על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ג כ״הOn the Special Laws, Book III 25
א׳
1What has been said applies to free-born persons of citizen rank; the enactments which follow deal with slaves whose death is caused by violence.
ב׳
2[137] Servants rank lower in fortune but in nature can claim equality with their masters, and in the law of God the standard of justice is adjusted to nature and not to fortune. And therefore the masters should not make excessive use of their authority over slaves by showing arrogance and contempt and savage cruelty. For these are signs of no peaceful spirit, but of one so intemperate as to seek to throw off all responsibility and take the tyrant’s despotism for its model.
ג׳
3[138] He who has used his private house as a sort of stronghold of defiance and allows no freedom of speech to any of the inmates, but treats all with the brutality created by his native or perhaps acquired hatred for his fellow-men, is a tyrant with smaller resources.
ד׳
4[139] By his use of them he gives proof that he will not stay where he is, if he gets more wealth into his hands, for he will pass on at once to attack cities and countries and nations, after first reducing his own fatherland to slavery, a sign that he will not deal gently with any of his other subjects.
ה׳
5[140] Such a one must clearly understand that his misconduct cannot be prolonged or widely extended with immunity, for he will have for his adversary justice, the hater of evil, the defender and champion of the ill-used, who will call upon him to give an account for the unhappy condition of the sufferers.
ו׳
6[141] And if he alleges that the stripes he inflicted were meant as a deterrent and not with the intention of causing death, he shall not at once depart with a cheerful heart, but will be brought before the court, there to be examined under strict investigators of the truth as to whether he meant to commit homicide or not; and if he is found to have acted with intentional wickedness and with malice aforethought he must die, and his position as master will avail him nothing to escape the sentence.
ז׳
7[142] But if the sufferers do not die on the spot under the lash but survive for one or perhaps two days, the situation is different and the master is not to be held guilty of murder. In this case he is provided with a valuable plea, namely that he did not beat them to death at the time nor yet later when he had them in his house, but suffered them to live as long as they could, even though that was quite a short time. Furthermore he may argue that no one is so foolish as to try to harm another when he himself will be wronged thereby.
ח׳
8[143] And it is true that anyone who kills a slave injures himself far more, as he deprives himself of the service which he receives from him when alive and loses his value as a piece of property, which may be possibly very considerable. When the slave has committed some act worthy of death his master should bring him before the judges and state the offence, thus leaving the decision of the penalty with the laws instead of keeping it in his own hands.