[52] Adulteries detected on the spot or established by clear evidence are condemned by the law. But when they are a matter of suspicion, the law did not think good to have them tried by men, but brought them before the tribunal of nature. For men can arbitrate on open matters, but God on the hidden also, since He alone can see clearly into the soul.
[53] So the law says to the husband who suspects his wife, “Draw up a formal challenge and come to the holy city with your wife and standing before the judges lay bare the suspicion which troubles you, not in the spirit of a false accuser or malicious schemer, set on winning at any cost, but of one who would strictly test the truth without sophistry.
[54] The woman who is threatened with two dangers, one of losing her life, the other of bringing shame on her past (and this is a thing far more grievous than death), must judge the matter in her heart, and if she is pure, plead her cause with good courage, but if her conscience convicts her, make her submission and use her ashamedness to palliate her sins. For shamelessness carried to the end is the culmination of wickedness.
[55] But if the statements of the two are inconclusive, and do not turn the scale to either side, let them go to the temple and let the man standing opposite the altar, in the presence of the priest officiating on that day, explain his suspicion. At the same time he should bring barley-meal, as a kind of sacrifice on behalf of the woman, to shew that the accusation is not made in wanton spite, but with honest intentions and is founded on reasonable doubt.
[56] The priest taking the offering hands it to the woman and removes her kerchief, in order that she may be judged with her head bared and stripped of the symbol of modesty, regularly worn by women who are wholly innocent. But there must be no oil nor frankincense, as in the other sacrifices, because the intention of the sacrifice to be performed on this occasion is not joyful but exceedingly painful.
[57] The meal used is of barley, perhaps because as a foodstuff it is of somewhat doubtful merit, suited for irrational animals and men in unhappy circumstances, and thus is a symbol that the adulteress is quite on a par with wild beasts, which copulate without discrimination or due consideration, while the wife who is innocent of the charges brought against her has emulated the life which is fitted to human beings.
[58] The priest, it continues, will take an earthen vessel, pour into it pure water which he has drawn from a spring, and put in a clod of earth got from the ground on which the temple stands. These likewise, I consider, refer symbolically to the quest for the truth. The act of adultery is signified by the earthen vessel because of its fragility, since death is the punishment decreed for adulterers; innocence of the charge by the earth and water, since both these are factors in the birth and growth and consummation of all things.
[59] And therefore the terms used in both cases make an appropriate addition to the picture. The water, it says, must be taken “pure” and “living,” since if the woman is guiltless her conduct is “pure” and she deserves to “live”; the earth is taken not from any chance place but from the “holy” ground, which must needs be capable of fertility, as also must the chaste wife.
[60] When these preliminaries are completed, the woman is to come forward with her head uncovered, bringing the barley-meal, as has been said, and the priest holding the earthen vessel with the earth and water in it stands fronting her and pronounces as follows:
[61] “If thou hast not transgressed the lawful usages of marriage, if no other man has had intercourse with thee, suffered by thee in abandonment of thy duties to the legitimate partner of thy home, be clear of guilt and its consequences. But if thou hast set at naught thy husband and eagerly gratified thy new desires, seized with love for another or surrendering to his love, betraying and debasing the closest and fondest ties, be well assured that thou hast laid thyself open to every curse, and the signs of their fulfilment thou wilt exhibit in thy body. Come then, drink the draught of testing which will uncover and lay bare what is now hidden in secrecy.”
[62] He will then write these words on a piece of paper and after blotting them out in the water in the vessel, proffer it to the woman, and when she has drunk she will depart expecting either reward for her chastity or extreme punishment for her incontinence. For if she has been falsely accused she may hope to conceive and bear children and pay no heed to her fears and apprehensions of sterility or childlessness. But if she is guilty she may be sure that the fate awaiting her is an unwieldy belly, swollen and inflamed, and terrible suffering all round the womb, which she has not cared to keep pure for the husband who married her according to ancestral custom.
[63] So careful is the law to provide against the introduction of violent changes in the institution of marriage that a husband and wife, who have intercourse in accordance with the legitimate usages of married life, are not allowed, when they leave their bed, to touch anything until they have made their ablutions and purged themselves with water. This ordinance extends by implication to a prohibition of adultery, or anything which entails an accusation of adultery.