על השכר והעונש י״גOn Rewards and Punishments 13
א׳
1[74] Such are the penalties decreed against the man who first committed fratricide, but there are others decreed against groups who conspire to sin in common. There were certain temple attendants, servitors of the sanctuary, appointed to the office of gate-keepers. These persons filled with insensate ambition rose against the priests whose privileges they claimed should belong to themselves.
ב׳
2[75] They adopted as leader of the sedition the senior from among them, who also with a few fellow madmen had been the instigator of the presumptuous enterprise, and leaving the frontage and the outermost parts of the building proceeded towards the inmost sanctuary intending to displace those to whom divine utterances had adjudged the priesthood.
ג׳
3[76] Naturally enough the whole multitude was greatly disturbed. They felt that their fundamental institutions were being shaken, their laws violated, and the decent order of the holy place reduced to chaos by such alarming anarchy.
ד׳
4[77] All this roused the indignation of the guardian and ruler of the nation. At first very seriously, but without loss of temper, which indeed was alien to his nature, he endeavoured with words of admonition to bring them to a better mind and to refrain from transgressing the appointed limits or revolting against the sacred and hallowed institutions on which the hopes of the nation depended.
ה׳
5[78] But this he found was of no avail. They were deaf to all his words, believing that in appointing his brother high priest and committing the priesthood to his nephews he had given way to family affection. He was not however greatly aggrieved at this, great grievance though it was. What he felt to be intolerable was that they should purpose to set at nought the divine instructions under which the choice of the priests had been made.…
