על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר אOn the Special Laws, Book I
א׳
1THE SPECIAL LAWS BOOK I
On The Special Laws Which Fall Under The Two Heads Of The Ten Commandments, One Of Which Is Directed Against The Acknowledgement Of Other Sovereign Gods Save The One, And The Other Against Giving Honours To The Works Of Men’s Hands
[1] The Ten Words, as they are called, the main heads under which are summarized the Special Laws, have been explained in detail in the preceding treatise. We have now, as the sequence of our dissertation requires, to examine the particular ordinances. I will begin with that which is an object of ridicule among many people.
On The Special Laws Which Fall Under The Two Heads Of The Ten Commandments, One Of Which Is Directed Against The Acknowledgement Of Other Sovereign Gods Save The One, And The Other Against Giving Honours To The Works Of Men’s Hands
[1] The Ten Words, as they are called, the main heads under which are summarized the Special Laws, have been explained in detail in the preceding treatise. We have now, as the sequence of our dissertation requires, to examine the particular ordinances. I will begin with that which is an object of ridicule among many people.
ב׳
2[2] Now the practice which is thus ridiculed, namely the circumcision of the genital organs, is very zealously observed by many other nations, particularly by the Egyptians, a race regarded as pre-eminent for its populousness, its antiquity and its attachment to philosophy.
ג׳
3[3] And therefore it would be well for the detractors to desist from childish mockery and to inquire in a wiser and more serious spirit into the causes to which the persistence of this custom is due, instead of dismissing the matter prematurely and impugning the good sense of great nations. Such persons might naturally reflect that all these thousands in every generation undergo the operation and suffer severe pains in mutilating the bodies of themselves and their nearest and dearest, and that there are many circumstances which urge the retention and performance of a custom introduced by the men of old. The principal reasons are four in number.
ד׳
4[4] One is that it secures exemption from the severe and almost incurable malady of the prepuce called anthrax or carbuncle, so named, I believe, from the slow fire which it sets up and to which those who retain the foreskin are more susceptible.
ה׳
5[5] Secondly, it promotes the cleanliness of the whole body as befits the consecrated order, and therefore the Egyptians carry the practice to a further extreme and have the bodies of their priests shaved. For some substances which need to be cleared away collect and secrete themselves both in the hair and the foreskin.
ו׳
6[6] Thirdly, it assimilates the circumcised member to the heart. For as both are framed to serve for generation, thought being generated by the spirit force in the heart, living creatures by the reproductive organ, the earliest men held that the unseen and superior element to which the concepts of the mind owe their existence should have assimilated to it the visible and apparent, the natural parent of the things perceived by sense.
ז׳
7[7] The fourth and most vital reason is its adaptation to give fertility of offspring, for we are told that it causes the semen to travel aright without being scattered or dropped into the folds of the foreskin, and therefore the circumcised nations appear to be the most prolific and populous.
ח׳
8[8] These are the explanations handed down to us from the old-time studies of divinely gifted men who made deep research into the writings of Moses. To these I would add that I consider circumcision to be a symbol of two things most necessary to our well-being.
ט׳
9[9] One is the excision of pleasures which bewitch the mind. For since among the love-lures of pleasure the palm is held by the mating of man and woman, the legislators thought good to dock the organ which ministers to such intercourse, thus making circumcision the figure of the excision of excessive and superfluous pleasure, not only of one pleasure but of all the other pleasures signified by one, and that the most imperious.
י׳
10[10] The other reason is that a man should know himself and banish from the soul the grievous malady of conceit. For there are some who have prided themselves on their power of fashioning as with a sculptor’s cunning the fairest of creatures, man, and in their braggart pride assumed godship, closing their eyes to the Cause of all that comes into being, though they might find in their familiars a corrective for their delusion.
י״א
11[11] For in their midst are many men incapable of begetting and many women barren, whose matings are ineffective and who grow old childless. The evil belief, therefore, needs to be excised from the mind with any others that are not loyal to God.
י״ב
12So much for these matters.
י״ג
13[12] We must now turn to the particular laws, taking those first with which it is well to begin, namely those the subject of which is the sole sovereignty of God.
י״ד
14[13] Some have supposed that the sun and moon and the other stars were gods with absolute powers and ascribed to them the causation of all events. But Moses held that the universe was created and is in a sense the greatest of commonwealths, having magistrates and subjects; for magistrates, all the heavenly bodies, fixed or wandering; for subjects, such beings as exist below the moon, in the air or on the earth.
ט״ו
15[14] The said magistrates, however, in his view have not unconditional powers, but are lieutenants of the one Father of All, and it is by copying the example of His government exercised according to law and justice over all created beings that they acquit themselves aright; but those who do not descry the Charioteer mounted above attribute the causation of all the events in the universe to the team that draw the chariot as though they were sole agents.
ט״ז
16[15] From this ignorance our most holy lawgiver would convert them to knowledge with these words: “Do not when thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars and all the ordered host of heaven go astray and worship them.” Well indeed and aptly does he call the acceptance of the heavenly bodies as gods a going astray or wandering.
י״ז
17[16] For those who see the sun with its advances and retreats producing the yearly seasons in which the animals and plants and fruits are brought at fixed periods of time from their birth to maturity, and the moon as handmaid and successor to the sun taking over at night the care and supervision of all that he had charge of by day, and the other stars in accordance with their sympathetic affinity to things on earth acting and working in a thousand ways for the preservation of the All, have wandered infinitely far in supposing that they alone are gods.
י״ח
18[17] But if they had been at pains to walk in that road where there is no straying, they would at once have perceived that just as sense is the servitor of mind, so too all the beings perceived by sense are the ministers of Him who is perceived by the mind. It is enough for them if they gain the second place.
י״ט
19[18] For it is quite ridiculous to deny that if the mind in us, so exceedingly small and invisible, is yet the ruler of the organs of sense, the mind of the universe, so transcendently great and perfect, must be the King of kings who are seen by Him though He is not seen by them.
כ׳
20[19] So all the gods which sense descries in Heaven must not be supposed to possess absolute power but to have received the rank of subordinate rulers, naturally liable to correction, though in virtue of their excellence never destined to undergo it.
כ״א
21[20] Therefore carrying our thoughts beyond all the realm of visible existence let us proceed to give honour to the Immaterial, the Invisible, the Apprehended by the understanding alone, who is not only God of gods, whether perceived by sense or by mind, but also the Maker of all. And if anyone renders the worship due to the Eternal, the Creator, to a created being and one later in time, he must stand recorded as infatuated and guilty of impiety in the highest degree.
כ״ב
22[21] There are some who put gold and silver in the hands of sculptors as though they were competent to fashion gods; and the sculptors taking the crude material and furthermore using mortal form for their model, to crown the absurdity shape gods, as they are supposed to be. And after erecting and establishing temples they have built altars and in their honour hold sacrifices and processions with other religious rites and ceremonies conducted with the most elaborate care, and the vain shew is treated by priests and priestesses with the utmost possible solemnity.
כ״ג
23[22] Such idolaters are warned by the Ruler of All in these words: “Ye shall not make with Me gods of silver and gold,” and the lesson conveyed is little less than a direct command, “Neither shall ye make gods the work of your hands from any other material if you are prevented from using the best,” for silver and gold hold first place among the sculptor’s materials.
כ״ד
24[23] But apart from the literal prohibition, He seems to me to suggest another thought of great value for the promotion of morality, and to condemn strongly the money-lovers who procure gold and silver coins from every side and treasure their hoard like a divine image in a sanctuary, believing it to be a source of blessing and happiness of every kind.
כ״ה
25[24] And further, all the needy who are possessed by that grievous malady, the desire for money, though they have no wealth of their own on which they may bestow worship as its due, pay awe-struck homage to that of their neighbours, and come at early dawn to the houses of those who have abundance of it as though they were the grandest temples, there to make their prayers and beg for blessing from the masters as though they were gods.
כ״ו
26[25] To such he says elsewhere “Ye shall not follow idols and ye shall not make molten gods,” thus teaching them in a figure that it is not fitting to assign divine honours to wealth. For it is the nature of the far-famed materials of wealth, gold and silver, to melt, and they are followed by the multitude who think that what “blind” wealth has to give is the sole or the chief source of happiness.
כ״ז
27[26] It is these that he calls “idols,” like to shadows and phantoms, with nothing firm or strong to which they can cling. They are borne along like a restless wind, subject to every kind of change and alteration. And of this we have a clear proof. Sometimes they suddenly light on one who has never owned them ere now: then again, when he thinks that they are firmly grasped, they spring away. And indeed when they are present, the apparition is like idols or images seen through mirrors, deceiving and bewitching the sense and seeming to subsist when they have no abiding substance.
כ״ח
28[27] And why need we prove that human riches or human vanity, which empty-headed thinking paints in such bright colours, are unstable? For we know that some assert that all other living creatures and plants which are born and perish are in a constant and ceaseless state of flux, though our perception of the effluence is indistinct, because the swiftness of its course always defeats the efforts of the eyesight to observe it with exactness.
כ״ט
29[28] But not only wealth and glory and the like are idols and unsubstantial shadows, but also all those personages, which the myth-makers have invented and spread delusion therewith, building up their false imaginations into a stronghold to menace the truth, and staging as by machinery new gods, in order that the eternal and really existing God might be consigned to oblivion. And to promote the seductiveness they have fitted the falsehood into melody, metre and rhythm, thinking to cajole their audience thereby.
ל׳
30[29] Further, too, they have brought in sculpture and painting to co-operate in the deception, in order that with the colours and shapes and artistic qualities wrought by their fine workmanship they may enthrall the spectators and so beguile the two leading senses, sight and hearing—sight through lifeless shapes of beauty, hearing through the charm of poetry and music—and thus make the soul unsteady and unsettled and seize it for their prey.
ל״א
31[30] Therefore knowing that vanity had attained high power and was championed by the greater part of the human race, not under compulsion but of their own free will, and fearing lest the devotees of piety, true and incorruptible, might be swept away as by a torrent, he stamped upon their minds as with a seal deep imprints of holiness, so that no fusion or smoothing in the course of years should ever blur their distinctness. This lesson he continually repeats, sometimes saying that God is one and the Framer and Maker of all things, sometimes that He is Lord of created beings, because stability and fixity and lordship are by nature vested in Him alone.
ל״ב
32[31] We are told, too, that “those who cling to the God that IS all live.” Is not this the thrice-happy and thrice-blessed life, to cling lovingly to the service of the most ancient Cause of all and to reject the thought of serving the menials and the door-keepers rather than the King? This true life stands inscribed on the tables of nature as deathless and agelong, and the writing that records it must endure with the universe to all eternity.
ל״ג
33[32] Doubtless hard to unriddle and hard to apprehend is the Father and Ruler of all, but that is no reason why we should shrink from searching for Him. But in such searching two principal questions arise which demand the consideration of the genuine philosopher. One is whether the Deity exists, a question necessitated by those who practise atheism, the worst form of wickedness, the other is what the Deity is in essence. Now to answer the first question does not need much labour, but the second is not only difficult but perhaps impossible to solve. Still, both must be examined.
ל״ד
34[33] We see then that any piece of work always involves the knowledge of a workman. Who can look upon statutes or painting without thinking at once of a sculptor or painter? Who can see clothes or ships or houses without getting the idea of a weaver and a shipwright and a house-builder? And when one enters a well-ordered city in which the arrangements for civil life are very admirably managed, what else will he suppose but that this city is directed by good rulers?
ל״ה
35[34] So then he who comes to the truly Great City, this world, and beholds hills and plains teeming with animals and plants, the rivers, spring-fed or winter torrents, streaming along, the seas with their expanses, the air with its happily tempered phases, the yearly seasons passing into each other, and then the sun and moon ruling the day and night, and the other heavenly bodies fixed or planetary and the whole firmament revolving in rhythmic order, must he not naturally or rather necessarily gain the conception of the Maker and Father and Ruler also?
ל״ו
36[35] For none of the works of human art is self-made, and the highest art and knowledge is shewn in this universe, so that surely it has been wrought by one of excellent knowledge and absolute perfection. In this way we have gained the conception of the existence of God.
ל״ז
37[36] As for the divine essence, though in fact it is hard to track and hard to apprehend, it still calls for all the inquiry possible. For nothing is better than to search for the true God, even if the discovery of Him eludes human capacity, since the very wish to learn, if earnestly entertained, produces untold joys and pleasures.
ל״ח
38[37] We have the testimony of those who have not taken a mere sip of philosophy but have feasted more abundantly on its reasonings and conclusions. For with them the reason soars away from earth into the heights, travels through the upper air and accompanies the revolutions of the sun and moon and the whole heaven and in its desire to see all that is there finds its powers of sight blurred, for so pure and vast is the radiance that pours therefrom that the soul’s eye is dizzied by the flashing of the rays.
ל״ט
39[38] Yet it does not therefore faintheartedly give up the task, but with purpose unsubdued presses onwards to such contemplation as is possible, like the athlete who strives for the second prize since he has been disappointed of the first. Now second to the true vision stands conjecture and theorizing and all that can be brought into the category of reasonable probability.
מ׳
40[39] So then just as, though we do not know and cannot with certainty determine what each of the stars is in the purity of its essence, we eagerly persist in the search because our natural love of learning makes us delight in what seems probable,
מ״א
41[40] so too, though the clear vision of God as He really is is denied us, we ought not to relinquish the quest. For the very seeking, even without finding, is felicity in itself, just as no one blames the eyes of the body because when unable to see the sun itself they see the emanation of its rays as it reaches the earth, which is but the extremity of the brightness which the beams of the sun give forth.
מ״ב
42[41] It was this which Moses the sacred guide, most dearly beloved of God, had before his eyes when he besought God with the words, “Reveal Thyself to me.” In these words we may almost hear plainly the inspired cry “This universe has been my teacher, to bring me to the knowledge that Thou art and dost subsist. As Thy son, it has told me of its Father, as Thy work of its contriver. But what Thou art in Thy essence I desire to understand, yet find in no part of the All any to guide me to this knowledge.
מ״ג
43[42] Therefore I pray and beseech Thee to accept the supplication of a suppliant, a lover of God, one whose mind is set to serve Thee alone; for as knowledge of the light does not come by any other source but what itself supplies, so too Thou alone canst tell me of Thyself. Wherefore I crave pardon if, for lack of a teacher, I venture to appeal to Thee in my desire to learn of Thee.” He replies,
מ״ד
44[43] “Thy zeal I approve as praiseworthy, but the request cannot fitly be granted to any that are brought into being by creation. I freely bestow what is in accordance with the recipient; for not all that I can give with ease is within man’s power to take, and therefore to him that is worthy of My grace I extend all the boons which he is capable of receiving.
מ״ה
45[44] But the apprehension of Me is something more than human nature, yea even the whole heaven and universe will be able to contain. Know thyself, then, and do not be led away by impulses and desires beyond thy capacity, nor let yearning for the unattainable uplift and carry thee off thy feet, for of the obtainable nothing shall be denied thee.”
מ״ו
46[45] When Moses heard this, he addressed to Him a second petition and said, “I bow before Thy admonitions, that I never could have received the vision of Thee clearly manifested, but I beseech Thee that I may at least see the glory that surrounds Thee, and by Thy glory I understand the powers that keep guard around Thee, of whom I would fain gain apprehension, for though hitherto that has escaped me, the thought of it creates in me a mighty longing to have knowledge of them.”
מ״ז
47[46] To this He answers, “The powers which thou seekest to know are discerned not by sight but by mind even as I, Whose they are, am discerned by mind and not by sight, and when I say ‘they are discerned by mind’ I speak not of those which are now actually apprehended by mind but mean that if these other powers could be apprehended it would not be by sense but by mind at its purest.
