על עשרת הדברות כ״דOn the Decalogue 24
א׳
1[121] With these wise words on honouring parents He closes the one set of five which is more concerned with the divine. In committing to writing the second set which contains the actions prohibited by our duty to fellow-men, He begins with adultery, holding this to be the greatest of crimes.
ב׳
2[122] For in the first place it has its source in the love of pleasure which enervates the bodies of those who entertain it, relaxes the sinews of the soul and wastes away the means of subsistence, consuming like an unquenchable fire all that it touches and leaving nothing wholesome in human life.
ג׳
3[123] Secondly, it persuades the adulterer not merely to do the wrong but to teach another to share the wrong by setting up a partnership in a situation where no true partnership is possible. For when the frenzy has got the mastery, the appetites cannot possibly gain their end through one agent only, but there must necessarily be two acting in common, one taking the position of the teacher, the other of the pupil, whose aim is to put on a firm footing the vilest of sins, licentiousness and lewdness.
ד׳
4[124] We cannot even say that it is only the body of the adulteress which is corrupted, but the real truth is that her soul rather than her body is habituated to estrangement from the husband, taught as it is to feel complete aversion and hatred for him.
ה׳
5[125] And the matter would be less terrible if the hatred were shown openly, since what is conspicuous is more easily guarded against, but in actual fact it easily eludes suspicion and detection, shrouded by artful knavery and sometimes creating by deceptive wiles the opposite impression of affection.
ו׳
6[126] Indeed it makes havoc of three families: of that of the husband who suffers from the breach of faith, stripped of the promise of his marriage-vows and his hopes of legitimate offspring, and of two others, those of the adulterer and the woman, for the infection of the outrage and dishonour and disgrace of the deepest kind extends to the family of both.
ז׳
7[127] And if their connexions include a large number of persons through intermarriages and widespread associations, the wrong will travel all round and affect the whole State.
ח׳
8[128] Very painful, too, is the uncertain status of the children, for if the wife is not chaste there will be doubt and dispute as to the real paternity of the offspring. Then if the fact is undetected, the fruit of the adultery usurp the position of the legitimate and form an alien and bastard brood and will ultimately succeed to the heritage of their putative father to which they have no right.
ט׳
9[129] And the adulterer having in insolent triumph vented his passions and sown the seed of shame, his lust now sated, will leave the scene and go on his way mocking at the ignorance of the victim of his crime, who like a blind man knowing nothing of the covert intrigues of the past will be forced to cherish the children of his deadliest foe as his own flesh and blood.
י׳
10[130] On the other hand, if the wrong becomes known, the poor children who have done no wrong will be most unfortunate, unable to be classed with either family, either the husband’s or the adulterer’s.
י״א
11[131] Such being the disasters wrought by illicit intercourse, naturally the abominable and God-detested sin of adultery was placed first in the list of wrongdoing.