על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר א י״טOn the Special Laws, Book I 19
א׳
1[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.
ב׳
2[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.
ג׳
3[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.
ד׳
4[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.
