with a sword, or with any similar weapon, can only kill a few persons at one time; but one who mixes and compounds poisonous drugs with food, may destroy innumerable companies at once who have no suspicion of his treachery. (96) Accordingly, it has happened before now that very numerous parties of men who have come together in good fellowship to eat of the same salt and to sit at the same table, have suffered at such a time of harmony things wholly incompatible with it, being suddenly killed, and have thus met with death instead of feasting. On which account it is fitting that even the most merciful, and gentle, and moderate of men should approve of such persons being put to death, who are all but the same as murderers who slay with their own hand; and that they should think it consistent with holiness, not to commit their punishment to others, but to execute it themselves. (97) For how can it by anything but a most terrible evil for any one to contrive the death of another by that food which is given as the cause of life, and to work such a change in that which is nutritious by nature as to render it destructive; so that those who, in obedience to the necessities of nature, have recourse to eating and drinking, having no previous idea of any treachery, take destructive food as though it were salutary? (98) Again, let those persons meet with the same punishment who, though they do not compound drugs which are actually deadly, nevertheless administer such as long diseases are caused by; for death is often a lesser evil than diseases; and especially than such as extend over a long time and have no fortunate or favourable end. For the illnesses which arise from poisons are difficult to be cured, and are often completely incurable. (99) Moreover, in the case of men who have been exposed to machinations of this kind, it often happens that diseases of the mind ensue which are worse even than the afflictions of the body; for they are often attacked by delirium and insanity, and intolerable frenzy, by means of which the mind, the greatest blessing which God has bestowed upon mankind, is impaired in every possible manner, despairing of any safety or cure, and so is utterly removed from its seat, and expelled, as it were, leaving in the body only the inferior portion of the soul, namely, its irrational part, of which even beasts partake, since every person who is deprived of reason, which is the better part of the soul, is changed into the nature of a beast, even though the characteristics of the human form remain.
XVIII. (100) Now the true magical art, being a science of discernment, which contemplates and beholds the books of nature with a more acute and distinct perception than usual, and appearing as such to be a dignified and desirable branch of knowledge, is studied not merely by private individuals, but even by kings, and the very greatest of kings, and especially by the Persian monarchs, to such a degree, that they say that among that people no one can possibly succeed to the kingdom if he has not previously been initiated into the mysteries of the magi. (101) But there is a certain adulterated species of this science, which may more properly be called wicked imposture, which quacks, and cheats, and buffoons pursue, and the vilest of women and slaves, professing to understand all kinds of incantations and purifications, and promising to change the dispositions of those on whom they operate so as to turn those who love to unalterable enmity, and those who hate to the most excessive affection by certain charms and incantations; and thus they deceive and gain influence over men of unsuspicious and innocent dispositions, until they fall into the greatest calamities, by means of which great numbers of friends and relations have wasted away by degrees, and so have been rapidly destroyed without any noise being made. (102) And I imagine that the lawgiver, having a regard to all these circumstances, would on that account not permit the punishments due to poisoners to be postponed to any subsequent occasion, but ordained that the executioners should at once proceed to inflict the due penalty on them; for delay rather excites the guilty to make use of the time that is allowed them to carry out their iniquities, inasmuch as they are already condemned to death, while it fills those who are already suspicious and apprehensive of misfortune with a more urgent fear, as they look upon the life of their enemies to be their own death. (103) Therefore, as if we only see snakes, and serpents, and any other venomous animals, we at once, without a moment’s delay, kill them before they can bite, or wound, or attack us at all, taking care not to expose ourselves to any injury from them by reason of our knowledge of the mischief which is inherent in them; in the same manner it is right promptly to punish those men who, though they have had a gentle nature assigned to them by means of that fountain of reason which is the cause and source of all society, do nevertheless of deliberate purpose change it themselves to the ferocity of untameable beasts, looking upon the doing injury to as many people as they can to be their greatest pleasure and advantage.
