A Treatise on Those Special Laws Which Are Referrible to Two Commandments in the Decalogue, the Sixth and Seventh, Against Adulterers and All Lewd Per

 I. (1) There was once a time when, devoting my leisure to philosophy and to the contemplation of the world and the things in it, I reaped the fruit of

 II. (7) And since of the ten commandments which God himself gave to his people without employing the agency of any prophet or interpreter, five which

 III. (12) Moreover the law has laid down other admirable regulations with regard to carnal conversation for it commands men not only to abstain from

 IV. (22) There follows after this a command not to espouse one's sister: which is an injunction of great excellence, and one which contributes very gr

 V. (26) On which account our lawgiver has also forbidden other matrimonial connections, commanding that no man shall marry his granddaughter, whether

 VI. (32) And there are particular periods affecting the health of the woman when a man may not touch her, but during that time he must abstain from al

 VII. (37) Moreover, another evil, much greater than that which we have already mentioned, has made its way among and been let loose upon cities, namel

 VIII. (43) But some persons, imitating the sensual indulgences of the Sybarites and of other nations more licentious still, have in the first place de

 IX. (51) Again, according to the injunctions of the sacred scriptures the constitution of the law does not recognise a harlot as being a person alien

 X. (52) The law has pronounced all acts of adultery, if detected in the fact, or if proved by undeniable evidence, liable to the punishment of death

 XI. (64) But if any one should offer violence to a widow after her husband is dead, or after she has been otherwise divorced from him, and defile her,

 XII. (72) Some people think that a licensed concubinage is an offence something between seduction and adultery, when the two parties come together, an

 XIII. (76) Therefore justice in every case pursues the man who has committed violence, nor is his iniquity excused by the difference of the place, so

 XIV. (79) There are also some persons easily sated with their connection with the same woman, being at once both mad for women and women haters, full

 XV. (83) The name of homicide is that affixed to him who has slain a man but in real truth it is a sacrilege, and the very greatest of all sacrileges

 XVI. (90) Therefore, since they have heaped iniquity upon iniquity, adding lawlessness and impiety to murder, they must be dragged out of the temple t

 XVII. (92) But some persons who have slain others with swords, or spears, or darts, or clubs, or stones, or something of that kind, may possibly have

 XVIII. (100) Now the true magical art, being a science of discernment, which contemplates and beholds the books of nature with a more acute and distin

 XIX. (104) This may be sufficient to say on the present occasion concerning poisoners and magicians. Moreover, we ought also not to be ignorant of thi

 XX. (110) On account of this commandment he also adds another proposition of greater importance, in which the exposure of infants is forbidden, which

 XXI. (120) The sacred law says that the man, who has been killed without any intention that he should be so on the part of him who killed him, has bee

 XXII. (124) And the cause of the first of these injunctions was this. The tribe which has been mentioned received these cities as a reward for a justi

 XXIII. (128) Therefore the lawgiver enjoins that the man who has committed an unintentional murder should flee to some one of the cities which this tr

 XXIV. (134) Such, then, is the reason which it is fitting should be communicated to the ears of the younger men. But there is another which may be wel

 XXV. This is enough to say concerning free men and citizens. The lawgiver proceeds in due order to establish laws concerning slaves who are killed by

 XXVI. (144) If a bull gore a man and kill him, let him be Stoned.[Ex 21:28.] For his flesh may not be either offered in sacrifice by the priests, nor

 XXVII. (147) Some persons are accustomed to dig very deep pits, either in order to open springs which may bubble up, or else to receive rain water, an

 XXVIII. (150) The law expressly enjoins that it shall not be lawful to take any ransom from murderers who ought to be put to death, for the purpose of

 XXIX. (153) Moreover, there is this further commandment given with great propriety, that the fathers are not to die in behalf of their sons, nor the s

 XXX. (157) But these men have this to say in excuse of themselves, that they are not pursuing any private advantage for themselves, and also that they

 XXXI. (169) Market places, and council chambers, and courts of justice, and large companies and assemblies of numerous crowds, and a life in the open

 XXXII. (178) And this is the cause which is often mentioned by many people. But I have heard another also, alleged by persons of high character, who l

 XXXIII. (181) And any one may here fitly blame those who appoint that punishments, in nowise corresponding to the offences, are to be inflicted on the

 XXXIV. (185) Now it would take a long time to enumerate all the necessities which the eyes supply to, and all the services which they perform for, the