מ״ח
48[47] But while in their essence they are beyond your apprehension, they nevertheless present to your sight a sort of impress and copy of their active working. You men have for your use seals which when brought into contact with wax or similar material stamp on them any number of impressions while they themselves are not docked in any part thereby but remain as they were. Such you must conceive My powers to be, supplying quality and shape to things which lack either and yet changing or lessening nothing of their eternal nature.
מ״ט
49[48] Some among you call them not inaptly ‘forms’ or ‘ideas,’ since they bring form into everything that is, giving order to the disordered, limit to the unlimited, bounds to the unbounded, shape to the shapeless, and in general changing the worse to something better. Do not,
נ׳
50[49] then, hope to be ever able to apprehend Me or any of My powers in Our essence. But I readily and with right goodwill will admit you to a share of what is attainable. That means that I bid you come and contemplate the universe and its contents, a spectacle apprehended not by the eye of the body but by the unsleeping eyes of the mind.
נ״א
51[50] Only let there be the constant and profound longing for wisdom which fills its scholars and disciples with verities glorious in their exceeding loveliness.” When Moses heard this, he did not cease from his desire but kept the yearning for the invisible aflame in his heart.
נ״ב
52[51] All of like sort to him, all who spurn idle fables and embrace truth in its purity, whether they have been such from the first or through conversion to the better side have reached that higher state, obtain His approval, the former because they were not false to the nobility of their birth, the latter because their judgement led them to make the passage to piety. These last he calls “proselytes,” or newly-joined, because they have joined the new and godly commonwealth.
נ״ג
53[52] Thus, while giving equal rank to all in-comers with all the privileges which he gives to the native-born, he exhorts the old nobility to honour them not only with marks of respect but with special friendship and with more than ordinary goodwill. And surely there is good reason for this; they have left, he says, their country, their kinsfolk and their friends for the sake of virtue and religion. Let them not be denied another citizenship or other ties of family and friendship, and let them find places of shelter standing ready for refugees to the camp of piety. For the most effectual love-charm, the chain which binds indissolubly the goodwill which makes us one is to honour the one God.
נ״ד
54[53] Yet he counsels them that they must not, presuming on the equal privilege and equal rank which He grants them because they have denounced the vain imaginings of their fathers and ancestors, deal in idle talk or revile with an unbridled tongue the gods whom others acknowledge, lest they on their part be moved to utter profane words against Him Who truly IS. For they know not the difference, and since the falsehood has been taught to them as truth from childhood and has grown up with them, they will go astray.
נ״ה
55[54] But if any members of the nation betray the honour due to the One they should suffer the utmost penalties. They have abandoned their most vital duty, their service in the ranks of piety and religion, have chosen darkness in preference to the brightest light and blindfolded the mind which had the power of keen vision.
נ״ו
56[55] And it is well that all who have a zeal for virtue should be permitted to exact the penalties offhand and with no delay, without bringing the offender before jury or council or any kind of magistrate at all, and give full scope to the feelings which possess them, that hatred of evil and love of God which urges them to inflict punishment without mercy on the impious. They should think that the occasion has made them councillors, jurymen, high sheriffs, members of assembly, accusers, witnesses, laws, people, everything in fact, so that without fear or hindrance they may champion religion in full security.
נ״ז
57[56] There is recorded in the Laws the example of one who acted with this admirable courage. He had seen some persons consorting with foreign women and through the attraction of their love-charms spurning their ancestral customs and seeking admission to the rites of a fabulous religion. One in particular he saw, the chief ringleader of the backsliding, who had the audacity to exhibit his unholy conduct in public and was openly offering sacrifices, a travesty of the name, to images of wood and stone in the presence of the whole people. So, seized with inspired fury, keeping back the throng of spectators on either side, he slew without a qualm him and her, the man because he listened to lessons which it were a gain to unlearn, the woman because she had been the instructor in wickedness.
נ״ח
58[57] This deed suddenly wrought in the heat of excitement acted as a warning to multitudes who were preparing to make the same apostasy. So then God, praising his high achievement, the result of zeal self-prompted and whole-hearted, crowned him with a twofold award, the gifts of peace and priesthood, the first because He judged the champion who had battled for the honour of God worthy to claim a life free from war, the second because the guerdon most suitable to a man of piety is the priestly office which professes the service of the Father, bondage to Whom is better not only than freedom but also than kingship.
נ״ט
59[58] But some labour under a madness carried to such an extravagant extent that they do not leave themselves any means of escape to repentance, but press to enter into bondage to the works of men and acknowledge it by indentures not written on pieces of parchment, but, as is the custom of slaves, branded on their bodies with red-hot iron. And there they remain indelibly, for no lapse of time can make them fade.
ס׳
60[59] The like principle is clearly maintained in the case of everything else by the most holy Moses, who loves and teaches the truth which he desires to engrave and stamp on all his disciples, dislodging and banishing false opinions to a distance from their understanding.
ס״א
61[60] Thus, knowing that the erring life of the multitude is greatly helped on its way into the wilds by the art of divination, he forbids them to use any of its forms and expels from his own commonwealth all its fawning followers, haruspices, purificators, augurs, interpreters of prodigies, incantators, and those who put their faith in sounds and voices.
ס״ב
62[61] For all these are but guessing at what is plausible and probable, and the same phenomena present to them ideas which differ at different times because the things on which they are based have no natural stability nor has the understanding acquired any accurate touchstone by which the genuine can be tested and approved.
ס״ג
63[62] All these pave the way for impiety. Why so? Because he who pays attention and puts confidence in them is spurning the Cause of all in his belief that they are the sole causes of good and evil and fails to perceive that the anchors on which he moors his life and its cares are utterly insecure, such as birds and wings and their flight hither and thither through the air, and grovelling reptiles which crawl out of their holes to seek their food; and again entrails and blood and corpses which deprived of life at once collapse and decompose and in this process exchange their natural properties for others of worse condition.
ס״ד
64[63] Moses demands that one who is registered in the commonwealth of the laws should be perfect not in the lore, in which the many are schooled, of divination and voices and plausible conjectures, but in his duties towards God in which there is nothing doubtful or ambiguous but undoubted, naked truth.
ס״ה
65[64] But since a longing to know the future is ingrained in all men, which longing makes them turn to haruspication and the other forms of divination in the prospect of finding certainty thereby, though actually they are brimful of uncertainty and constantly convict themselves of falsehood—while he very earnestly forbids them to follow such, yet he tells them that if they do not swerve from piety they will not be denied the full knowledge of the future.
ס״ו
66[65] A prophet possessed by God will suddenly appear and give prophetic oracles. Nothing of what he says will be his own, for he that is truly under the control of divine inspiration has no power of apprehension when he speaks but serves as the channel for the insistent words of Another’s prompting. For prophets are the interpreters of God, Who makes full use of their organs of speech to set forth what He wills. These and the like are his injunctions as to the conception of the one truly existing God. Having opened with them, he next proceeds to indicate how the honours due to Him should be paid.
ס״ז
67[66] The highest, and in the truest sense the holy, temple of God is, as we must believe, the whole universe, having for its sanctuary the most sacred part of all existence, even heaven, for its votive ornaments the stars, for its priests the angels who are servitors to His powers, unbodied souls, not compounds of rational and irrational nature, as ours are, but with the irrational eliminated, all mind through and through, pure intelligences, in the likeness of the monad.
ס״ח
68[67] There is also the temple made by hands; for it was right that no check should be given to the forwardness of those who pay their tribute to piety and desire by means of sacrifices either to give thanks for the blessings that befall them or to ask for pardon and forgiveness for their sins. But he provided that there should not be temples built either in many places or many in the same place, for he judged that since God is one, there should be also only one temple. Further,
ס״ט
69[68] he does not consent to those who wish to perform the rites in their houses, but bids them rise up from the ends of the earth and come to this temple. In this way he also applies the severest test to their dispositions. For one who is not going to sacrifice in a religious spirit would never bring himself to leave his country and friends and kinsfolk and sojourn in a strange land, but clearly it must be the stronger attraction of piety which leads him to endure separation from his most familiar and dearest friends who form as it were a single whole with himself.
ע׳
70[69] And we have the surest proof of this in what actually happens. Countless multitudes from countless cities come, some over land, others over sea, from east and west and north and south at every feast. They take the temple for their port as a general haven and safe refuge from the bustle and great turmoil of life, and there they seek to find calm weather, and, released from the cares whose yoke has been heavy upon them from their earliest years, to enjoy a brief breathing-space in scenes of genial cheerfulness.
ע״א
71[70] Thus filled with comfortable hopes they devote the leisure, as is their bounden duty, to holiness and the honouring of God. Friendships are formed between those who hitherto knew not each other, and the sacrifices and libations are the occasion of reciprocity of feeling and constitute the surest pledge that all are of one mind.
ע״ב
72[71] This temple is enclosed by an outermost wall of very great length and breadth, which gains additional solidity by four porticos so adorned as to present a very costly appearance. Each of them is twofold, and the stone and timber used as its materials and supplied in abundance, combined with the skill of experienced craftsmen and the care bestowed on it by the master-builders, have produced a very perfect piece of work. The inner walls are smaller and in a severer style of architecture.
ע״ג
73[72] Right in the very middle stands the sanctuary itself with a beauty baffling description, to judge from what is exposed to view. For all inside is unseen except by the high priest alone, and indeed he, though charged with the duty of entering once a year, gets no view of anything. For he takes with him a brazier full of lighted coals and incense, and the great quantity of vapour which this naturally gives forth covers everything around it, beclouds the eyesight and prevents it from being able to penetrate to any distance.
ע״ד
74[73] The huge size and height of the sanctuary make it in spite of its comparatively low situation as prominent an object as any of the highest mountains. In fact, so vast are the buildings that they are seen conspicuously and strike the eye with admiration, especially in the case of foreign visitors, who compare them with the architecture of their own public edifices and are amazed both at their beauty and magnificence.
ע״ה
75[74] But there is no grove within the walled area by order of the law, for many reasons. First, because the temple which is truly holy does not seek to provide pleasure and hours of easy enjoyment but the austerity of religion; secondly, because the means used to promote the verdure of trees, being the excrements of men and irrational animals, cannot be brought in there without profanity; thirdly, because the plants of the wild kind of vegetation are of no use, but only, as the poets say, “a burden to the soil,” while those of the cultivated variety which produce fruits of the same quality will distract the weak-minded from the solemnity of the sacred rites.
ע״ו
76[75] Furthermore, overgrown places and dense thickets are the resort of malefactors, who use their obscurity for their own safety and as an ambush whence they can suddenly attack whomsoever they wish. Broad spaces and openness and absence of restriction on every side, where there is nothing to hinder the sight, are most suitable to a temple, to enable those who enter and spend their time there to have an accurate view.
ע״ז
77[76] The revenues of the temple are derived not only from landed estates but also from other and far greater sources which time will never destroy. For as long as the human race endures, and it will endure for ever, the revenues of the temple also will remain secure co-eternal with the whole universe.
ע״ח
78[77] For it is ordained that everyone, beginning at his twentieth year, should make an annual contribution of first-fruits. These contributions are called “ransom money,” and therefore the first-fruits are given with the utmost zeal. The donors bring them cheerfully and gladly, expecting that the payment will give them release from slavery or healing of diseases and the enjoyment of liberty fully secured and also complete preservation from danger.
ע״ט
79[78] As the nation is very populous, the offerings of first-fruits are naturally exceedingly abundant. In fact, practically in every city there are banking places for the holy money where people regularly come and give their offerings. And at stated times there are appointed to carry the sacred tribute envoys selected on their merits, from every city those of the highest repute, under whose conduct the hopes of each and all will travel safely. For it is on these first-fruits, as prescribed by the law, that the hopes of the pious rest.
פ׳
80[79] The nation has twelve tribes, but one out of these was selected on its special merits for the priestly office, a reward granted to them for their gallantry and godly zeal on an occasion when the multitude was seen to have fallen into sin through following the ill-judged judgement of some who persuaded them to emulate the foolishness of Egypt and the vainly imagined fables current in that land, attached to irrational animals and especially to bulls. For the men of this tribe at no bidding but their own made a wholesale slaughter of all the leaders of the delusion and thus carrying to the end their championship of piety were held to have done a truly religious deed.
פ״א
81[80] With regard to the priests there are the following laws. It is ordained that the priest should be perfectly sound throughout, without any bodily deformity. No part, that is, must be lacking or have been mutilated, nor on the other hand redundant, whether the excrescence be congenital or an after-growth due to disease. Nor must the skin have been changed into a leprous state or into malignant tetters or warts or any other eruptive growth. All these seem to me to symbolize perfection of soul.
פ״ב
82[81] For if the priest’s body, which is mortal by nature, must be scrutinized to see that it is not afflicted by any serious misfortune, much more is that scrutiny needed for the immortal soul, which we are told was fashioned after the image of the Self-existent. And the image of God is the Word through whom the whole universe was framed.
פ״ג
83[82] After providing for his pure descent from a noble stock and his perfection both of body and soul, the legislation deals with the dress which the priest must assume when he is about to carry out the sacred rites. It consists of a linen tunic and short breeches,
פ״ד
84[83] the latter to cover the loins, which must not be exposed at the altar, while the tunic is to make them nimble in their ministry. For in this undress, with nothing more than the short tunics, they are attired so as to move with unhampered rapidity when they bring the victims and the votive offerings and the libations and all other things needed for the sacrifices.
פ״ה
85[84] The high priest is bidden to put on a similar dress when he enters the inner shrine to offer incense, because its fine linen is not, like wool, the product of creatures subject to death, and also to wear another, the formation of which is very complicated. In this it would seem to be a likeness and copy of the universe. This is clearly shewn by the design.
פ״ו
86[85] In the first place, it is a circular garment of a dark blue colour throughout, a tunic with a full-length skirt, thus symbolizing the air, because the air is both naturally black and in a sense a full-length robe stretching from the sublunar region above to the lowest recesses of the earth.
פ״ז
87[86] Secondly, on this is set a piece of woven work in the shape of a breastplate, which symbolizes heaven. For on the shoulder-points there are two emerald stones, a kind of substance which is exceedingly valuable. There is one of these on each side and both are circular, representing the hemispheres, one of which is above and one under the earth.
פ״ח
88[87] Then on the breast there are twelve precious stones of different colours, arranged in four rows of three each, set in this form on the model of the zodiac, for the zodiac consisting of twelve signs makes the four seasons of the year by giving three signs to each.
פ״ט
89[88] This part of the dress as a whole is significantly called the reason-seat, because heaven and its contents are all framed and ordered on rational principles and proportions, for nothing there is irrational. On the reason-seat he embroidered two pieces of woven work, one of which he called Clear Shewing and the other Truth.
צ׳
90[89] By Truth he suggests the thought that no falsehood is allowed to set foot in heaven but has been banished entirely to the earthly regions and has its lodging in the souls of accursed men: by Clear Shewing that the heavenly beings make clear all things that we are or do, which in themselves would be altogether unknown. Here is a self-evident proof.
צ״א
91[90] If the light of the sun had never shone, how could the numberless qualities of bodily things have been perceived? Or the multiform varieties of colours and shapes? Who else could have shewn us nights and days and months and years and time in general except the revolutions, harmonious and grand beyond all description, of the sun and the moon and the other stars?
צ״ב
92[91] How but through the same heavenly bodies teaching us to compute the divisions of time could we have learnt the nature of number? Who could have opened and shewn to the voyager his path through the seas and all the expanses of the deep had not the stars as they wheel and revolve in their courses done the work?