XIX. (104) This may be sufficient to say on the present occasion concerning poisoners and magicians. Moreover, we ought also not to be ignorant of this, that very often unexpected occasions arise in which a person slays a man without having ever prepared himself for this action, but because he has been suddenly transported with anger, which is an intolerable and terrible feeling, and which injures beyond all other feelings both the man who entertains and the man who has excited it; (105) for sometimes a man having come into the market-place on some important business, meeting with some one who is inclined precipitately to accuse him, or who attempts to assault him, or who begins to pick a quarrel with him and engages him in a conflict, for the sake of separating from him and more speedily escaping him, either strikes his opponent with his fist or takes up a stone and throws it at him and knocks him down. (106) And if the wound which the man has received is mortal, so that he at once dies, then let the man who has struck him also die, suffering the same fate himself which he inflicted on the other. But if the man does not die immediately after receiving the blow, but is afflicted by illness in consequence and takes to his bed, and having been properly attended to rises up again, even though he may not be able to walk well without support, but may require some one to support him or a stick to lean upon, in that case the man who struck him shall pay a double penalty, one as an atonement for the injury done, and one for the expenses of the cure. (107) And when he has paid this he shall be acquitted as to the punishment of death, even if the man who has received the blow should subsequently die; for perhaps he did not die of the blow, since he got better after that and recovered so far as to walk, but perhaps he died from some other causes, such as often suddenly attack those who are of the most vigorous bodily health, and kill them. (108) But if any one has a contest with a woman who is pregnant, and strike her a blow on her belly, and she miscarry, if the child which was conceived within her is still unfashioned and unformed, he shall be punished by a fine, both for the assault which he committed and also because he has prevented nature, who was fashioning and preparing that most excellent of all creatures, a human being, from bringing him into existence. But if the child which was conceived had assumed a distinct Shape (7) [Exo 21:22] in all its parts, having received all its proper connective and distinctive qualities, he shall die; (109) for such a creature as that is a man, whom he has slain while still in the workshop of nature, who had not thought it as yet a proper time to produce him to the light, but had kept him like a statue lying in a sculptor’s workshop, requiring nothing more than to be released and sent out into the world.
XX. (110) On account of this commandment he also adds another proposition of greater importance, in which the exposure of infants is forbidden, which has become a very ordinary piece of wickedness among other nations by reason of their natural inhumanity; (111) for if it is proper to provide for that which is not yet brought forth by reason of the definite periods of time requisite for such a process, so that even that may not suffer any injury by being plotted against, how can it be otherwise than more necessary to take similar care of the child when brought to perfection and born, and sent forth, as it were, into that colony which has been assigned to the human race, for the purpose of having a share of the bounties of nature which she sends forth from the land, and from the water, and from the air, and from the heaven? bestowing on men the sight of the heavenly bodies, and the power and supreme authority over all the things on earth, and supplying all the external senses with abundant supplies of all things, and presenting to the mind as the great king, by means of those outward senses as its body-guards, all the thing which are visible to them, and, without employing their agency, all those things which are appreciable only by reason. (112) Accordingly, let those parents who deprive their children of all these blessings, giving them no share of any one of them from the moment of their birth, know that they are violating the laws of nature, and accusing themselves of the very greatest enormities, of a devotion to pleasure, and a hatred of their species, and murder, and the very worst kind of murder, infanticide; (113) for those men are devoted to pleasure who are not influenced by the wish of propagating children, and of perpetuating their race, when they have connection with women, but who are only like boars or he-goats seeking the enjoyment that arises from such a connection. Again, who can be greater haters of their species than those who are the implacable and ferocious enemies of their own children? Unless, indeed, any one is so foolish as to imagine that these men can be humane to strangers who act in a barbarous manner to those who are united to them by ties of blood. (114) And as for their murders and infanticides they are established by the most undeniable proofs, since some of them slay them with their own hands, and stifle the first breath of their children, and smother it altogether, out of a terribly cruel and unfeeling disposition; others throw them into the depths of a river, or of a sea, after they have attached a weight to them, in order that they may sink to the bottom more speedily because of