על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר א מ״גOn the Special Laws, Book I 43
א׳
1[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.
ב׳
2[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—
ג׳
3[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.
ד׳
4[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.
ה׳
5[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.
ו׳
6[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—
ז׳
7[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.
ח׳
8[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.