צ״ג
93[92] Numberless other phenomena have been observed and recorded by wise men who by study of the heavenly bodies have marked the signs of calm weather and stormy winds, of plentifulness and scarcity of crops, of mild and scorching summers, of sinister and spring-like winters, of droughts and rainy seasons, of fecundity in animals and plants and on the other hand of sterility in both and all other matters of the same kind. For of all the things that happen upon earth, the signs are graven in the face of heaven.
צ״ד
94[93] At the very lowest part of the skirt there are appended golden pomegranates and bells and flower-work, symbols of earth and water: the flower patterns of earth because they grow and flower out of it, the pomegranate or flowing fruit, of water, the name preserving its derivation from “flowing,” while the bells shew forth the harmony and concord and unison of the parts of the universe.
צ״ה
95[94] The order in which the parts are arranged is also admirable. At the very top is what he calls the breastpiece in which are placed the stones, a copy of heaven because heaven also is at the top. Then under it the full-length skirt, dark blue right through because the air also is black and occupies the second position below the heaven, and the flower-work and pomegranates at the extremities because to earth and water is allotted the lowest place in the universe.
צ״ו
96[95] Such is the form in which the sacred vesture was designed, a copy of the universe, a piece of work of marvellous beauty to the eye and the mind. To the eye it presents a most amazing appearance transcending any woven work that we possess in variety and costliness, to the mind the philosophical conceptions which its parts suggest.
צ״ז
97[96] For it expresses the wish first that the high priest should have in evidence upon him an image of the All, that so by constantly contemplating it he should render his own life worthy of the sum of things, secondly that in performing his holy office he should have the whole universe as his fellow-ministrant. And very right and fit it is that he who is consecrated to the Father of the world should take with him also that Father’s son, the universe, for the service of the Creator and Begetter.
צ״ח
98[97] There is also a third truth symbolized by the holy vesture which must not be passed over in silence. Among the other nations the priests are accustomed to offer prayers and sacrifices for their kinsmen and friends and fellow-countrymen only, but the high priest of the Jews makes prayers and gives thanks not only on behalf of the whole human race but also for the parts of nature, earth, water, air, fire. For he holds the world to be, as in very truth it is, his country, and in its behalf he is wont to propitiate the Ruler with supplication and intercession, beseeching Him to make His creature a partaker of His own kindly and merciful nature.
צ״ט
99[98] After saying this by way of prelude, he proceeds to lay down another statute commanding that he who approaches the altar and handles the sacrifices should not during the time in which it is his duty to perform the sacred rites drink wine or any other intoxicant, and this for four most cogent reasons: the dangers of slackness, forgetfulness, sleep and foolish behaviour.
ק׳
100[99] For strong drink enervates the bodily faculties, and makes the limbs more difficult to move, increases the tendency to sluggishness in a man, and irresistibly forces him to fall asleep, while by relaxing the sinews of the soul it produces both forgetfulness and foolish conduct. When he is sober, his bodily parts are buoyant and easier to move, the senses are clearer and brighter and the mind keener-sighted, so that it can foresee events and recount what it has seen in the past.
ק״א
101[100] In general, indeed, wine must be regarded as very unprofitable for every side of life, since it presses hard upon the soul, dulls the senses and weighs down the body, leaving none of our faculties free and untrammelled but hampering the natural activity of each. But in religious rites and ceremonies the mischief is graver in the same degree as it is more intolerable to offend against our duty to God than our duty to man. Thus it is a very proper enactment that the officiants at the sacrifice should fast from wine, “to discern and distinguish between holy and profane, clean and unclean,” lawful and unlawful.
ק״ב
102[101] Since a priest is a man well before he is a priest and must and should feel the instinct for mating, Moses arranges for his marriage with a pure virgin whose parents and grandparents and ancestors are equally pure, highly distinguished for the excellence of their conduct and lineage.
ק״ג
103[102] For a harlot is profane in body and soul, even if she has discarded her trade and assumed a decent and chaste demeanour, and he is forbidden even to approach her, since her old way of living was unholy. Let such a one indeed retain in other respects her civic rights as she has been at pains to purge herself from her defilements, for repentance from wrongdoing is praiseworthy. Nor let anyone else be prevented from taking her in marriage, but let her not come near to the priest. For the rights and duties of the priesthood are of a special kind, and the office demands an even tenor of blamelessness from birth to death.
ק״ד
104[103] It would be foolish if, while the bodily scars which wounds leave behind them, marks of misfortune and not of depravity, preclude one from the priesthood, the women who have sold their personal charms not only under compulsion but sometimes by free and deliberate choice, should just because of a belated and reluctant repentance pass straight from their lovers to wedlock with the priests and exchange the stews for a lodging in holy ground. For in the souls of the repentant there remain, in spite of all, the scars and prints of their old misdeeds.
ק״ה
105[104] It is well and admirably said in another place, “Neither shall the hire of a harlot be brought into the Temple,” though the coins are not guilty in themselves but only because of the recipient and the business for which it was given her. Surely one would not care to admit to partnership with the priests the women whose very money is profane and regarded as base, even though the metal and the stamp is true.
ק״ו
106[105] So strict are the regulations laid down for the marriage of the high priest that he is not even permitted to marry a widow, whether her isolation is due to the death of her husband or divorce from him while still alive. This is laid down first in order that the holy seed may pass into pure and untrodden soil and the issue receive no admixture with another family.
ק״ז
107Secondly, that by mating with souls entirely innocent and unperverted they may find it easy to mould the characters and dispositions of their wives, for the minds of virgins are easily influenced and attracted to virtue and very ready to be taught.
ק״ח
108[106] But she who has had experience of another husband is naturally less amenable to instruction. For her soul is not one of the completely simple kind like a sheet of wax levelled to show clearly the lessons to be inscribed upon it, but rather like one roughened by the imprints already scored upon it, which resist effacement and either do not yield to the dint of other seals or, if they do, confuse them with their own indentations.
ק״ט
109[107] Let the high priest then take a virgin who is innocent of marriage. And when I say “virgin” I exclude not only one with whom another man has had intercourse but also one with whom any other has been declared to have an agreement of betrothal, even though her body is that of a maid intact.
ק״י
110[108] As for the subordinate priests, while the other marriage regulations are the same for them as for those who hold the highest priesthood, they are permitted to wed with immunity not only virgins but widows, though only such as have lost their husbands by death. This limitation is due to the desire of the law to remove animosities and feuds from the lives of the priests. While the first husband lives, quarrels might be engendered by the feminine proclivity to jealousy. His death carries with it the death of any hostility to the second husband.
קי״א
111[109] As for the distinction between priests and high priests, the view of the law was that the greater sanctity and purity required of the latter in all other matters should be extended to his choice of a partner in marriage, and therefore it forbade him to take to wife any but a maiden. But to those of the second rank it made concessions as to their relations with women and permitted them to espouse such as had had experience of other husbands.
קי״ב
112[110] Further, it made clear distinctions as to the birth of the intended wives. The high priest must not propose marriage save to one who is not only a virgin but a priestess descended from priests, so that bride and bridegroom may be of one house and in a sense of the same blood and so, harmoniously united, shew a lifelong blending of temperament firmly established.
קי״ג
113[111] But the rest are permitted to marry the daughters of others than priests partly because the restrictions required to maintain their purity are slight, partly because the law did not wish that the nation should be denied altogether a share in the priestly clanship or be entirely excluded from it. This was the reason why he did not forbid the other priests to intermarry with the laity of the nation, for intermarriage is kinship in the second degree. Sons-in-law are sons to their fathers-in-law, and the latter are fathers to the former.
קי״ד
114[112] These and similar regulations as to marriage are intended to promote the generation of children, but since generation is followed by dissolution, he has laid down laws for the priests dealing with deaths. In these he ordains that they should not incur defilement for all connected with them by friendship or kinship whatever the degree, but only for fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and maiden sisters.
קי״ה
115[113] But the high priest is precluded from all outward mourning and surely with good reason. For the services of the other priests can be performed by deputy, so that if some are in mourning none of the customary rites need suffer. But no one else is allowed to perform the functions of a high priest and therefore he must always continue undefiled, never coming in contact with a corpse, so that he may be ready to offer his prayers and sacrifices at the proper time without hindrance on behalf of the nation.
קי״ו
116[114] Further, since he is dedicated to God and has been made captain of the sacred regiment, he ought to be estranged from all the ties of birth and not be so overcome by affection to parents or children or brothers as to neglect or postpone any one of the religious duties which it were well to perform without any delay.
קי״ז
117[115] He forbids him also either to rend his garments for his dead, even the nearest and dearest, or to take from his head the insignia of the priesthood, or on any account to leave the sacred precincts under the pretext of mourning. Thus, showing reverence both to the place and to the personal ornaments with which he is decked, he will have his feeling of pity under control and continue throughout free from sorrow.
קי״ח
118[116] For the law desires him to be endued with a nature higher than the merely human and to approximate to the Divine, on the border-line, we may truly say, between the two, that men may have a mediator through whom they may propitiate God and God a servitor to employ in extending the abundance of His boons to men.
קי״ט
119[117] These rules are followed directly by his legislation on those who are to share in the first-fruits. If any of the priests, he tells us, has lost the use of his eyes or hands or feet or any part of his body, or suffers from any defect, he must refrain from officiating because of the afflictions which have befallen him, but he may enjoy the privileges common to the priests because his pure lineage still remains without reproach.
ק״כ
120[118] If, however, leprous eruptions appear upon him or he is suffering from seminal issue, the priest must not touch the holy table or any of the prizes to which his clan is entitled until in the one case the issue has ceased, in the other the leprosy is converted into a resemblance to the hue of healthy flesh.
קכ״א
121Further,
קכ״ב
122[119] if a priest touches any impure object or, as often happens, has an emission during the night, he must not during that day partake of consecrated food but bathe himself, and after sundown he should not be debarred from its use.
קכ״ג
123[120] But the first-fruits must be kept out of the hands of a dweller near the priest or his hired servant; the first is mentioned because board and hospitality are usually given to neighbours, and there is a danger that the consecrated meats may be profaned through an untimely generosity abused as a pretext for impiety. For we must not share everything with everyone, but restrict our gifts to what are suitable to the recipient. Otherwise the most excellent and valuable thing which life possesses, order, will be destroyed, vanquished by its most mischievous foe, confusion.
קכ״ד
124[121] For if sailors on merchant vessels were remunerated equally with the pilots, or oarsmen and marines on men-of-war with captains and admirals, or cavalry soldiers in armies with their commanders, or rank and file with their officers, or regimental captains with generals, or in cities litigants with judges, councillors with their chairmen, or in general private individuals with rulers, disturbances and factions would arise and the nominal equality would engender an actual inequality. For like pay for unlike worth is inequality, and inequality is the fountain of evil.
קכ״ה
125[122] On the same principle the general law against giving away the prerogatives of the priests should be extended to the neighbours also. Otherwise they will be handling the forbidden meats just because they live in the vicinity. For the privilege belongs not to a dwelling-house, but to a caste.
קכ״ו
126[123] In the same way no one must bestow the sacred prerogative on a hired servant, either as his hire or in exchange for his service. For he will sometimes use the gift for improper purposes, thus profaning the rewards attached to pure lineage and the ministry of the sanctuary.
קכ״ז
127[124] This is the reason why no one at all of alien race, even though he be nobly born and of the original stock, without flaw either on the male or the female line, is permitted by the law to share in the sacred things, in order that the privileges may not be tainted with bastardy but remain the securely guarded possessions of the priestly order.
קכ״ח
128[125] For it would be preposterous that while the sacrifices and sacred rites and all the ceremonies of the altar are committed not to all but to the priests alone, the rewards assigned to these offices should become common property and at the service of chance comers, as though it were right to wear out the priests with toil and labour and the cares that beset them night and day and at the same time to allow their rewards to be shared by idlers.
קכ״ט
129[126] But the home-bred or purchased slave, he proceeds, should be given his share in food and drink from the first-fruits by the priest, his master. First, because the servant has no resources but his master, and that master’s estate consists of the sacred gifts of charity by which the slave must necessarily be maintained.
ק״ל
130[127] Secondly, what is sure to come to pass anyhow should most certainly be done voluntarily. Our domestics are always with us and share our lives. They prepare the ordinary food and drink and additional dishes for their masters, stand by the table and carry out the remains. Whether we wish it or not, they will even if they do not take them openly, pilfer them on the sly. Thus they are compelled perforce to steal and instead of a single indictment, if indeed it is an offence to feed off the master’s viands, a second is provided, namely, stealing, with the result that the enjoyment of the consecrated meats appears to fall to thieves instead of to those who live a blameless life, which is the height of absurdity.
קל״א
131[128] There is a third point for consideration. The dignity of the first-fruits will not be brought into contempt because they are shared by the servants. The fear of the master will prevent this, for by keeping them from idle habits he is able to check any light conduct on their part.
קל״ב
132[129] As a sequel to this he proceeds to lay down a law full of humane feeling. If the daughter of a priest, he says, is widowed after marrying one who is not a priest, either by his death or divorce during his lifetime, and left without children, she should return to her father to regain the share in the first-fruits which she enjoyed as a virgin. For she is still in a sense virtually a virgin, destitute as she is of both husband and children and with no refuge except her father.
קל״ג
133[130] But if there are sons or daughters, the mother must take her place with her children. For sons and daughters belong to the house of the male parent and carry with them into it the mother also.
קל״ד
134[131] The priests were not allotted a section of territory by the law so that like the others they might reap the proceeds of the land and have abundance of their requisites therefrom. Instead, when referring to the consecrated offerings, it paid them the transcendent honour of saying that God was their inheritance. He is their inheritance for two reasons. One is the supreme honour conferred by sharing with God in the thank-offering rendered to Him. The other is the obligation to concern themselves only with the sacred rites, thus becoming in a sense trustees of inheritances. The prizes and guerdons which the law offers are as follows.
קל״ה
135[132] First, a maintenance ready to hand and entailing no labour or trouble. For he commands that from all dough of wheat or other grain, the bakers should set apart a loaf as a first portion for the use of the priests. In this he is also thinking of the avenue to piety provided by the lesson which the law of setting apart gives to those who obey it.
קל״ו
136[133] For through being accustomed to make this offering out of their necessary food, they will have God in indelible recollection and no greater blessing can be gained than this. As the nation is very populous, the first-fruits are necessarily also on a lavish scale, so that even the poorest of the priests has so superabundant a maintenance that he seems exceedingly well-to-do.
קל״ז
137[134] Secondly, he ordains that first-fruits should be paid of every other possession; wine from every winepress, wheat and barley from every threshing-floor, similarly oil from olives, and fruits from the other orchard-trees, so that the priests may not have merely bare necessaries, just keeping themselves alive in comparatively squalid conditions, but enjoy abundance of the luxuries of life and pass their days amid cheerful and unstinted comfort in the style which befits their position.
קל״ח
138[135] A third perquisite is the first-born males of all land animals suitable for the use and service of men. These he orders to be distributed to the priests: in the case of kine and sheep and goats the actual offspring, male calves and lambs and kids, since they are “clean” for the purposes both of eating and sacrificing, and are recognized as such. For the others, horses and asses and camels and the like, compensation is to be paid without chaffering about the value.
קל״ט
139[136] All these are very numerous, for the men of the nation are noted particularly as graziers and stock-breeders, and keep flocks and herds of goats and oxen and sheep and of every kind of animal in vast numbers.
ק״מ
140[137] And this is not all. We find the laws carrying the principle to a further extent by commanding that first-fruits should be paid not only from possessions of every kind but also from their own souls and bodies. For children are separable parts of their parents, or rather to speak more truly, inseparable parts, joined to them by kinship of blood, by the thoughts and memories of ancestors, invisible presences still alive among their descendants, by the love-ties of the affection which unites them, by the indissoluble bonds of nature.