it. (115) Others, again, carry them out into a desert place to expose them there, as they themselves say, in the hope that they may be saved by some one, but in real truth to load them with still more painful suffering; for there all the beasts which devour human flesh, since there is no one to keep them off, attack them and feast on the delicate banquet of the children, while those who were their only guardians, and who were bound above all other people to protect and save them, their own father and other, have exposed them. And carnivorous birds fly down and lick up the remainder of their bodies, when they are not themselves the first to discover them; for when they discover them themselves they do battle with the beasts of the earth for the whole carcass. (116) And even suppose that some one passing by on his road is moved by a feeling of gentle compassion to take pity on and show mercy to the exposed infants, so as to take them up and give them food, and to show them other portions of the attention that is requisite, what do we think of such a humane action? Do we not look upon it as an express condemnation of the real parents, when those who are in nowise related to them show the tender foresight of parents, but the parents do not display even the kindness of strangers? (117) Therefore, Moses has utterly prohibited the exposure of children, by a tacit prohibition, when he condemns to death, as I have said before, those who are the causes of a miscarriage to a woman whose child conceived within her is already formed. And yet those persons who have investigated the secrets of natural philosophy say that those children which are still within the belly, and while they are still contained in the womb, are a part of their mothers; and the most highly esteemed of the physicians who have examined into the formation of man, scrutinising both what is easily seen and what is kept concealed with great care, by means of anatomy, in order that, if there should be any need of their attention to any case, nothing may be disregarded through ignorance and so become the cause of serious mischief, agree with them and say the same thing. (118) But when the children are brought forth and are separated from that which is produced with them, and are set free and placed by themselves, they then become real living creatures, deficient in nothing which can contribute to the perfection of human nature, so that then, beyond all question, he who slays an infant is a homicide, and the law shows its indignation at such an action; not being guided by the age but by the species of the creature in whom its ordinances are violated. (119) If, indeed, it seemed reasonable to be at all influenced by the age, then I think that a person might very reasonably be even more indignant at those who slay infants. For when full-grown people are killed, there may be ten thousand plausible excuses for assaults upon or quarrels with them; but in the case of mere infants only just launched into human life and shown to the light of day, it is impossible for the greatest liar to invent an accusation against them, as they are wholly void of offence. On which account those ought to be looked upon as the most inhuman and pitiless of all men who entertain plots for the destruction of those infants, and justly does the sacred law detest such criminals and pronounce them worthy of death.
XXI. (120) The sacred law says that the man, who has been killed without any intention that he should be so on the part of him who killed him, has been given up by God into the hands of his slayers; (8) [Exo 21:13] in this way designing to make an excuse for the man who appears to have slain him as if he had slain a guilty person. (121) For the merciful and forgiving God can never be supposed to have given up any innocent person to be put to death; but whoever ingeniously escapes the judgment of a human tribunal by means of his own cunning and wariness, he is convicted when brought before the invisible tribunal of nature, by which alone the uncorrupted truth is discerned without being kept in the dark by the artifices of sophistical arguments. For such an investigation does not admit of arguments at all, laying bare all devices and intentions, and bringing the most secret counsels to light; and, in one sense, it does not look upon a man who has slain another as liable to justice, inasmuch as he has only sinned to be the minister of a divine judgment, but still he will have incurred an obscure and slight kind of defilement, which, however, may obtain allowance and pardon. (122) For God employs those who commit slight and remedial errors against those who have perpetrated enormous and unpardonable crimes as ministers of punishment; not, indeed, that he approves of them, but that he avails himself of them as suitable instruments of punishment, so that no one who is himself pure in his whole life and descended from virtuous parents may have homicide imputed to him, even if he be the greatest man in the world. (123) Therefore, the law has pronounced the sentence of banishment upon him who has slain a man, yet not of banishment any where, nor for ever; for it has assigned six cities, (9) [Num 35:1] one fourth portion of what the whole sacred tribe received as its inheritance, for those who were convicted of homicide; which, from the circumstances connected with them, it has named cities of refuge. And it fixed the time of this banishment as the length of the life of the high priest, permitting the exiles to return home after his death.