 XXXV. (195) If therefore any one has ever plotted against this most excellent and most dominant of all the outward senses, namely sight, so as ever to

 XXXVI. (198) The law also commands that if any one strike out the tooth of a slave he shall bestow his freedom on the slave why is this? because life

XXXIV. (185) Now it would take a long time to enumerate all the necessities which the eyes supply to, and all the services which they perform for, the human race. But one, the most excellent of all, we may mention. It is the heaven which has showered philosophy upon us, it is the human mind which has received and which contains it, but it is sight which has entertained and been its host; for that is the faculty which was the first to see the level roads through the air. (186) And philosophy is the fountain of all blessings, of all things which are really good. And he who draws from this fountain, so as thus to acquire and make use of virtue is praiseworthy; but he who does it with the object of accomplishing wicked purposes and of condemning others is blameable. For the one is like a man at an entertainment, who is delighting both himself and all who are feasting in his company; but the other is like one who is swallowing down strong wine, in order to make himself and his neighbour drunk. (187) Now in what way it is that the sight may be said to have entertained philosophy as its host we must now proceed to explain. Having looked up to heaven it beheld the sun, and the moon, and the planets, and the fixed stars, the most beautiful host of heaven, the ornament of the world. (188) After that it arrived at a perception of the rising and setting of these bodies, and their harmonious motions, and the fixed seasons of their periodical revolutions, and their meetings, and eclipses, and re-appearances. After that it proceeded onwards to a comprehension of the increase and decrease of the moon; of the motions of the sun along the breadth of heaven, as he comes from the south towards the north, and again recedes from the north towards the south, in order to the generation of the fruits of the year, so that they may all be brought to perfection, and ten thousand other wonderful things besides these. And having looked round and surveyed the things in the earth, and in the sea, and in the air, with great diligence displayed all the things in each of these elements to the mind. (189) But as the mind was unable by itself to comprehend all these things from merely beholding them by the faculty of sight, it did not stop merely at what was seen by it, but being devoted to learning, and fond of what is honourable and excellent, as it admired what it did see, it adopted this probable opinion, that these things are not moved spontaneously and at random by any irrational impulse of their own, but that they are set in motion and guided by the will of God, whom it is proper to look upon as the Father and Creator of the world. Moreover, that these things are not unrestrained by any bounds, but that they are limited by the circumference of one world, as they might be by the walls of a city, the world itself being circumscribed within the outermost sphere of the fixed stars. Moreover it considered also that the Father who created the world does by the law of nature take care of that which he has created, exerting his providence in behalf of the whole universe and of its parts. (190) In the next place it also considered what was the essence of the visible world, and whether all the things in the world had the same essence, or whether different things had different essences, and also of what substances everything was made, and for what reasons it was made, and by what powers the world was held together, and whether these powers were corporeal or incorporeal. (191) For what can the investigation into these and similar subjects be called but philosophy? And what more fitting name could one give to the man who devoted himself to the investigation of these topics than that of a philosopher? For by his examination of the nature of God, and of the world, and of all the things in it, whether plants or animals, and of those models which are only appreciable by the intellect, and again of the perfected representations of those models which are visible to the outward senses, and of the virtues and vices which exist in all created things, he shows that his disposition is one truly devoted to learning, and contemplation, and philosophy; and this greatest of blessings to mortal man is bestowed upon him by the faculty of sight. (192) And this faculty seems to me to deserve this pre-eminence, since it is more nearly related to the soul than any one of the other outward senses, for they all of them have some kind of connection with the intellect; but this one obtains the first and principal rank as the nearest relation does in a private house. (193) And any one may conjecture this from many circumstances, for who is there who does not know that when persons are delighted their eyes betray their pleasure, and sparkle, but that when they are grieved their eyes are full of depression and heaviness; and if any heavy burden of grief oppresses, and crushes, and overwhelms the mind, they weep; and if anger obtains and preponderance, the eyes swell, and become bloodshot and fiery; (194) and again change so as to be gentle and soft when the anger is relaxed. Again, when the man is immersed in deep thought and contemplation, the eyes seem fixed as if they in a manner joined in his gravity; but in the case of those who are of no great wisdom the sight wanders, because of their vacancy of intellect, and is restless, and in short the eyes sympathise with the affections of the soul, and are wont to change along with it in innumerable alternations, on account of the closeness of their connection with it; for it seems to me that there is no one visible thing which God has made so complete a representation of that which is invisible as the sight is of the mind.