על הבריחה והמציאה י׳On Flight and Finding 10
א׳
1[53] The lawgiver has spoken in greater detail on the subject of flight when laying down the law respecting manslayers, in which he goes into all the different forms, that of intentional slaying, that of unintentional, that of deliberate assault. Read the Law: “If a man smite another and he die, let him die the death. But he that did not intend it, but God delivered him into his hands, I will give thee a place to which the slayer shall flee. And if a man attack his neighbour to slay him by guile and he take refuge, from the altar shalt thou take him to put him to death” (Exod. 21:12–14).
ב׳
2[54] Well knowing that he never puts in a superfluous word, so vast is his desire to speak plainly and clearly, I began debating with myself why he said that the intentional slayer is not to be put to death only but “by death to be put to death.”
ג׳
3[55] “In what other way,” I asked myself, “does a man who dies come to his end save by death?” So I attended the lectures of a wise woman, whose name is “Consideration,” and was rid of my questioning; for she taught me that some people are dead while living, and some alive while dead. She told me that bad people, prolonging their days to extreme old age, are dead men, deprived of the life in association with virtue, while good people, even if cut off from their partnership with the body, live for ever, and are granted immortality.