XXII. (124) And the cause of the first of these injunctions was this. The tribe which has been mentioned received these cities as a reward for a justifiable and holy slaughter, which we must look upon as the most illustrious and important of all the gallant actions that were ever performed. (125) For when the prophet, after having been called up to the loftiest and most sacred of all the mountains in that district, was divinely instructed in the generic outlines of all the special laws, (10) [Exo 32:1] and was out of sight of his people for many days; those of the people who were not of a peaceable disposition filled every place with the evils which arise from anarchy, and crowned all their iniquity with open impiety, turning into ridicule all those excellent and beautiful lessons concerning the honour due to the one true and living God, and having made a golden bull, an imitation of the Egyptian Typhos, and brought to it unholy sacrifices, and festivals unhallowed, and instituted profane and impious dances, with songs and hymns instead of lamentations; (126) then the tribe aforesaid, being very terribly indignant at their sudden departure from their previous customs, and being enflamed with zeal by reason of their natural disposition which hated iniquity, all became full of rage and of divine enthusiasm, and arming themselves, as at one signal, and with great contempt and one unanimous attack, came upon the people, drunk thus with a twofold intoxication of impiety and of wine, beginning with their nearest and dearest friends and relations, thinking those who loved God to be their only relations and friends. And in a very small portion of the day, four-and-twenty thousand men were slain; the calamities of whom were a warning to those who would otherwise have joined themselves to their iniquity, but who now were alarmed lest they should suffer a similar fate. (127) Since then these men had undertaken this expedition of their own accord and spontaneously, in the cause of piety and holy reverence for the one true and living God, not without great danger to those who had entered in the contest, the Father of the universe received them with approbation, and at once pronounced those who had slain those men to be pure from all curse and pollution, and in requital for their courage he bestowed the priesthood on them.
XXIII. (128) Therefore the lawgiver enjoins that the man who has committed an unintentional murder should flee to some one of the cities which this tribe has received as its inheritance, in order to comfort him and to teach him not to despair of any sort of safety; but to make him, while safe through the privilege of the place, remember and consider that not only on certain occasions is forgiveness allowed to those who have designedly slain any person, but that even great and preeminent honours and excessive happiness is bestowed on them. And if such honours can ever be allowed to those who have slain a man voluntarily, how much more must there be allowance made for those who have done so not with any design, so that, even if no honour be bestowed on them, they may at least not be condemned to be put to death in retaliation. By which injunctions the lawgiver intimates that every kind of homicide is not blameable, but only that which is combined with injustice; and that of other kinds some are even praiseworthy which are committed out of a desire and zeal for virtue; and that which is unintentional is not greatly to be blamed. (129) This, then, may be enough to say about the first cause; and we must now explain the second. The law thinks fit to preserve the man who, without intending it, has slain another, knowing that in his intention he was not guilty, but that with his hands he has been ministering to that justice which presides over all human affairs. For the nearest relations of the dead man are lying in wait for him in a hostile manner seeking his death, while others, out of their excessive compassion and inconsolable brief for the dead, are eager for their revenge; in their unreasoning impetuosity not regarding either the truth or the justice of nature. (130) Therefore, the law directs a man who has committed a homicide under these circumstances not to flee to the temple, inasmuch as he is not yet purified, nor yet into any place which is neglected and obscure, lest, being despised, he should be without resistance given up to his enemies; but to flee to the sacred city, which lies on the borders between the holy and profane ground, being in a manner a second temple; for the cities of those who are consecrated to the priesthood are more entitled to respect than the others, in the same proportion, I think, as the inhabitants are more venerable than the inhabitants of other cities; for the lawgiver’s intention is by means of the privilege belonging to the city which has received them to give more complete security to the fugitives. (131) Moreover, I said before, he has appointed a time for their return, the death of the high priest, for the following Reason. (11) [Num 35:25] As the relations of each individual who has been slain treacherously lie in wait to secure themselves revenge and justice upon those who treacherously slew him; in like manner the high priest is the relation and nearest of kin to the whole nation; inasmuch as he presides over and dispenses justice to all who dispute in accordance with the laws, and offers up prayers and sacrifices every day on behalf of the whole nation, and prays for blessings for the people as for his own brethren, and parents, and children, that every age and every portion of the nation, as if it were one body, may be united into one and the same society and union, devoted to peace and obedience to the law. (132) Therefore, let every one who has slain a man unintentionally fear him, as the champion and espouser of the cause of those who have been slain, and let him keep himself close within the city to which he has fled for refuge, no longer venturing to advance outside of the walls, if he has any regard for his own safety, and for keeping his life out of the reach of danger. (133) When, therefore, the law says, let not the fugitive return till the high priest is dead, it says something equivalent to this: Until the high priest is dead, who is the common relation of all the people, to whom alone it is committed to decide the affairs of those who are living and those who are dead.
