על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ג ט״זOn the Special Laws, Book III 16
א׳
1[90] So as they have added crimes to crimes and capped murder with defiance of the law and impiety, these malefactors whose deeds, as I have said, deserve not one but a thousand deaths must be carried off to pay the penalty.
ב׳
2Another consideration is that the temple will remain closed ground to the friends and kinsmen of the victim of treachery, if the murderer makes it his abode, since they would never bring themselves to come under the same roof as he. And it would be preposterous that a single person, a transgressor of the worst kind, should cause the banishment of the many sufferers from his transgression, who not only have committed no sin but have sustained a sad and untimely bereavement.
ג׳
3[91] It may well be also that Moses, who in the keenness of his mental vision could look into the distant future, took steps to provide that the visits of the slain man’s relatives should not lead to bloodshed in the temple. For family affection is an emotion which cannot be kept in bondage, and as with persons possessed by fanaticism it will incite them to slay him almost on the spur of the moment, and the result of this will be a profanation of the gravest sort. For the blood of the murderer will mix with the blood of the sacrifices, the impure with the consecrated. These are the reasons why he ordered the murderer to be handed over from the altar itself.