על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר א מ״בOn the Special Laws, Book I 42
א׳
1[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.
ב׳
2[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.
ג׳
3[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.
ד׳
4[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.
ה׳
5[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.
ו׳
6[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.
ז׳
7[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.
ח׳
8[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.