על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר א ל״הOn the Special Laws, Book I 35
א׳
1[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.
ב׳
2[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.
ג׳
3[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.
ד׳
4[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.
ה׳
5[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.
ו׳
6[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.
ז׳
7[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.
ח׳
8[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.
ט׳
9[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.
י׳
10[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.
י״א
11[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.
י״ב
12[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.
י״ג
13[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.
י״ד
14[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.
ט״ו
15[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.
ט״ז
16[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.
י״ז
17[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.
י״ח
18[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.
י״ט
19[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.
כ׳
20[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.
כ״א
21[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.
כ״ב
22[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.
כ״ג
23[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.
כ״ד
24[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.
כ״ה
25[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.
כ״ו
26[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.