XXIV. (134) Such, then, is the reason which it is fitting should be communicated to the ears of the younger men. But there is another which may be well set before those who are elder and settled in their characters, which is this. It is granted to private individuals alone to be pure from voluntary offences, or if any one chooses, he may add the other priests also to this list; but it can only be given as an especial honour to the high priest to be pure from both kinds, that is from both voluntary and involuntary offences; (135) for it is altogether unlawful for him to touch any pollution whatever, whether intentionally or out of some unforeseen perversion of soul, in order that he, as being the declarer of the will of God may be adorned in both respects, having a disposition free from reproach, and prosperity of life, and being a man to whom no disgrace ever attaches. (136) Now it will be consistent with the character of such a man to look with suspicion on those who have even unintentionally slain a man, not indeed regarding them as under a curse, but also not as pure and wholly free from offence, even though they may have appeared most completely to obey the intention of nature, who used them as her instruments to avenge herself on those whom they have slain, whom she had privately judged by herself and condemned to death.
XXV. This is enough to say concerning free men and citizens. The lawgiver proceeds in due order to establish laws concerning slaves who are killed by violence. (137) Now servants are, indeed, in an inferior condition of life, but still the same nature belongs to them and to their masters. And it is not the condition of fortune, but the harmony of nature, which, in accordance with the divine law is the rule of justice. On which account it is proper for masters not to use their power over their slaves in an insolent manner, displaying by such conduct their insolence and overbearing disposition and terrible cruelty; for such conduct is not a proof of a peaceful soul, but of one which, out of an inability to regulate itself, covets the irresponsibility of a tyrannical power. (138) For the man who fortifies his own house like a citadel, and does not allow a single person within it to speak freely, but who behaves savagely to every one, by reason of his innate misanthropy and barbarity, which has perhaps even been increased by exercise, is a tyrant in miniature; and by his conduct now it is plainly shown that he will not stop even there if he should acquire greater power. (139) For then he will at once go forth to attack other cities and countries, and nations, after having previously enslaved his own native land, so as to prove that he is not inclined to behave mercifully to any one who shall ever become subject to him. (140) Let, then, such a man be well assured that he will not always escape punishment for his continual ill-treatment of many persons; for justice, which hates iniquity, will be his enemy, she who is the assistant and champion of those who are treated with injustice, and she will exact of him a strict account of, and reckoning for, those who have fallen into calamity through his means, (141) even if he should say that he had only inflicted blows on them to correct them, not designing to kill them. For he will not at once get off with a cheerful countenance, but he will be brought before the tribunal and examined by accurate investigators of the truth, who will inquire whether he slew him intentionally or unintentionally. And if he be found to have plotted against him with a wicked disposition, let him die; not having any excuse made for him on the ground of his being the servants’ master, so as to procure his deliverance. (142) But if the servants who have been beaten do not die at once after receiving the blows, but live one day or two, then the master shall no longer be liable to be accused of murder, having this strong ground of defence that he did not kill them on the spot by beating, nor afterwards when he had them in his house, but that he suffered them to live as long as they could, even though that may not have been very long. Besides that, no one is so silly as to attempt to distress another by conduct by which he himself also will be a loser. (143) But any one who kills his servant injures himself much more, since he deprives himself of the services which he received from him while alive, and, moreover, loses the price which he paid for him which, perhaps, was large. If, however, the servant turn out to have done any thing worthy of death, let him bring him before the judges and prove his offence, making the laws the arbiters of his punishment and not himself.