קמ״א
141[138] Yet even parents have their first-born male children consecrated as a first-fruit, a thank-offering for the blessings of parenthood realized in the present and the hopes of fruitful increase in the future. At the same time he shews his wish that the marriages, the first produce of which is a fruit sacred to His service, should be not only blameless but worthy of the highest praise. And reflection on this should lead both husbands and wives to cherish temperance and domesticity and unanimity, and by mutual sympathy shewn in word and deed to make the name of partnership a reality securely founded on truth.
קמ״ב
142[139] But to prevent the parents being separated from the children and the children from their parents, he assessed the first-fruit arising from the consecration of the first-born sons at a fixed sum of money, and ordered rich and poor to make the same contribution. He did not take into consideration either the dignity of the contributors or the good condition and beauty of the offspring, but fixed the payment at an amount which was within the power of even the very poor.
קמ״ג
143[140] For since the birth of children is an event equally common with the grandest and the meanest, he considered it just to enact that the contribution should be equal also, aiming, as I have said, as nearly as possible at a sum within the means of all.
קמ״ד
144[141] After that he assigns another considerable source of wealth to the priests when he commands everyone to give first-fruits of his revenues from corn and wine and oil, and again of the increase of their live-stock levied on their flocks and herds, of sheep and oxen and goats and other animals, and how great an abundance the nation possesses of these may be judged from the magnitude of the population.
קמ״ה
145[142] From all this it is clear that the law invests the priests with the dignity and honours of royalty. Thus he commands that tribute should be given from every part of a man’s property as to a ruler, and the way in which the tribute is paid is a complete contrast to the spirit in which the cities make their payments to their potentates.
קמ״ו
146[143] The cities pay under compulsion and reluctantly and groan under the burden. They look askance at the tax-collectors as general agents of destruction. They trump up different excuses to suit the occasion, and when they discharge the appointed dues and assessments they do so without regard to the time limits allowed.
קמ״ז
147[144] But our people pay gladly and cheerfully. They anticipate the demand, abridge the time limits and think that they are not giving but receiving. And so at each of the yearly seasons they make their contributions with benediction and thankfulness, men and women alike, and with a zeal and readiness which needs no prompting and an ardour which no words can describe.
קמ״ח
148[145] These are the contributions levied on the personal possessions of every individual, but the priests have also other special incomings drawn very appropriately from the sacrifices offered. It is ordained that with every victim two gifts should be presented to the priest from two of its parts, the arm or shoulder from the right side and all the fat from the breast, the former as a symbol of strength and manliness and of all lawful operations in giving and receiving and general activity, the latter of gentle mildness applied to the spirited element.
קמ״ט
149[146] For it is held that this element resides in the breast, since nature has appointed the chest as the most suitable place for its mansion and girded it like a soldier armed against attack with the stoutest of fenceworks called the thorax, or breastplate, which she has formed of a number of bones one upon another, strong and hard, and bound them tight with unbreakable sinews.
ק״נ
150[147] But of animals sacrificed away from the altars as meat for private consumption, three portions are appointed to be given to the priests, the shoulder and the jaws and the maw, as it is called. The shoulder for the reason mentioned a little above, the jaws both as belonging to that master-limb, the head, and as a first-fruit of the uttered word which needs their movement to make possible the outflow of its stream. The jaws are shaken—and thence the derivation of their name —when the tongue strikes upon them and then the whole vocal mechanism joins with them in producing sound.
קנ״א
151[148] The maw is an excrescence of the belly, and it is the fate of the belly to be the manger of that irrational animal, desire, which drenched by wine-bibbing and gluttony, is perpetually flooded with relays of food and drink administered to it, and like a sow rejoices to make its home in the mire. And therefore the place of dregs and leavings has been assigned as by far the fittest for a licentious and most unseemly animal.
קנ״ב
152[149] But the opposite of desire is continence, the acquisition of which is a task to be practised and pressed forward by every possible means as the greatest and most perfect of blessings promoting personal and public welfare alike.
קנ״ג
153[150] So then desire, profane, impure and unholy, has been expelled outside the confines of virtue and well deserved is its banishment. But let continence, that pure and stainless virtue which disregards all concerns of food and drink and claims to stand superior to the pleasures of the stomach, touch the holy altars and bring with it the appendage of the belly as a reminder that it holds in contempt gluttony and greediness and all that inflames the tendencies to lust.
קנ״ד
154[151] In addition to all the rest it ordains that the priests who minister at the holy sacrifices should receive the hides of the whole-burnt-offerings, the number of which is incalculable, and this is no small gift, but represents a very large sum of money. From these things it is clear that the law did not provide the consecrated tribe with a single portion, like the others, but gave it, under the guise of first-fruits from every kind of sacrifice, a source of revenue of greater dignity and sanctity than that of them all put together.
קנ״ה
155[152] But that none of the donors should taunt the recipients, it ordered the first-fruits to be first brought into the temple and then taken thence by the priests. It was the proper course that the first-fruits should be brought as a thank-offering to God by those whose life in all its aspects is blessed by His beneficence, and then by Him, since He needs nothing at all, freely bestowed with all dignity and honour on those who serve and minister in the temple. For if the gift is felt to come not from men but from the Benefactor of all, its acceptance carries with it no sense of shame.
קנ״ו
156[153] Since, then, the prospective rewards are so great, if any of the priests who live a decent and blameless life are in need, they confront us as accusers of our disobedience to the law, even though they bring no charge. For if we obeyed the commandment and gave the first-fruits as it is ordained, they would have not only abundance of mere necessaries but a full measure of all else that the luxurious can require.
קנ״ז
157[154] And on the other hand if the priestly tribe shall in the course of the future be found to possess all the means of life in abundance, it will be strong evidence that the practice of religion is general and the law carefully observed in all respects. But the neglectfulness of some —for it would not be safe to accuse all—has brought about the impoverishment of the consecrated class and indeed, it is true to say, of the defaulters themselves.
קנ״ח
158[155] Disobedience to the law, for all its short-lived seductiveness, recoils upon the disobedient. But in compliance with the laws of nature, though for the moment it is stern and wears a grim aspect, there is the greatest of rewards.
קנ״ט
159[156] After bestowing these great sources of revenue on the priests, he did not ignore those of the second rank either, namely the temple attendants. Some of these are stationed at the doors as gatekeepers at the very entrances, some within in front of the sanctuary to prevent any unlawful person from setting foot thereon, either intentionally or unintentionally. Some patrol around it turn by turn in relays by appointment night and day, keeping watch and guard at both seasons. Others sweep the porticoes and the open court, convey away the refuse and ensure cleanliness. All these have the tithes appointed as their wages, this being the portion settled on them as temple attendants.
ק״ס
160[157] It should be noted that the law does not allow them to avail themselves of these tithes until they have rendered other tithes from them treated as their own property as first-fruits to the priests of the superior class. Only when this condition has been fulfilled are they allowed to enjoy their income.
קס״א
161[158] He also assigned them forty-eight cities with a frontage of land each to the depth of 2000 cubits to graze their cattle and carry on other kinds of business necessary for the service of the cities. Of these there were six allotted, three on the near side and three on the far side of the river Jordan, as a refuge for the perpetrators of involuntary homicide.
קס״ב
162[159] For since it would be sacrilege for a person responsible for the death of a man, however it was caused, to come within the sacred precincts, and use the temple as a refuge from danger, he made over to them the aforesaid cities as secondary temples, well secured from violation through the privileged and honourable position of the inhabitants, who, if any stronger power should attempt to use force against the suppliants, would keep them safe, not with warlike preparations, but through the dignities and privileges conferred on them by the laws in virtue of the reverence attached to the priestly office.
קס״ג
163[160] But the fugitive must remain shut up within the confines of the city to which he has come as a refuge because of the avengers waiting at the door, whose relationship to the dead makes them seek the blood of the slayer in their bitterness at the loss of their kinsman, even though the fatal act was involuntary. For strong family feeling overpowers the sense of justice which strict reason would give. But if he advances outside he must understand that his movements will entail certain destruction, for they will not be unobserved by any member of the family, and enmeshed in their nets and snares he will be a lost man.
קס״ד
164[161] The time limit of his banishment is to coincide with the life of the high priest, at whose death he may return with immunity assured as his due.
קס״ה
165After making these and other similar enactments he next proceeds to give instructions as to the animals suitable for sacrifice.
קס״ו
166[162] Of the animals used for this purpose some are confined to the dry land and others travel in the air. The winged creatures are divided into numberless tribes, all of which he ignored except two, the pigeon and the turtle-dove, the pigeon because it is the gentlest of those whose nature is tame and gregarious, the dove because it is the tamest of those which are naturally fond of solitude.
קס״ז
167[163] The land animals collect in vast multitudes and the number of their varieties is almost incalculable. All these he passed over after selecting three as of superior merit, namely, oxen, sheep and goats. For these are the gentlest and the most docile. We see great herds and flocks of each kind led by a single person, it matters not who. He may even be not a grown man, but the merest child, and under his guidance they go out to the pasture and when required return back in order to their pens. This tameness is shewn by many other indications,
קס״ח
168[164] but most clearly by the following facts. All of them are eaters of grass, none eat flesh; none of them have crooked talons nor a full supplement of teeth, for the upper gum does not lend itself to the growth of teeth, but all the incisors are missing there.
קס״ט
169[165] Furthermore, in the whole animal kingdom they are the most serviceable for human life. The rams produce raiment, the indispensable shelter for the body, the ox ploughs the soil and prepares it for the seed, and when the crop is produced threshes it, thus making it into food which can be shared and enjoyed, while the skin and hair of the goat, when woven or sewn together, supply portable houses for travellers and particularly for campaigners who are compelled by the exigencies of their life to spend most of their time outside the city and in the open air.
ק״ע
170[166] All the animals selected must be perfect, with no affliction troubling any part of their body, scathless throughout and free from fault or flaw. In fact, so great is the forethought exercised not only by those who bring the sacrifices but also by the officiants, that the most highly approved of the priests, selected as most suitable for such inspection, examine them from the head to the extremities of the feet, both the visible parts and those which are concealed under the belly and thighs, for fear that some small blemish has passed unobserved.
קע״א
171[167] The examination is carried out with this excessive minuteness in consideration not of the victims offered but of the innocence of those who offer them. For the law would teach them under this symbol that when they approach the altar to offer either prayers or thanks they must come with no infirmity or ailment or evil affection in the soul, but must endeavour to have it sanctified and free throughout from defilement, that God when He beholds it may not turn away His face from the sight.
קע״ב
172[168] But since the sacrifices are of two kinds, some offered for the whole nation, or rather, it would be correct to say, for all mankind, others for each separate individual among those whose sense of duty makes them worshippers, we must first speak of those which are general. The system on which they are arranged is admirable.
קע״ג
173[169] Some are offered daily, others on the seventh days, others at the new moons or the beginnings of the sacred month, others at the fasts, others at the three festal seasons. Every day two lambs are to be brought to the altar, one at dawn, the other towards dusk. Both these are thank-offerings, one for the benefactions of the day-time, the other for those of the night, given to the human race ceaselessly and constantly by the bounty of God.
קע״ד
174[170] On the seventh days he doubles the number of the victims. He makes this addition of a number equal to the original because he considers the seventh day, called also in his records the birthday of the whole world, to be of equal value to eternity, and therefore he purposes to assimilate the sacrifice of the seventh day to the “perpetuity” of the daily offering of lambs.
קע״ה
175[171] Twice too every day the perfume of the most fragrant kinds of incense is exhaled within the veil at sunrise and at sunset, both before the morning and after the evening sacrifice. Thus the blood offerings serve as thanksgivings for the blood elements in ourselves and the incense offerings for our dominant part, the rational spirit-force within us which was shaped according to the archetypal form of the divine image.
קע״ו
176[172] But on each seventh day loaves are exposed on the holy table equal in number to the months of the year in two layers of six each, each layer corresponding to the equinoxes. For there are two equinoxes in each year, in spring and autumn, with intervals, the sum of which is six months. For this reason * * * At the spring equinox all the seed crops come to their fulness just when the trees begin to produce their fruit, and at the autumn equinox that same fruit is brought to maturity and it is the season when the sowing begins again. Thus nature running its agelong round alternates its gifts to the human race, symbolized by the two sets of six loaves exposed upon the table.
קע״ז
177[173] They are also emblematic of that most profitable of virtues, continence, which has simplicity and contentment and frugality for its bodyguard against the baleful assaults engineered by incontinence and covetousness. For bread to a lover of wisdom is sufficient sustenance, making the body proof against disease and the reason sound and sober in the highest degree.
קע״ח
178[174] But dainty dishes and honey-cakes and relishes and all the elaborate preparations with which the skill of pastrycooks and other experts at the art bewitches the taste, that most slavish of all the senses, a stranger to culture and philosophy, a servant not to things beautiful to see or hear but to the lusts of the wretched belly, create distempers of soul and body which are often past all cure.
קע״ט
179[175] On the loaves there are placed also frankincense and salt, the former as a symbol that in the court of wisdom no relish is judged to be more sweet-savoured than frugality and temperance, the salt to shew the permanence of all things, since it preserves whatever it is sprinkled on, and its sufficiency as a condiment.
ק״פ
180[176] All this I know will excite the mockery and ridicule of those to whom banquetings and high feasting are a matter of much concern, who run in search of richly laden tables, miserable slaves to birds and fishes and fleshpots and similar trash, unable even in their dreams to taste the flavour of true freedom. All these things should be held in little account by those who are minded to live with God for their standard and for the service of Him that truly IS—men who, trained to disregard the pleasures of the flesh and practised in the study of nature’s verities, pursue the joys and sweet comforts of the intellect.
קפ״א
181[177] Having given these orders with regard to the seventh days, he deals with the new moons. At these times whole-burnt-offerings must be sacrificed, ten in all, two calves, one ram, and seven lambs. For since the month in which the moon fulfils its cycle is a complete or perfect whole, he considered that the number of animals to be sacrificed should be perfect.
קפ״ב
182[178] Now ten is a perfect number, and he distributed it excellently among the above-mentioned items; two calves because the moon as she runs for ever her race forwards and backwards has two motions, one as she waxes till she becomes full, one as she wanes to her conjunction with the sun; one ram because there is one law or principle by which she waxes and wanes at equal intervals, both when her light grows and when it fails; seven lambs because the complete changes of form to which she is subject are measured in sevens. In the first seven from the conjunction we have the half moon, in the second the full moon, and when she is reversing her course she passes first into the half moon and then dies away into the conjunction.
קפ״ג
183[179] With the victims he ordered that fine meal, soaked in oil, should be brought, and wine for libations in stated quantities, because these also are brought to their fullness by the revolutions of the moon at the various seasons of the year, and especially by its effect upon the ripening of the fruits, and corn, oil and wine are things possessing qualities most profitable to life and most necessary for human use and therefore are naturally consecrated with all the sacrifices.
קפ״ד
184[180] At the beginning of the sacred month double sacrifices are offered in accordance with its double aspect, first as new moon simply, secondly as the opening of the sacred month. Regarding it as new moon, the sacrifices ordered are the same as those of other new moons. Taking it as a sacred-month-day the oblations are doubled except in the case of the calves: only one of these is offered, the awarder having judged that at the beginning of the year the monad whose nature is indivisible is preferable to the divisible dyad.
קפ״ה
185[181] At the first season, which name he gives to the springtime and its equinox, he ordained that what is called the feast of unleavened bread should be kept for seven days, all of which he declared should be honoured equally in the ritual assigned to them. For he ordered ten sacrifices to be offered each day as at the new moons, whole-burnt-offerings amounting to seventy in all apart from the sin-offerings.
