remain a slave, he shall be set free only in the year of jubilee. The
Bible says he shall be branded if he refuse the proffered liberty in the
seventh year, and Philo in his interpretation has drawn a fine homily
about the regard set on liberty. But Josephus may have thought that the
institution would appear ridiculous to the legal minds of Romans. To
accommodate the Jewish law again to the Roman standard, he moderates the
_lex talionis_ (the rule of an eye for an eye), by adding that it is
applied only if he that is maimed will not accept money in compensation
for his injury, a half-way position between the Sadducean doctrine,
which understood the Biblical law literally, and the Pharisaic rule,
which abrogated it. But in several instances he makes offenses
punishable with death, which were not so according to the tradition,
_e.g._ the insulting of parents by their children and the taking of
bribes by judges.[6] Summing up the version of Deuteronomy, it may be
said that Josephus, by omitting a law here, adding one there, now
softening, now modifying, in some places broadening, in others narrowing
the scope of the command, presents a code which lacks both the
ruggedness of the Torah and the maturer humaneness of the Rabbinical
Halakah, but was designed to show the reasonableness of the Jewish
system according to Roman notions.
[Footnote 1: Sanhedrin, 63b.]
[Footnote 2: Comp. Philo, De Spec. Leg. ii. 815.]
[Footnote 3: Comp. Deut. 22:5, and Nazir, 59a, with Ant. IV. viii. 43.]
[Footnote 4: Shebuot, 30a.]
[Footnote 5: Comp. Philo, De Spec. Leg. ii.]
[Footnote 6: Comp. C. Ap. ii. 27. It has been suggested by Judge Mayer
Sulzberger that he falsely interpreted the Hebrew [Hebrew: 'Arur]
(cursed be!) to mean death punishment. Comp. J.Q.R., n.s., iii. 315.]
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