INTRODUCTION TO DE SPECIALIBUS LEGIBUS, III
This treatise opens with an impassioned lamentation over the public business and troubles, which have debarred Philo in the past from his beloved studies, and an expression of his thankfulness that he now has some respite (1–5).
The Sixth (LXX) Commandment. We begin with some general thoughts on the need of continence even in marriage, and the gravity of the crime of adultery (7–11). Intercourse with a mother is mentioned with horror, and Philo traces to this practice the troubles rife among the Persians (12–19). But the law condemns no less marriage with a step-mother (20–21), with a sister (22–25), and forbids it with others less closely related, such as a wife’s sister (26–28), and with an alien (29). It also strictly refuses to allow a woman who has been divorced and then married another to return to her first husband (31–31). There must be no intercourse during menstruation (32–33), and Philo himself disapproves of marriage with a woman known to be barren (34–36).
Graver matters are pederasty, popularly treated with a favour which Philo deplores (37–42), and bestiality which he illustrates with the story of Pasiphaë (48–50). A harlot, too, is worthy of death (51).
Speaking of adultery itself, he gives a full account of the test laid down in Numbers for the suspected wife (52–63). The penalties for rape or seduction of a widow or maiden are stated (64–71), and also for intercourse with a maiden betrothed to another (72–78), and for slander by a husband impugning the virginity of his bride (79–82).
The Seventh (LXX) Commandment. Murder is sacrilege and deserves the utmost penalty (83–85), and attempted murder is as bad (86–87). Murderers must not be allowed sanctuary in the temple (88–91). While unpremeditated homicide may be less heinous (92), no mercy must be shewn to poisoners (93–99), and with them may be classed magicians, though there is a higher magic (100–103). Returning to the subject of unpremeditated homicide, as in a sudden quarrel, he notes the law which enacted that if the sufferer did not die at once, his opponent would not suffer the extreme penalty (104–107). From the law as stated in the LXX, that a miscarriage caused by a blow was a capital crime if the child was fully formed (108–109), he draws the inference that the exposure of infants is murder, and inveighs very feelingly against the cruelty of the practice (110–119).
He then turns to the law which enables the involuntary homicide to fly to the “Cities of Refuge.” He dwells on the hint given in Exodus, that the death of the man thus killed was divinely ordained, and suggests that these Levitical Cities were privileged because of the conduct of the Levites in slaughtering the calf-worshippers, which story he repeats at length (120–129). In connexion with this he discusses the meaning of the provision that the homicide must remain there till the death of the high priest (130–136).
Next we have laws dealing with cases where death is caused by a master beating a slave (137–143), or by a vicious bull left unguarded (144–146), or a pit left uncovered (147–148), or a roof left without a parapet (149).
The insistence of the law that murder must be punished with death is emphasized by the order that the body is to be prominently exhibited for a time (150–152).
No one is to suffer death as a substitute for the criminal, and here he enlarges on the cruelty shewn in attempts to extort taxes from the relatives of the debtors, and in laws which inflict death on the families of political offenders (153–168).
We now come to assaults not actually causing death. The decree in Deuteronomy that the woman who makes an indecent assault is to lose her hand gives rise to reflections on the modesty demanded of women (169–177), followed by an allegorical interpretation of the law (178–180). Punishment for violence must correspond with the crime (181–183). The law of “an eye for an eye” leads to a disquisition on sight as the channel of wisdom (184–191), and the eye as expressing the phases of the mind (192–194), though the law is modified in the case of a slave. Similarly “a tooth for a tooth” is justified by the indispensability of the teeth for maintaining life (195–204).
In conclusion he recurs to murder itself and argues that by holding contact with a corpse to cause uncleanness, the law shews its horror of the crime of taking life.