קפ״ו
186[182] He considered, that is, that the seven days of the feast bore the same relation to the equinox which falls in the seventh month as the new moon does to the month. Thus he assigned the same sanctity both to the beginning of each month considered singly and to the seven days of the feast, which being of the same number as the new moons represented them collectively.
קפ״ז
187[183] In the middle of the spring comes the corn harvest. At this season thank-offerings are brought for the lowlands because they have borne fruit in full and the summer crops are being gathered in. This feast, which is universally observed, is called the feast of first-products, a name which expresses the facts, because the first specimens of the produce, the sample oblations, are then consecrated.
קפ״ח
188[184] The sacrifices ordered on this occasion are two calves, one ram and seven lambs, these ten as victims to be entirely consumed by fire, and also two lambs to be eaten by the priests. These last he calls preservation-offerings because mankind has had its food preserved from many vicissitudes of every kind. For that food is commonly subject to destructive forces, sometimes rain-storms, sometimes droughts, or numberless other violent changes in nature, sometimes again from human activities through the invasions of enemies who attempt to lay waste the land of their neighbours.
קפ״ט
189[185] Naturally, therefore, the thank-offerings for preservation are brought to Him Who has scattered all the forces which threatened mischief. They are also brought in the form of loaves which the worshippers carry to the altar and after holding them with outstretched arms up to heaven distribute to the priests together with the flesh of the preservation-offering to regale them in a way well worthy of their sacred office.
ק״צ
190[186] When the third special season has come in the seventh month at the autumnal equinox there is held at its outset the sacred-month-day called trumpet day, of which I have spoken above. On the tenth day is the fast, which is carefully observed not only by the zealous for piety and holiness but also by those who never act religiously in the rest of their life. For all stand in awe, overcome by the sanctity of the day, and for the moment the worse vie with the better in self-denial and virtue.
קצ״א
191[187] The high dignity of this day has two aspects, one as a festival, the other as a time of purification and escape from sins, for which indemnity is granted by the bounties of the gracious God Who has given to repentance the same honour as to innocence from sin. Treating it as a festival day, he made the sacrifices of the same number as those of the sacred-month-days, namely a calf and a ram and seven lambs, thus blending the one with the seven and putting the completion in a line with the beginning. For to seven belongs the completion of actions, to one their beginning.
קצ״ב
192[188] Treating it as a purification, he added three more and bade them bring two kids and a ram, ordering that the last-named should be consumed entirely by fire and that a lot should be cast for the kids. The one on whom the lot fell was to be sacrificed to God, the other was to be sent out into a trackless and desolate wilderness bearing on its back the curses which had lain upon the transgressors who have now been purified by conversion to the better life and through their new obedience have washed away their old disobedience to the law.
קצ״ג
193[189] On the fifteenth day of this month at the full moon is held the feast of tabernacles, as it is called, and on this the supply of sacrificial offerings is on a larger scale, for during seven days there are sacrificed seventy calves, fourteen rams and ninety-eight lambs. All these animals are consumed entirely by fire. It is also commanded that the eighth day is to be observed as holy. This last must be treated in detail when the subject of the feasts as a whole comes up for discussion. The number of offerings brought are the same as on the sacred-month-days.
קצ״ד
194[190] The general sacrifices in the form of burnt-offerings performed on behalf of the nation or, to speak more correctly, on behalf of the human race, have now been described to the best of my ability. But these burnt-offerings are accompanied on each day of a feast by the sacrifice of a kid called the sin-offering offered for the remission of sins, its flesh being put aside to be eaten by the priests.
קצ״ה
195[191] What is the reason for this addition? Is it that a feast is a season of joy, and the true joy in which there is no illusion is wisdom firmly established in the soul, and the wisdom that is stable cannot be acquired without applying medicine to the sin and surgery to the passions? For it would be a strange inconsistency if, while each of the victims consumed in the burnt-offering is only dedicated when found to be free from mischief and blemish, the mind of the worshipper should not be purified in every way and washed clean and fair by the ablutions and lustrations, which the right reason of nature pours into the souls of those who love God through ears that are sound in health and free from corruption.
קצ״ו
196[192] But besides this something else may be justly said. These festal occasions of relaxation and cessation from work have often ere now opened up countless avenues to transgressions. For strong drink and gross eating accompanied by wine-bibbing, while they awaken the insatiable lusts of the belly, inflame also the lusts seated below it, and as they stream along and overflow on every side they create a torrent of evils innumerable, because they have the immunity of the feast for their headquarters and refuge from retribution.
קצ״ז
197[193] All this the lawgiver observed and therefore did not permit his people to conduct their festivities like other nations, but first he bade them in the very hour of their joy make themselves pure by curbing the appetites for pleasure. Then he summoned them to the sanctuary to take their part in hymns and prayers and sacrifices, that the place and the spectacles there presented and the words there spoken, working through the lordliest of the senses, sight and hearing, may make them enamoured of continence and piety. Last of all by the sin-offering he warned them against continuing in sin, for he who asks for absolution of the sins he has committed is not so lost a wretch as to embark on other new offences at the very time when he asks for remission of the old.
קצ״ח
198[194] After having discoursed to this extent on these subjects he begins to classify the kinds of sacrifices. He divides them into three principal classes which he calls respectively the whole-burnt-offering, the preservation-offering and the sin-offering. To each of these he adds the adornment of suitable ritual, in which he succeeds admirably in combining decorum with reverence.
קצ״ט
199[195] His classification is quite excellent and perfectly fits the facts to which it shews a logical sequence. For if anyone cares to examine closely the motives which led men of the earliest times to resort to sacrifices as a medium of prayer and thanksgiving, he will find that two hold the highest place. One is the rendering of honour to God for the sake of Him only and with no other motive, a thing both necessary and excellent. The other is the signal benefit which the worshipper receives, and this is twofold, on one side directed to obtaining a share in blessings, on the other to release from evils.
ר׳
200[196] To the God-ward motive which has Him alone in view he assigned the whole-burnt-offering, for, whole and complete in itself as it is, it fits in well with the same qualities in the motive which carries with it no element of mortal self-interest; but where human interests were concerned, since the idea admitted of division, the lawgiver also made a division, and appointed what he called a preservation-offering to correspond to the aspiration for participation in blessings, while he assigned the sin-offering for avoidance of evils.
ר״א
201[197] Thus very properly there are three offerings for three objects, the whole-burnt-offering having no other in view but God Himself alone Whom it is good to honour, the other two having ourselves in view, the preservation-offering for the safe preserving and bettering of human affairs, the sin-offering for the healing of the trespasses which the soul has committed.
ר״ב
202[198] We must now describe the ordinances dealing with each of these sacrifices, beginning with the best, which is the whole-burnt-offering. First of all, he says the victim must be a male specimen of the animals selected as best for the purpose, namely, a calf or lamb or kid. Secondly, the giver must wash his hands and lay them on the head of the victim,
ר״ג
203[199] and after this one priest must take and slay it while another priest holds a vial below and after catching some of the blood goes all round the altar and sprinkles it thereon. The victim after being flayed must be divided into parts complete in themselves, while the belly and feet are washed, and then the whole must be given over to the sacred fire of the altar. Thus the one in it has become many and the many one.
ר״ד
204[200] These are the contents of the ordinance taken literally. But another meaning also is indicated of the mystical character which symbols convey; words in their plain sense are symbols of things latent and obscure.
ר״ה
205In the first place the victim of the whole-burnt-offering is a male because the male is more complete, more dominant than the female, closer akin to causal activity, for the female is incomplete and in subjection and belongs to the category of the passive rather than the active.
ר״ו
206[201] So too with the two ingredients which constitute our life-principle, the rational and the irrational; the rational which belongs to mind and reason is of the masculine gender, the irrational, the province of sense, is of the feminine. Mind belongs to a genus wholly superior to sense as man is to woman; unblemished and purged, as perfect virtue purges, it is itself the most religious of sacrifices and its whole being is highly pleasing to God.
ר״ז
207[202] In the laying of hands on the head of the animal we find the clearest possible type of blameless actions and of a life saddled with nothing that leads to censure but in harmony with the laws and statutes of nature.
ר״ח
208[203] For the law desires, first, that the mind of the worshipper should be sanctified by exercise in good and profitable thoughts and judgements; secondly, that his life should be a consistent course of the best actions, so that as he lays his hands on the victim, he can boldly and with a pure conscience speak in this wise:
ר״ט
209[204] “These hands have taken no gift to do injustice, nor shared in the proceeds of plunder or overreaching, nor been soiled with innocent blood. None have they maimed or wounded, no deed of outrage or violence have they wrought. They have done no service of any other kind at all which might incur arraignment or censure, but have made themselves humble ministers of things excellent and profitable, such as are held in honour in the sight of wisdom and law and wise and law-abiding men.”
ר״י
210[205] The blood is poured in a circle round the altar because the circle is the most perfect of figures, and in order that no part should be left destitute of the vital oblation. For the blood may truly be called a libation of the life-principle. So, then, he teaches in this symbol that the mind, whole and complete, should, as it moves with measured tread passing circle-wise through every phase of word and intention and deed, shew its willingness to do God’s service.
רי״א
211[206] The direction to wash the belly and the feet is highly symbolical. Under the figure of the belly he signifies the lust which it is well to clean away, saturated as it is with stains and pollutions, with wine-bibbing and sottishness, a mighty force for ill, trained and drilled to work havoc in the life of men.
רי״ב
212[207] By the washing of the feet is meant that his steps should be no longer on earth but tread the upper air. For the soul of the lover of God does in truth leap from earth to heaven and wing its way on high, eager to take its place in the ranks and share the ordered march of sun and moon and the all-holy, all-harmonious host of the other stars, marshalled and led by the God Whose kingship none can dispute or usurp, the kingship by which everything is justly governed.
רי״ג
213[208] The division of the animal into its limbs indicates either that all things are one or that they come from and return to one, an alternation which is called by some Fullness and Want, by others a General Conflagration and Reconstruction, the Conflagration being the state when the supremacy of heat has prevailed over the rest, the Reconstruction when the four elements, by concession to each other, obtain equilibrium.
רי״ד
214[209] My own reflections lead me to think the following a more correct explanation. The soul which honours the Existent having the Existent Himself only in view, ought to honour Him not irrationally nor ignorantly, but with knowledge and reason. And when we reason about Him we recognize in Him partition and division into each of the Divine powers and excellences. For God is good, He is the maker and begetter of the universe and His providence is over what He has begotten; He is a saviour and a benefactor, and has the plenitude of all blessedness and all happiness. Each of these attributes calls for veneration and praise, both separately in itself and when ranked with its congeners.
רי״ה
215[210] So, too, it is with the rest. When, my mind, thou wishest to give thanks to God for the creation of the universe, give it both for the sum of things and for its principal parts, thinking of them as the limbs of a living creature of the utmost perfection. Such parts are heaven and sun and moon and the planets and fixed stars; then again earth and the living creatures or plants thereon, then the sea and rivers, whether spring-fed or winter courses, and all they contain: then the air and its phases, for winter and summer, spring and autumn, those seasons which recur annually and are so highly beneficial to our life, are different conditions in the air which changes for the preservation of sublunar things.
רי״ו
216[211] And if thou givest thanks for man, do not do so only for the whole genus but for its species and most essential parts, for men and women, for Greeks and barbarians, for dwellers on the mainland and those whose lot is cast in the islands. And if it is for a single person, divide the thanksgiving as reason directs, not into every tiny part of him down to the very last, but into those of primary importance, first of all into body and soul of which he is composed, then into speech and mind and sense. For thanks for each of these will by itself be not unworthy to obtain audience with God.
רי״ז
217[212] Enough has now been said on the whole burnt-offering. We must now consider in its turn the preservation-offering. In this case it is a matter of indifference whether the victim is male or female. When it has been slain these three, the fat, the lobe of the liver and the two kidneys, are set apart for the altar, while the rest serves as a feast to be enjoyed by the person who has offered the sacrifice.
רי״ח
218[213] But why these parts of the inwards are consecrated must be carefully considered, not neglecting the following point. In the course of my reflections I have often pondered deeply on this question also; what could be the reason why the law, when setting apart the lobe of the liver and the kidneys and the fat as a tribute reserved from the animals sacrificed, did not include either the heart or the brains, since the dominant principle resides in one or other of them.
רי״ט
219[214] And I expect the same question will present itself to not a few of those who read the holy scriptures with their understanding rather than with their eyes. If such persons after examination find a more convincing reason, they will benefit both themselves and me; if not I beg them to consider whether that which has commended itself to my mind will stand the test. It is as follows. The dominant principle is the only part of us which admits and retains folly and injustice and cowardice and the other vices, and the home of this principle is one or other of the two just mentioned,
ר״כ
220[215] namely, the brain and the heart. The holy word, therefore, thought good that the altar of God, by which is given absolution and complete remission of all sins and transgressions, should not be approached by the container in which mind had its lair when it came forth to tread the pathless wilds of injustice and impiety, turning away from the road which leads to virtue and noble conduct. For it would be foolish to have the sacrifices working remembrance instead of oblivion of sin. This seems to me the reason why neither of the parts which hold the pre-eminence, the brain or the heart, is brought to the altar.
רכ״א
221[216] As for the parts which are actually prescribed, appropriate reasons can be given for the choice. The fat is the richest part and acts as a protection to the inwards, serving as a covering and a source of richness to them and benefiting them by the softness of its contact. The kidneys are chosen because of their relation to the testicles and generative organs; situated beside them they give them neighbourly assistance, and co-operate in promoting the easy passage of nature’s seed unimpeded by any of the adjacent parts. For the kidneys themselves are blood-coloured receptacles in which the moist off-scouring of the excrement is secreted, and contiguous to them are the testicles which create the stream of the semen. The lobe is a sample tribute from the most important of the inwards, the liver, by which the food is converted into blood and then being sluiced into the heart, is conveyed through the veins for the conservation of the whole body.
רכ״ב
222[217] For the orifice of the stomach being adjacent to the gullet receives the food which has been first bitten off by the teeth and afterwards masticated, and by its action prepares it for the stomach itself. This receives it from the orifice and performs the second office to which it has been appointed by nature, by turning it into juice. And from the stomach there are two pipe-shaped channels extending to the liver and draining the food into the receptacles which lie at intervals therein.
רכ״ג
223[218] Now the liver has two properties: it acts both as a sifter and a creator of blood. As a sifter it secretes all the hard and callous stuff into the adjacent bile-vessel, while in its other capacity by means of the heat which it contains it turns the pure liquid which has been strained off into blood full of life-giving powers, then presses this blood into the heart, whence, as we have said, it is sluiced into the veins, and coursing through the whole body becomes its sustenance.
רכ״ד
224[219] There is another point to be added to these statements. The liver has been made so as to lie high and be exceedingly smooth, and in virtue of its smoothness it plays the part of a mirror of the utmost brightness. In consequence when the mind withdrawing from its daytime cares, with the body paralyzed in sleep and the obstruction of every sense removed, begins to turn itself about and concentrate upon the pure observation of its concepts, it looks into the liver as into a mirror where it gains a lucid view of all that mind can perceive and, while its gaze travels round the images to see whether they contain any ugly defect, it eschews all such and selects their opposites, and so, well satisfied with all the visions presented to it, prophesies future events through the medium of dreams.
רכ״ה
225[220] Two days only are allowed for the use of the preservation-offering as food, and nothing is to be left over till the third day. This for several reasons. One is, that all the meats of the sacred table must be eaten without undue delay, care being taken that they should not deteriorate through lapse of time. It is the nature of stale flesh to decay rapidly, even though seasoned with spices as preservatives.
