De Fuga Et Inventione

He here all but cries out and shouts that there is no pardon whatever to be given to those who blaspheme the Deity. For if they who bring accusations against their mortal parents are led away to death, what punishment must we think that those men deserve who venture to blaspheme the Father and Creator of the universe? And what accusation can be more disgraceful than to say that the origin of evil is not in us but in God?

Drive away, therefore, drive away, O ye who have been initiated in, and who are the hierophants of, the sacred mysteries, drive away, I say, the souls which are mixed and in a confused crowd, and brought together promiscuously from all quarters, those unpurified and still polluted souls, which have their ears not closed, and their tongues unrestrained, and which bear about all the instruments of their misery ready prepared, in order that they may hear all things, even those which it is not lawful to hear.

But they who have been instructed in the difference between voluntary and involuntary offences, and who have received a tongue which speaketh good things instead of one which delighteth in accusation, when they do right are to be praised, and when they err contrary to [*](Plato. Theaetetus, p. 176. ) [*](Exodus xxi. 15. )

And it is worth while to examine with all the accuracy possible into some necessary points relating to this place. They are four in number. One, why it is that the cities which were set apart for the fugitives were not chosen out of those cities which the other tribes received as their portion, but only out of those which were assigned to the tribe of Levi. The second point is, why they were six in number, and neither more nor fewer. The third is, why three of them were beyond Jordan, and the other three in the land of the Canaanites. The fourth is, why the death of the high priest was appointed to the fugitives as a limit, after which they might return.

We must, therefore, say what is suitable on each of these heads, beginning with the first in order.

It is with exceeding propriety that the command is given to flee only to those cities which had been assigned to the tribe of Levi; for the Levites themselves are in a manner fugitives, inasmuch as they, for the sake of pleasing God, have left parents, and children, and brethren, and all their mortal relations.

Therefore the original leader of this company is represented as saying to his father and mother, "I have not seen you, and my brethren I do not know, and my sons I disown," [*](Deuteronomy xxxiii. 9. ) in order to be able to serve the living God without allowing any opposite attraction to draw him away. But real flight is a deprivation of all that is nearest and dearest to a man. And it introduces one fugitive to another, so as to make them forget what they have done by reason of the similarity of their actions.

Either, therefore, it is for this reason alone, or perhaps for this other also, that the Levitical tribe of the persons set apart for the service of the temple ran up, and at one onset slew those who had made a god of the golden calf, the pride of Egypt, killing all who had arrived at the age of puberty, being inflamed with righteous anger, combined with enthusiasm, and a certain heaven-sent inspiration: "And every one slew his brother, and his neighbour, and him that was nearest to him." [*](Exodus xxxii. 26. ) The body being the brother of the soul, and the irrational part the neighbour of the rational, and the uttered speech that which is nearest to the mind. [*](Deuteronomy xxxiii. 9. ) [*](Exodus xxxii. 26. )

For by the following means alone can that which is most excellent within us become adapted for and inclined to the service of him who is the most excellent of all existing beings. In the first place, if man be resolved into soul, the body, which is akin to it as a brother, being separated and cut off from it, and also all its insatiable desires; and in the second place when the soul has, as I have already said, cast off the irrational part, which is the neighbour of the rational part; for this, like a torrent, being divided into five channels, excites the impetuosity of the passions through all the external senses, as so many aqueducts.

Then, in regular order, the reason removes to a distance and separates the uttered speech which appeared to be the nearest to it of all things, in order that speech, according to the intention, might alone be left, free from the body, free from the entanglements of the outward senses, and free from all uttered speech; for when it is left in this manner existing in a solitary manner, it will embrace that which alone is to be embraced with purity, and in such a way that it cannot be drawn away.

In addition to what has been said above, we must also mention this point, that the tribe of Levi is the tribe of the ministers of the temple and of the priests, to whom the service and ministration of holy things is assigned; and they also perform sacred service who have committed unintentional homicide, since, according to Moses, "God gives into their hands" [*](Exodus xxi. 31. ) those who have done things worthy of death, with a view to their execution. But it is the duty of the one body to know the good, and of the other body to chastise the wicked.

These then are the reasons on account of which they who have committed unintentional homicide fly only to those cities which belong to the ministers of the temple. We must now proceed to mention what these cities are, and why they are six in number. Perhaps we may say that the most ancient, and the strongest, and the most excellent metropolis, for I may not call it merely a city, is the divine word, to flee to which first is the most advantageous course of all.

But the other five, being as it were colonies of that one, are the powers of Him who utters the word, the chief of which is his creative power, according to which the Creator made the world with a [*](Exodus xxi. 31. )

And these are very beautiful and most excellently fenced cities, the best possible refuge for souls which are worthy to be saved for ever; and the establishment of them is merciful and humane, calculated to excite men, to aid and to encourage them in good hopes.

Who else could more greatly display the exceeding abundance of his mercy, of all the powers which are able to benefit us, towards such an exceeding variety of persons who err by unintentional misdeeds, and who have neither the same strength nor the same weakness?