[300] Such was his advice. And the king, thinking that the proposal was good, ignoring the law against adultery, and annulling those which prohibited seduction and fornication as though they had never been enacted at all, permitted the women, without restriction, to have intercourse with whom they would. Having thus received immunity,
[301] so greatly did they mislead the minds of most of the young men, and pervert them by their arts to impiety, that they soon made a conquest of them. And this continued until Phinehas, the son of the high priest, greatly angered at what he saw, and horrified at the thought that his people had at the same moment surrendered their bodies to pleasure and their souls to lawlessness and unholiness, shewed the young, gallant spirit which befitted a man of true excellence.
[302] For, seeing one of his race offering sacrifice and visiting a harlot, not with his head bowed down towards the ground, nor trying in the usual way to make a stealthy entrance unobserved by the public, but flaunting his licentiousness boldly and shamelessly, and pluming himself as though his conduct called for honour instead of scorn, he was filled with bitterness and righteous anger, and attacking the pair whilst they still lay together he slew both the lover and his concubine, ripping up also her parts of generation because they had served to receive the illicit seed.
[303] This example being observed by some of those who were zealous for continence and godliness they copied it at the command of Moses, and massacred all their friends and kinsfolk who had taken part in the rites of these idols made by men’s hands. And thus they purged the defilement of the nation, by relentlessly punishing the actual sinners, while they spared the rest who gave clear proof of their piety. To none of their convicted blood-relations did they shew pity, or mercifully condone their crimes, but held that their slayers were free from guilt. And, therefore, they kept in their own hand the act of vengeance, which in the truest sense was laudable to its executors. Twenty-four thousand,
[304] we are told, perished in one day. And with them perished, at the same moment, the common pollution which was defiling the whole host. When the purging was completed, Moses sought how to give to the high priest’s son, who had been the first to rush to the defence, such reward as he deserved for his heroism. But he was forestalled by God, Whose voice granted to Phinehas the highest of blessings, peace—a gift which no human being can bestow—and, besides peace, full possession of the priesthood, a heritage to himself and his family which none should take from them.