רכ״ו
226[221] Another reason is, that the sacrificial meals should not be hoarded, but be free and open to all who have need, for they are now the property not of him by whom but of Him to Whom the victim has been sacrificed, He the benefactor, the bountiful, Who has made the convivial company of those who carry out the sacrifices partners of the altar whose board they share. And He bids them not think of themselves as the entertainers, for they are the stewards of the good cheer, not the hosts. The Host is He to Whom the material provided for the feast has come to belong, and this must not be stowed away out of sight, and niggardliness, the vice of the slave, preferred to kindliness, the virtue of gentle birth.
רכ״ז
227[222] The final reason is, that the preservation-offering is in fact made in behalf of two, namely soul and body, to each of which he assigned one day for feasting on the flesh. For it was meet that an equal space of time should be appointed for those elements of our nature which are capable of being preserved, so that on the first day as we eat we obtain a reminder of the soul’s preservation, on the morrow of the body’s good health.
רכ״ח
228[223] And since there is no third thing which, properly speaking, could be the subject of preservation, he strictly forbade the use of the oblation as food on the third day, and commanded that if anything was left over through ignorance or inadvertence, it should immediately be consumed by fire. Even him who had tasted it and nothing more he declares to be guilty. “Poor fool,” he says to him, “thou thinkest to have sacrificed, though thou hast not done so. Sacrilegious, unholy, profane, impure, is the meat which thou hast dressed. I accept it not, base glutton, who even in thy dreams hast caught no glimpse of what sacrifice means.”
רכ״ט
229[224] Under the head of the preservation-offering is embraced what is called the praise-offering. The principle of this is as follows. He who has never at all met with any untoward happening, either of soul or body or things external, who lives a life of peace undisturbed by war, placed in an environment of every comfort and good fortune, free from disaster and cause of stumbling, sailing in straight course over the long sea of life amid the sunshine and calm of happy circumstances, with the breeze of prosperity ever behind the helm, has as his bounden duty to requite God his pilot, Who gives him safety untouched by disease, benefits carrying no penalty and in general good unmixed with evil—requite Him, I say, with hymns and benedictions and prayers and sacrifices and the other expressions of gratitude as religion demands. All these collected and summed up have obtained the single name of praise.
ר״ל
230[225] For the consumption of this sacrifice one day only is allowed, not two as in the former case of the preservation-offering, that those into whose hands benefits have fallen so readily should make repayment with readiness and without delay.
רל״א
231[226] So much for these. We must next examine the third kind of sacrifice which bears the name of sin-offering. Here we have several divisions, both according to the persons concerned and the kinds of victims. As to persons, the high priest is distinguished from the whole nation and the rulers as a class from the men of the common people. As to victims, they may be a male calf, a he-goat, a she-goat or ewe-lamb.
רל״ב
232[227] Another distinction made is one which is most essential between voluntary and involuntary sins. For those who have acknowledged their sin are changing their way for the better, and while they reproach themselves for their errors are seeking a blameless life as their new goal.
רל״ג
233[228] The sins, then, of the high priest and those of the whole nation are purged with an animal of the same value; in both cases it is directed that a male calf should be brought. For the sins of the ruler one of less value is ordered, though this too is a male, namely a he-goat; for the sins of the commoner, one still more inferior in kind, a female offering instead of a male, that is, a she-goat.
רל״ד
234[229] For it was proper that in matters of sacrifice the ruler should fare better than the commoner and the nation than the ruler, since the whole should always be superior to the part; also that the high priest should be adjudged the same precedence as the nation in their purification and supplication for forgiveness of wrongdoings from the merciful power of God. But the equality of honour which the high priest enjoys is evidently not so much on his own account as because he is the servant of the nation also, giving thanks in common for all through the holiest of prayers and the purest of sacrifices.
רל״ה
235[230] Deeply and wonderfully impressive is the form of command in this matter. “If the high priest,” it says, “sins involuntarily,” and then adds, “so that the people sin,” words which almost amount to a plain statement from which we may learn that the true high priest who is not falsely so-called is immune from sin, and if ever he slips, it will be something imposed on him not because of what he does himself, but because of some lapse common to the nation. And that lapse is not incurable but admits easily of healing treatment.
רל״ו
236[231] So when the calf has been slaughtered he bids the priest to sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times over against the veil at the inner shrine, beyond the first veil, at the place where the most sacred chattels have been set, and then anoint and smear the four horns of the altar of incense, corresponding to its four sides, and pour the rest of the blood at the foot of the altar in the open air.
רל״ז
237[232] To this altar he is commanded to bring three things, the fat and the lobe of the liver and the two kidneys, as in the ordinance of the preservation-offering. But the skin and the flesh and all the rest of the body of the calf from head to foot, with the inwards, are to be carried outside and burnt in a clear and open space whither the holy ashes from the altar also are conveyed. The same rules are laid down by law in the case where the sin lies with the whole nation.
רל״ח
238[233] But if a trespass is committed by a ruler, he purges himself with a he-goat, as I have said; if by one of the common people, with a she-goat or a ewe-lamb. For he assigned the male animal to the ruler, the female to the commoner, while the other regulations which he made are similar for both persons, namely, that the horns of the open-air altar should be anointed with the blood, the fat and the lobe of the liver and the two kidneys offered at the altar and the rest given to the priests to eat.
רל״ט
239[234] But since sins are sometimes committed against men, sometimes against things sacred and holy, besides the regulations already stated for dealing with involuntary offences against men, he lays down that in the case of the holy things the purificatory propitiation should be made with a ram, the offenders having first made full compensation for the subject of the trespass with the addition of a fifth part of its proper value.
ר״מ
240[235] These and similar regulations for involuntary offences are followed by his ordinances for such as are voluntary. “If,” he says, “a man lies about a partnership or a deposit or a robbery or as to finding the lost property of someone else, and, being suspected and put upon his oath, swears to the falsehood—if then after having apparently escaped conviction by his accusers he becomes, convicted inwardly by his conscience, his own accuser, reproaches himself for his disavowals and perjuries, makes a plain confession of the wrong he has committed and asks for pardon—
רמ״א
241[236]then the lawgiver orders that forgiveness be extended to such a person on condition that he verifies his repentance not by a mere promise but by his actions, by restoring the deposit or the property which he has seized or found or in any way usurped from his neighbour, and further has paid an additional fifth as a solatium for the offence.
רמ״ב
242[237] And when he has thus propitiated the injured person he must follow it up, says the lawgiver, by proceeding to the temple to ask for remission of his sins, taking with him as his irreproachable advocate the soul-felt conviction which has saved him from a fatal disaster, allayed a deadly disease, and brought him round to complete health.
רמ״ג
243[238] For him, too, the sacrifice prescribed is a ram, as also for the offender in sacred matters. For the lawgiver rated the involuntary sin in the sacred sphere as equal to voluntary sin in the human, though indeed this last also is perhaps a desecration, since it is supplemented by an oath sworn under dishonest conditions, though rectified by the man’s conversion to the better course.
רמ״ד
244[239] It must be noticed, however, that while the parts of the sin-offering laid upon the altar are the same as in the case of the preservation-offering, namely the lobe of the liver, the fat and the kidneys—a natural arrangement because the penitent also is preserved or saved by escape from the soul-sickness which is more grievous than any which affects the body—
רמ״ה
245[240]the conditions under which the other parts of the animal are appointed to serve for food are different. The difference is threefold, in the place, in the time and in the recipients. The place is the temple, the time one day instead of two, and the participants are priests, not those who offer the sacrifices: also they are male priests.
רמ״ו
246[241] The prohibition against carrying the flesh outside the temple is due to his wish that any sin which the penitent has previously committed should not be made notorious through the ill-judged judgements and unbridled tongues of malicious and acrimonious persons, and blazed abroad as a subject for contumelious and censorious talk, but be confined within the sacred precincts which have also been the scene of the purification.
רמ״ז
247[242] The command that the sacrifice should serve as a feast for the priests is due to several reasons. First, to do honour to the givers of the sacrifice, for the dignity of the guests reflects glory on their entertainers; secondly, to secure them firmly in the belief that the graciousness of God extends to those who feel remorse for their sin. For He would never have called His servitors and ministers to share the hospitality of such a table if full pardon had not been given. Thirdly, because none of the priests is permitted to perform the rites if he is not wholly sound, for the slightest blemish causes him to be thrust from office.
רמ״ח
248[243] In fact he encourages those who no longer tread the path of wrongdoing with the thought that their resolution to purify themselves has given them a place in the sacerdotal caste and advanced them to equal honour with the priest. For a similar reason the flesh of the sin-offering is consumed in a single day, showing that in sin we should procrastinate and be slow and dilatory in approaching it, but when the achievement of righteousness is our goal, act with speed and promptitude.
רמ״ט
249[244]The victims immolated in behalf of the high priest or the nation as atonement for trespassing are not dressed to serve as food but are consumed by fire on the sacred ashes, as I have said. For there is no one superior to the high priest or the nation to act as intercessor for the sinners.
ר״נ
250[245] It is natural therefore that the flesh should be consumed by fire in imitation of the whole-burnt-offerings to do honour to the persons concerned, not because God’s holy judgements are given by considerations of position but because the sins of the greatly virtuous and the truly sacred are such as to be regarded as acts of righteousness if done by others.
רנ״א
251[246] For as the fields where the soil is deep and rich, even if they are sometimes unproductive, bear more fruit than those where it is naturally thin and poor, so too we find in virtuous and God-loving persons that their unproductiveness of positive goodness is better than the fortuitous righteous actions of the bad whose nature does not allow them ever to act intentionally in an honest way.
רנ״ב
252[247] After laying down these ordinances about each particular kind of sacrifice, whole-burnt-offering, preservation-offering and sin-offering, he institutes rules for another which partakes of the three, to shew the friendship and kinship which exists between them. This connecting link between them is called the Great Vow.
רנ״ג
253[248] I must explain why it has acquired this name. When people have paid first-fruits of every part of their property, in wheat, barley, oil, wine and their finest orchard-fruits and also in the first-born males of their livestock, consecrated in the case of the clean species and valued at an adequate compensation in the case of the unclean, as they have no more material resources with which to give a pledge of their piety, they dedicate and consecrate themselves, thus shewing an amazing sanctification and a surpassing devotion to God. And therefore it is fitly called the Great Vow, for his own self is the greatest possession which anyone has, and this self he forgoes and puts himself outside it.
רנ״ד
254[249] When he has made the vow, the lawgiver gives him the following instructions. First, he must not take any strong drink nor anything “which he makes from the grape” nor drink any other intoxicant to the overthrow of his reason, but hold himself to be serving as priest during that time. For indeed such priests as are performing the rites have to quench their thirst with water and are forbidden intoxicants.
רנ״ה
255[250] Secondly, he must not shave the hairs of his head, thus giving a clear symbol to the eye that he does not debase the sterling coinage of his vow. Thirdly, he must keep his body pure and undefiled to the extent of abstaining from contact with parents or brothers after death, thus letting his kindly affection and fellow-feeling with the closest and dearest yield to piety that victory which it is both honourable and profitable that it should always win.
רנ״ו
256[251] When the final day as appointed has come, the law bids him bring, to release him from his vow, three animals, a he-lamb, a ewe-lamb and a ram, the first for a whole-burnt-offering, the ewe-lamb as a sin-offering, and the ram as a preservation-offering.
רנ״ז
257[252] For all these find their likeness in the maker of the vow: the whole-burnt-offering, because he surrenders not only the other first-fruits and gifts but also his own self; the sin-offering, because he is a man, since even the perfect man, in so far as he is a created being, never escapes from sinning; the preservation-offering, because he has acknowledged and adopted the real preserver, God, as the author of his preservation instead of the physicians and their faculties of healing. For the physicians are mortals ready to perish, unable to secure health even for themselves, and their faculties are not beneficial to all persons nor always to the same persons, but sometimes do great harm: there is Another who is invested with lordship over such faculties and those who exercise them.
רנ״ח
258[253] I note, and it is a very striking point, that in the three animals brought for the different sacrifices there is no difference of species. They are all of the same species, a ram, a he-lamb and a ewe-lamb. For the law wishes to show in this way what I mentioned a little before, that the three kinds of sacrifice are sisters of one family, because the penitent is preserved and the person preserved from the maladies of his soul repents, and both of them are pressing forward to that perfect and wholly sound frame of mind of which the whole-burnt-offering is a symbol.
רנ״ט
259[254] Another point—the votary has vowed to bring himself, and while it would be sacrilege that the altar should be defiled by human blood, it was quite necessary that some part of him should be sacrificially offered. The part, therefore, which his zeal prompted him to take was one which can be removed without causing either pain or mutilation. He cut off the hairs of his head, which are to the body like the superfluous branches in the vegetation of a tree, and gave them to the fire in which the flesh of the preservation-offering is cooked, a fitting proceeding to secure that at least some part of the votary’s self which cannot be lawfully brought to the altar should be merged in and share the nature of sacrifice by serving as fuel to a holy flame.
ר״ס
260[255] These rules apply to the laity in common, but the priests also had to make offerings of first-fruits to the altar, and not suppose that the services and ministrations to which they were appointed entitled them to immunity. The first-fruits suitable for the priest are not taken from any animal with blood in its veins, but from the purest form of human food.
רס״א
261[256] Fine flour constitutes their perpetual sacrifice, a tenth part of the sacred measure for every day, half offered in the morning and half in the evening. It is fried in oil and none of it is left over to be eaten. For it is a divine command that every sacrifice offered by a priest should be wholly consumed by fire and none of it set apart for food.
רס״ב
262We have described to the best of our ability the regulations for sacrifices and will next proceed to speak of those who offer them.
רס״ג
263[257] The law would have such a person pure in body and soul, the soul purged of its passions and distempers and infirmities and every viciousness of word and deed, the body of the defilements which commonly beset it.
רס״ד
264[258] For each it devised the purification which befitted it. For the soul it used the animals which the worshipper is providing for sacrifice, for the body sprinklings and ablutions of which we will speak a little later. For precedence in speech as well as elsewhere must be given to the higher and more dominant element in ourselves,
רס״ה
265[259] the soul. How then is the soul purified? “Note, friend,” says the lawgiver, “how perfect and utterly free from blemish is the victim which you bring selected as the best of many by the priests with all impartiality of mind and clearness of vision, the result of the continued practice which has trained them to faultless discrimination. For if you observe this with your reason rather than with your eyes you will proceed to wash away the sins and defilements with which you have besmeared your whole life, some involuntary and accidental,
רס״ו
266[260] some due to your own free will. For you will find that all this careful scrutiny of the animal is a symbol representing in a figure the reformation of your own conduct, for the law does not prescribe for unreasoning creatures, but for those who have mind and reason. It is anxious not that the victims should be without flaw but that those who offer them should not suffer from any corroding passion.
רס״ז
267[261] As for the body, it purifies it with ablutions and sprinklings and does not allow the person to be sprinkled and washed once for all and then pass straightway within the sacred precincts, but bids him stay outside for seven days and be twice sprinkled on the third and seventh day, and after that, when he has bathed himself, it gives him full security to come within and offer his sacrifice.
רס״ח
268[262] The following regulation also shews a farsighted wisdom which should be noted. In almost all other cases men used unmixed water for the sprinkling. By most people it is taken from the sea, by others from the rivers, and by others it is drawn in ewers from the wells. But Moses first provided ashes, the remnants of the sacred fire, obtained in a manner which will be explained shortly. Some of these, he says, are to be taken and thrown into a vessel and afterwards have water poured upon them. Then the priests are to dip branches of hyssop in the mixture and sprinkle with it those who are being purged.
רס״ט
269[263] The reason for this may be aptly stated as follows. Moses would have those who come to serve Him that IS first know themselves and of what substance these selves are made. For how should he who has no knowledge of himself be able to apprehend the power of God which is above all and transcends all?
ר״ע
270[264] Now the substance of which our body consists is earth and water, and of this he reminds us in the rite of purging. For he holds that the most profitable form of purification is just this, that a man should know himself and the nature of the elements of which he is composed, ashes and water, so little worthy of esteem.
רע״א
271[265] For if he recognizes this, he will straightway turn away from the insidious enemy, self-conceit, and abasing his pride become well-pleasing to God and claim the aid of His gracious power Who hates arrogance. For that is a good text which tells us that he who sets his hand to words and deeds of pride “provokes” not only men, but also “God,” the author of equality and all that is most excellent.
רע״ב
272[266] So then, whilst they are being thus sprinkled, deeply moved and roused as they are, they can almost hear the voice of the elements themselves, earth and water, say plainly to them, “We are the substance of which your body consists: we it is whom nature blended and with divine craftsmanship made into the shape of human form. Out of us you were framed when you came into being and into us you will be resolved again when you have to die. For nothing is so made as to disappear into non-existence. Whence it came in the beginning, thither will it return in the end.”
רע״ג
273[267] I must now also fulfil my promise to describe the special qualities of these ashes. They are not merely the ashes of wood consumed by fire but also of a living creature well-suited to a rite of purification such as this.
רע״ד
274[268] He orders a red heifer which has never been yoked and without blemish to be taken outside the city and there slaughtered. Then the high priest is to take of the blood and sprinkle it seven times over everything in front of the sanctuary, then burn it wholly to ashes with the skin and flesh and blood and the belly filled with its ordure. When the flame is dying down, he is to cast right into the middle these three things, cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet wool. Then if it is quite extinguished, a clean man is to collect the ashes and deposit them outside the city in a clean place.
רע״ה
275[269] What these things symbolically indicate has been described in full elsewhere where we have expounded the allegory. So we see that they who mean to resort to the temple to take part in sacrifice must needs have their bodies made clean and bright, and before their bodies their souls. For the soul is queen and mistress, superior to the body in every way because a diviner nature has been allotted to it. The mind is cleansed by wisdom and the truths of wisdom’s teaching which guide its steps to the contemplation of the universe and all that is therein, and by the sacred company of the other virtues and by the practice of them shewn in noble and highly praiseworthy actions.
רע״ו
276[270] He, then, who is adorned with these may come with boldness to the sanctuary as his true home, the best of all mansions, there to present himself as victim. But anyone whose heart is the seat of lurking covetousness and wrongful cravings should remain still and hide his face in confusion and curb the shameless madness which would rashly venture where caution is profitable. For the holy place of the truly Existent is closed ground to the unholy.
רע״ז
277[271] To such a one I would say, “Good sir, God does not rejoice in sacrifices even if one offer hecatombs, for all things are His possessions, yet though He possesses He needs none of them, but He rejoices in the will to love Him and in men that practise holiness, and from these He accepts plain meal or barley, and things of least price, holding them most precious rather than those of highest cost.”
רע״ח
278[272] And indeed though the worshippers bring nothing else, in bringing themselves they offer the best of sacrifices, the full and truly perfect oblation of noble living, as they honour with hymns and thanksgivings their Benefactor and Saviour, God, sometimes with the organs of speech, sometimes without tongue or lips, when within the soul alone their minds recite the tale or utter the cry of praise. These one ear only can apprehend, the ear of God, for human hearing cannot reach to the perception of such.
רע״ט
279[273] That what I have said above is true and is the word not of myself but of nature is attested not only by its self-evident certitude which provides clear grounds of belief to those who do not out of contentiousness cultivate disbelief, but also by the law which commanded two altars to be constructed differing in materials and situations and in the use to which they were applied.
ר״פ
280[274] For one of these was built of stones picked up and left unhewn, and it was set in the open air beside the avenues to the sanctuary and was to be used for blood-offerings. The other was formed of the purest gold; it was set in the inner shrine within the first veil, not to be seen by any except such priests as were in a state of purity, and it was to be used for frankincense-offerings.
רפ״א
281[275] This clearly shews that even the least morsel of incense offered by a man of religion is more precious in the sight of God than thousands of cattle sacrificed by men of little worth. For as gold is better than casual stones and all in the inner shrine more sacred than what stands outside, so and in the same measure is the thank-offering of incense superior to that of the blood of beasts.
רפ״ב
282[276] And therefore the altar of incense receives special honour, not only in the costliness of its material, its construction and its situation, but by taking every day the earlier place in subserving the thanksgiving which men render to God. For it is not permitted to bring the victim of the whole-burnt-offering outside until the incense has been offered inside at the first glimpse of day.
רפ״ג
283[277] The symbolical meaning is just this and nothing else: that what is precious in the sight of God is not the number of victims immolated but the true purity of a rational spirit in him who makes the sacrifice. Can you think that if the judge whose heart is set on giving righteous judgement will not take gifts from any of the litigants, or if he does take them will be open to the charge of bribery; if again the good man will not receive them from the bad, though both are men, and the one perhaps in need and the other rich—can you think, I say, that God can be corrupted, God Who is absolutely sufficient to Himself and needs nothing of anything created, and being as He is the primal good, the consummation of perfection, the perennial fountain of wisdom and justice and every virtue, turns His face from the gifts of the unjust?
רפ״ד
284[278] And is not he who proffers them the most shameless of men when he gives to God a share of the profits of his thefts or robbery or denial of a just debt or refusal to pay it, and treats Him as a partner in his wickedness and greed? To such a one I would say “Most miserable of wretches, there are only two alternatives: You expect that your conduct will either be unobserved by God or patent to Him.
רפ״ה
285[279] If the former, you little know the power by which He sees all and hears all: if the latter, your audacity is beyond measure. When you should hide your face in shame for the sins you have committed, you make an open show of the outward signs of your iniquity and, priding yourself on them, assign a share to God. You bring Him the first-fruits of unholiness and have not reflected that the law does not admit of lawlessness nor sunlight of darkness. But God is the archetype on which laws are modelled: He is the sun of the sun, in the realm of mind what that is in the realm of sense, and from invisible fountains He supplies the visible beams to the sun which our eyes behold.”
רפ״ו
286[280] There is a very excellent ordinance inscribed in the sacred tables of the law, that the hire of a harlot should not be brought into the temple; the hire, that is, of one who has sold her personal charms and chosen a scandalous life for the sake of the wages of shame.
רפ״ז
287[281] But if the gifts of one who has played the harlot are unholy, surely more unholy still are the gifts of the soul which has committed whoredom, which has thrown itself away into ignominy and the lowest depths of outrageous conduct, into wine-bibbing and gluttony, into the love of money, of reputation, of pleasure, and numberless other forms of passion and soul-sickness and vice. What length of time can purge away the stains of these? None, to my knowledge.
רפ״ח
288[282] The harlots’ traffic indeed is often brought to a close by old age, since when the freshness of their charm is passed, all cease to seek them now that their bloom is faded like the bloom of flowers. But as for the soul, when by constant familiarity with incontinence it has been schooled into harlotry, what agelong stretch of years can convert it to decent living? Not even the longest, but only God, with Whom that is possible which is impossible with us.
רפ״ט
289[283] So he who intends to sacrifice must consider not whether the victim is unblemished but whether his own mind stands free from defect and imperfection. Further, let him examine the motives which determine him to make the offering. For either he is giving thanks for benefits already received or is asking for security in his tenure of present blessings or for acquisition of others to come, or for deliverance from evils, either present or expected, and all these demand that he should put himself into a condition of mental health and safety.
ר״צ
290[284] For if he is offering thanks for what has already been granted, let him not shew ingratitude by falling from the state of virtue in which he received these boons. Or if he is securing present blessings or has bright expectations for the future, let him shew himself by good conduct worthy of such happy events. Or if he is seeking to escape from some ills, let none of his actions be deserving of chastisement and punishment.
רצ״א
291[285] The fire on the altar, he tells us, will burn continuously and not be extinguished. That, I think, is natural and fitting, for since the gracious gifts of God granted daily and nightly to men are perennial, unfailing and unceasing, the symbol of thankfulness also, the sacred flame, should be kept alight and remain unextinguished for ever.
רצ״ב
292[286] Perhaps also he wishes in this way to employ the abiding presence of the same fire by which all the sacrifices are consecrated to unite them, old and new alike, and thus shew that they carry out perfectly the duty of giving thanks, however numberless are the differences in the resources on which they are based, according as the oblations are lavishly abundant or on the other hand scanty.
רצ״ג
293[287] This is the literal account: the inner meaning must be observed by the laws of allegory. The true altar of God is the thankful soul of the Sage, compacted of perfect virtues unsevered and undivided, for no part of virtue is useless.
רצ״ד
294[288] On this soul-altar the sacred light is ever burning and carefully kept unextinguished, and the light of the mind is wisdom, just as the darkness of the soul is folly. For knowledge is to the reason what the light of our senses is to the eye: as that gives the apprehension of material things, so does knowledge lead to the contemplation of things immaterial and conceptual, and its beam shines for ever, never dimmed nor quenched.
רצ״ה
295[289] After this he says, “On every gift ye shall offer salt,” by which he signifies, as I have said before, complete permanence. Salt acts as a preservative to bodies, ranking in this as second in honour to the life-principle. For just as the life-principle causes bodies to escape corruption, so does salt, which more than anything else keeps them together and makes them in a sense immortal.
רצ״ו
296[290] From the same point of view he called the altar a sacrifice-keeper, evidently giving it that special and distinctive name from its preserving the sacrifices, though the flesh is consumed by fire. And thus we have the clearest proof that he holds the sacrifice to consist not in the victims but in the offerer’s intention and his zeal which derives its constancy and permanence from virtue. He adds,
רצ״ז
297[291] too, a further enactment by which he orders every sacrifice to be offered without honey or leaven. Both these substances he considers unfit to be brought to the altar: honey perhaps because the bee which collects it is an unclean animal, bred from the putrescence and corruption of dead oxen, we are told, just as wasps are from the carcasses of horses ;
רצ״ח
298[292] or else he forbids it as a symbol of the utter unholiness of excessive pleasure which tastes sweet as it passes through the throat but afterwards produces bitter and persistent pains which of necessity shake and agitate the soul and make it unable to stand firmly in its place.
רצ״ט
299[293] Leaven is forbidden because of the rising which it produces. Here again we have a symbol of the truth, that none as he approaches the altar should be uplifted or puffed up by arrogance; Rather gazing on the greatness of God, let him gain a perception of the weakness which belongs to the creature, even though he may be superior to others in prosperity; and having been thus led to the reasonable conclusion, let him reduce the overweening exaltation of his pride by laying low that pestilent enemy, conceit.
ש׳
300[294] For if the Creator and Maker of the universe, though needing nothing of all that He has begotten, has regard to your weakness and not to the vastness of His might and sovereignty, makes you a partaker in His gracious power and fills up the deficiencies that belong to your life, how ought you to treat other men, your natural kinsfolk, seedlings from the same elements as yourself, you who brought nothing into the world,
ש״א
301[295] not even yourself? For naked you came into the world, worthy sir, and naked will you again depart, and the span of time between your birth and death is a loan to you from God. During this span what can be meet for you to do but to study fellow-feeling and goodwill and equity and humanity and what else belongs to virtue, and to cast away the inequitable, unrighteous and unforgiving viciousness which turns man, naturally the most civilized of creatures, into a wild and ferocious animal!
ש״ב
302[296] Again he commands that the lamps on the sacred candlestick within the veil should be kept burning from evening till early morning. He has several objects in this. One is, that the holy places should be illuminated when the daylight leaves them and thus remain ever exempt from darkness, in this resembling the stars. For they when the sun has set display their own light instead and do not forsake their place in the cosmic order.
ש״ג
303[297] A second object was, that at night-time also some rites of the same kith and kin as those of the day-time should be performed for the service of God, and that no time or season should omit its thanksgiving. And to shew our thankfulness the sacrificial offering, for sacrificial it may quite properly be called, most suitable and appropriate to the night is the radiance of that most sacred light in the inner shrine.
ש״ד
304[298] There is a third reason, a very cogent one: Not only in our waking hours do we experience blessings, but also in our slumbers. For God the bountiful has provided our mortal race with a great support in the form of sleep, whereby both body and soul are benefited. The body is released from the labours of the day, the soul relaxes its anxious cares and retreats into itself, away from the press and clamour of the senses, and can then, if at no other time, enjoy privacy and commune with itself. Rightly therefore did the law determine so to apportion the thank-offerings that thankfulness is expressed for our waking time by the victims brought to the altar, for sleep and the benefits which it gives by the lighting of the sacred lamps.
ש״ה
305[299] These and similar injunctions to piety are given in the law in the form of direct commands and prohibitions. Others which have now to be described are of the nature of homilies giving admonitions and exhortations. Addressing himself to the mind of man he says, “God asks nothing from thee that is heavy or complicated or difficult, but only something quite simple and easy.
ש״ו
306[300] And this is just to love Him as a benefactor, or failing this to fear Him at least as a ruler and lord, and to tread in every way that will lead thee to please Him, to serve Him not half-heartedly but with thy whole soul filled with the determination to love Him and to cling to His commandments and to honour justice.”
ש״ז
307[Among all these things God Himself remains with a nature which changes not. But of all else that is in the universe, what is there that changes for the better? Sun or moon or the multitude of the other stars or the whole heaven? And on earth do the mountains grow to a loftier height or the lowlands widen forth as liquids spread when poured out? Is the sea converted into fresh water or do the rivers become equal in magnitude to the seas? No, each remains firmly stayed in the same limits in which they were set at the very first when He made them. But thou, by living a blameless life, wilt change for the better.]
ש״ח
308[301] Which of these is painful or laborious? You have not to cross great waters where no ship has sailed and in the heart of winter to brave the deep, tossed up and down by the surging of the waves and the violence of opposing winds, or to foot it over rough and untrodden wilds where no road is, in perpetual dread of assault from robbers or wild beasts, or to pass the night unsheltered as a sentry on the walls, threatened with the gravest perils from the enemy ever watchful for their chance. No, away with such thoughts. In good matters let there be no talk of discomfort, nothing but happy words to describe things so profitable.
ש״ט
309[302] Only must the soul give its assent and everything is there ready to your hand. Do you not know that to God belongs both the heaven perceived by sense and that known to thought alone, which may quite properly be called the “heaven of heaven,” again the earth and its contents and all the universe, both the visible and the invisible and immaterial, the pattern of the visible?
ש״י
310[303] Yet out of the whole human race He chose as of special merit and judged worthy of pre-eminence over all, those who are in a true sense men, and called them to the service of Himself, the perennial fountain of things excellent, from which He sends the shower of the other virtues gushing forth to give drink, delicious and most beneficial, and conferring immortality as much as or more than nectar.
שי״א
311[304] Pitiable and miserable are all those who have not feasted to the full on virtue’s draught, and greatest is the lasting misery of those who have never tasted the cup of noble living when they might revel in the delights of righteousness and holiness.
שי״ב
312But some are uncircumcised in heart, says the law, and through their hardness of temper disobedient to the rein, plunging in unruly fashion and fighting against the yoke.
שי״ג
313[305] These he admonishes with the words, “Circumcise the hardness of your hearts!” make speed, that is, to prune away from the ruling mind the superfluous overgrowths sown and raised by the immoderate appetites of the passions and planted by folly, the evil husbandman of the soul. And let not your neck be hard,
שי״ד
314[306] he continues: that is, let not your mind be unbending and exceedingly unruly, nor in its much frowardness pursue that wilful ignorance which is so fraught with mischief, but casting aside as an enemy all that is naturally indocile and intractable, change over to docility, ready to obey the laws of nature.
שי״ה
315[307] Cannot you see that the primal and chief powers belonging to the Existent are the beneficent and the punitive? And the beneficent is called God because by this He set out and ordered the world; the other is called Lord, being that by which He is invested with the sovereignty of all that is. But He is the God not only of men but also of gods, and the ruler not only of commoners but of rulers, and being truly existent, He is great and strong and mighty.
שי״ו
316[308] Yet vast as are his excellences and powers, he takes pity and compassion on those most helplessly in need, and does not disdain to give judgement to strangers or orphans or widows. He holds their low estate worthy of His providential care, while of kings and despots and great potentates He takes no account.
שי״ז
317[309] He provides for the incomers because forsaking the ancestral customs in which they were bred, customs packed with false inventions and vanity, they have crossed over to piety in whole-hearted love of simplicity and truth, and rendering to Him that truly exists the supplication and service which are His right, partake in due course of His protecting care in the measure that fits their case, and gain in the help that He gives the fruit of making God their refuge.
שי״ח
318[310] He provides for the orphans and widows because they have lost their protectors, in the first case parents, in the second husbands, and in this desolation no refuge remains that men can give; and therefore they are not denied the hope that is greatest of all, the hope in God, Who in the graciousness of His nature does not refuse the task of caring for and watching over them in this desolate condition.
שי״ט
319[311] Let God alone be thy boast and thy chief glory, he continues, and pride thyself neither on riches nor on reputation nor dominion nor comeliness nor strength of body, nor any such thing, whereby the hearts of the empty-minded are wont to be lifted up. Consider in the first place that these things have nothing in them of the nature of the true good; secondly, how quickly comes the hour of their passing, how they wither away, as it were, before their flower has come to its strength.
ש״כ
320[312] Let us follow after the good that is stable, unswerving, unchangeable, and hold fast to our service as His suppliants and worshippers.
שכ״א
321So if we are victorious over our enemies, let us not affect their impious ways in which they think to show their piety by burning their sons and daughters to their gods.
שכ״ב
322[313] This does not mean that all the outside nations have a custom of giving their children to the fire. They have not become so savage in nature as to bring themselves to do in peace to their nearest and dearest what they would not do in wartime to their enemies in the field or to the objects of their implacable hatred. Rather the words refer to that consuming fire in which they veritably destroy the souls of their offspring right from the cradle by failing to imprint on their still tender souls truth-giving conceptions of the one, the truly existent God.
שכ״ג
323Nor yet if defeated let us lose heart or be overcome by their successes as though the victory were due to their piety.
שכ״ד
324[314] To many their temporary pieces of good fortune have proved to be a pitfall, a trap baited with evils vast and fatal. And it may well be that the triumph of the unworthy comes to pass not for their own sake but that we should be more abundantly distressed and afflicted for our unholy deeds; we who, born as citizens of a godly community, reared under laws which incite to every virtue, trained from our earliest years under divinely gifted men, show contempt for their teaching and cling to what truly deserves our contempt, count the serious side of life as child’s-play and what befits the playground as matters of serious import.
שכ״ה
325[315] Further if anyone cloaking himself under the name and guise of a prophet and claiming to be possessed by inspiration lead us on to the worship of the gods recognized in the different cities, we ought not to listen to him and be deceived by the name of prophet. For such a one is no prophet, but an impostor, since his oracles and pronouncements are falsehoods invented by himself.
שכ״ו
326[316] And if a brother or son or daughter or wife or a housemate or a friend however true, or anyone else who seems to be kindly disposed, urge us to a like course, bidding us fraternize with the multitude, resort to their temples, and join in their libations and sacrifices, we must punish him as a public and general enemy, taking little thought for the ties which bind us to him; and we must send round a report of his proposals to all the lovers of piety, who will rush with a speed which brooks no delay to take vengeance on the unholy man, and deem it a religious duty to seek his death.
שכ״ז
327[317] For we should have one tie of affinity, one accepted sign of goodwill, namely the willingness to serve God and that our every word and deed promotes the cause of piety. But as for these kinships, as we call them, which have come down from our ancestors and are based on blood-relationship, or those derived from intermarriage or other similar causes, let them all be cast aside if they do not seek earnestly the same goal, namely, the honour of God, which is the indissoluble bond of all the affection which makes us one. For those who are so minded will receive in exchange kinships of greater dignity and sanctity.
שכ״ח
328[318] This promise of mine is confirmed by the law, where it says that they who do “what is pleasing” to nature and what is “good” are sons of God. For it says, “Ye are sons to your Lord God,” clearly meaning that He will think fit to protect and provide for you as would a father. And how much this watchful care will exceed that of men is measured, believe me, by the surpassing excellence of Him who bestows it.
שכ״ט
329[319] Furthermore, he banishes from the sacred legislation the lore of occult rites and mysteries and all such imposture and buffoonery. He would not have those who were bred in such a commonwealth as ours take part in mummeries and clinging on to mystic fables despise the truth and pursue things which have taken night and darkness for their province, discarding what is fit to bear the light of day. Let none, therefore, of the followers and disciples of Moses either confer or receive initiation to such rites. For both in teacher and taught such action is gross sacrilege.
ש״ל
330[320] For tell me, ye mystics, if these things are good and profitable, why do you shut yourselves up in profound darkness and reserve their benefits for three or four alone, when by producing them in the midst of the market-place you might extend them to every man and thus enable all to share in security a better and happier life?
של״א
331[321] For virtue has no room in her home for a grudging spirit. Let those who work mischief feel shame and seek holes and corners of the earth and profound darkness, there lie hid and keep the multitude of their iniquities veiled out of the sight of all. But let those whose actions serve the common weal use freedom of speech and walk in daylight through the midst of the market-place, ready to converse with crowded gatherings, to let the clear sunlight shine upon their own life and through the two most royal senses, sight and hearing, to render good service to the assembled groups, who through the one behold spectacles as marvellous as they are delightful, and through the other feast on the fresh sweet draught of words which are wont to gladden the minds of such as are not wholly averse to learning.
של״ב
332[322] Cannot you see that nature also does not conceal any of her glorious and admirable works, but displays the stars and the whole heaven to delight us by the sight and to foster the love of philosophy; so too the seas and fountains and rivers and the air so happily tempered by winds and breezes to make the yearly seasons, and the countless varieties of plants and animals and again of fruits—all for the use and enjoyment of men?
של״ג
333[323] Were it not well, then, that we should follow her intentions and display in public all that is profitable and necessary for the benefit of those who are worthy to use it? As it is, we often find that no person of good character is admitted to the mysteries, while robbers and pirates and associations of abominable and licentious women, when they offer money to those who conduct the initiatory rites, are sometimes accepted. Let all such persons, then, be banished from the confines of any State or constitution in which morality and truth are honoured for their own sakes. So much for this subject.
של״ד
334[324] But while the law stands pre-eminent in enjoining fellowship and humanity, it preserves the high position and dignity of both virtues by not allowing anyone whose state is incurable to take refuge with them, but bidding him avaunt and keep his distance.
של״ה
335[325] Thus, knowing that in assemblies there are not a few worthless persons who steal their way in and remain unobserved in the large numbers which surround them, it guards against this danger by precluding all the unworthy from entering the holy congregation. It begins with the men who belie their sex and are affected with effemination, who debase the currency of nature and violate it by assuming the passions and the outward form of licentious women. For it expels those whose generative organs are fractured or mutilated, who husband the flower of their youthful bloom, lest it should quickly wither, and restamp the masculine cast into a feminine form.
של״ו
336[326] And it banishes not only harlots, but also the children of harlots who carry with them their mother’s shame, because their begetting and their birth has been adulterated at the fountain-head and reduced to confusion through the number of their mother’s lovers, so that they cannot recognize or distinguish their real father.
של״ז
337[327] This is a topic peculiarly susceptible of allegorical interpretation and full of matter for philosophical study. For the heads under which the impious and unholy can be characterized are not one, but many and different. Some aver that the Incorporeal Ideas or Forms are an empty name devoid of any real substance of fact, and thus they abolish in things the most essential element of their being, namely the archetypal patterns of all qualities in what exists, and on which the form and dimensions of each separate thing was modelled.
של״ח
338[328] These the holy tables of the law speak of as “crushed,” for just as anything crushed has lost its quality and form and may be literally said to be nothing more than shapeless matter, so the creed which abolishes the Forms confuses everything and reduces it to the pre-elemental state of existence, that state devoid of shape and quality.
של״ט
339[329] Could anything be more preposterous than this? For when out of that confused matter God produced all things, He did not do so with His own handiwork, since His nature, happy and blessed as it was, forbade that He should touch the limitless chaotic matter. Instead He made full use of the incorporeal potencies well denoted by their name of Forms to enable each kind to take its appropriate shape. But this other creed brings in its train no little disorder and confusion. For by abolishing the agencies which created the qualities, it abolishes the qualities also.
ש״מ
340[330] There are others who in the arena of wickedness eagerly compete for the first prize in impiety and go to the further extreme of drawing a curtain over the existence of God as well as of the Forms. They assert that God does not exist, but is alleged to exist for the benefit of men who, it was supposed, would abstain from wrongdoing in their fear of Him Whom they believed to be present everywhere and to survey all things with ever-watchful eyes. These are happily called by the law “mutilated,” for they have lost by castration the conception of the Generator of all things. They are impotent to beget wisdom and practise the worst of wickednesses, atheism.
שמ״א
341[331] A third class are those who have shaped their course in the opposite direction, and introduced a numerous company of deities male and female, elder and younger. Thus they have infected the world with the idea of a multiplicity of sovereigns in order to geld from the mind of men the conception of the one and truly existent Being.
שמ״ב
342[332] It is these who are figuratively called by the law “the children of a harlot.” For as anyone who has a harlot for his mother has no knowledge of, and can claim no affiliation to, his real father, but must accept the paternity of most or practically all her lovers and patrons, so too those who know not the one true God but invent a number of deities, false so-called, are blind to the most essential reality with which they should have been indoctrinated from the cradle to the exclusion of or before anything else. For what better theme for the learner can there be than the Being who truly exists, even God?
שמ״ג
343[333] The banishment is extended to a fourth and a fifth class also. Both these seek the same goal but have different plans for attaining it. Both classes are votaries of the pestilent vice of self-assertion, but have treated the soul, which is a whole consisting of two parts, the rational and irrational, as if it were a property shared by two persons, and have partitioned it out between them. One class has taken as its portion the rational part, that is the mind, the other has taken the irrational, which is subdivided into the senses.
שמ״ד
344[334] The champions of mind ascribe to it the leadership and sovereignty of human affairs, and aver that it is competent to preserve the past by means of memory, to gain a firm apprehension of the present, and to envisage and calculate the future by prognostication of what may be expected.
שמ״ה
345[335] It is mind, they say, which sowed and planted the deep and fertile soil in the uplands and lowlands and so greatly enriched human life by the invention of agriculture. It is mind which constructed a ship, and by devices admirable beyond description turned what was naturally dry land into a waterway, opened up in the sea routes whose many branches serve as highways to the havens and roadsteads of the different states, and made the inhabitants of the mainland and those of the islands known to each other, who would never have met if a vessel had not been built. It is mind which discovered the mechanical and the finer arts, as they are called, which devised,
שמ״ו
346[336] fostered and brought to their consummation letters and numbers and music and the whole range of school studies. Mind too was the parent of philosophy, the greatest of blessings, and employed each part of it to benefit human life, the logical to produce absolute exactitude of language, the ethical for the amelioration of character, the physical to give knowledge of heaven and the universe. And besides these they collect and accumulate in honour of mind a vast number of tributes to the same effect as those already mentioned, with which we have no occasion to trouble ourselves now.
שמ״ז
347[337] The champions of the senses sound their praises in lofty terms. They discuss and classify them according to the purposes which they serve and tell us that two, smell and taste, are the basis of life, and two, sight and hearing, of good life.
שמ״ח
348[338] Taste acts as a conductor of the sustenance which food gives, and the nostrils do the same for the air on which every created being depends. Air too is a means of sustenance, constant and unceasing, and nourishes and preserves us not only when awake but also while we sleep. We have a clear proof of this; for if the course of respiration backwards and forwards is stopped ever so little by the interception of the natural influx of breath from outside, death will inexorably and inevitably follow.
שמ״ט
349[339] To turn to the senses which minister to philosophy and secure for us the good life, sight sees the light which is the most beautiful of all that is and by means of the light sees everything else, sun, moon, stars, heaven, earth, sea, the countless varieties of plants and animals, in general, all kinds of bodies, shapes, colours and magnitudes, the contemplation of which creates a subtle intelligence and generates a great thirst for knowledge.
ש״נ
350[340] But apart from these benefits sight gives us others of the highest value, by enabling us to distinguish between kinsfolk and strangers, friends and enemies, and to shun the harmful and choose the beneficent. And while it is true that each of the other members of the body has its appropriate and very indispensable use, as the feet for walking and running and the other activities to which the legs are instrumental, and the hands for doing and giving and receiving things, the eyes may be said to have a common value and to create the conditions under which these members and all the others can operate successfully.
שנ״א
351[341] The strongest testimony to this truth is afforded by the blind, who cannot make the proper use of their hands or feet and thus verify the name of incapable given to them in the past, more, we are told, in pity than as a reproach. For when the eyes are destroyed, the capacities of the body are not merely overthrown, but actually perish.
שנ״ב
352[342] In hearing too we have something very marvellous. By means of it we distinguish melodies and metres and rhythm, and with them the harmonies and consonances, and the varieties of genera and systems and all the elements of music; and again, the multitudinous kinds of set speeches delivered in the law-courts, in the senate, in laudations, as well as the language used in historical narrative and dialogues and discussions of matters of business which we are bound to have with those with whom we come in contact from time to time. For we may say in sum that the voice has a twofold capacity for speech and song. Both these are assessed by the ears to the benefit of the soul. For both are medicaments,
שנ״ג
353[343] health-giving and life-preserving. Song charms away the passions and controls the irregular element in us with its rhythm, the discordant with its melodies, the immoderate with its measures. And each of these three assumes every variety of form, as the musicians and poets testify, belief in whom necessarily becomes habitual in those who have received a good education. Speech checks and hampers impulses to vice and effects the cure of those in whom foolish and distressful thoughts have gained the mastery. It deals more gently with the docile, more drastically with the rebellious, and thus becomes the source of the greatest possible benefits.
שנ״ד
354[344] Such is the chain of argument which leads the votaries of mind and the votaries of the senses to ascribe divinity to their respective idols, forgetting in their self-assertion the God Who truly exists. And therefore Moses naturally banished them all from the holy congregation, both those who abolish the Forms, who appear under the name of “the crushed,” and those who absolutely deny God, to whom he assigned the suitable title of “the mutilated” and those who preach the opposite doctrine of a family of gods, called by him “the children of the harlot,” and finally the self-assertive, one party of whom deify the reason, the other each several sense. For these last all press to the same goal, though influenced by different plans for attaining it, and ignore the one and really existing God.
שנ״ה
355[345] But we, the scholars and disciples of Moses, will not forgo our quest of the Existent, holding that the knowledge of Him is the consummation of happiness. It is also agelong life. The law tells us that all who “cleave to God live,” and herein it lays down a vital doctrine fraught with much wisdom. For in very truth the godless are dead in soul, but those who have taken service in the ranks of the God Who only IS are alive, and that life can never die.