De Specialibus Legibus (lib. i‑iv)

And some of these persons have even carried their admiration of these delicate pleasures of youth so far that they

But if there was a general indignation against those who venture to do such things, such as was felt by our lawgiver, and if such men were destroyed without any chance of escape as the common curse and pollution of their country, then many other persons would be warned and corrected by their example. For the punishments of those persons who have been already condemned cannot be averted by entreaty, and therefore cause no slight check to those persons who are ambitious of distinguishing themselves by the same pursuits.

But some persons, imitating the sensual indulgences of the Sybarites and of other nations more licentious still, have in the first place devoted themselves to gluttony and wine-bibbing, and other pleasures affecting the belly and the parts adjacent to the belly, and then when fully sated have behaved with such extraordinary insolence (and it is natural for satiety to produce insolence) that in their insanity of passion they have gone frantic and been so maddened as to desire to longer human beings, whether male or female, but even brute beasts, as they say that in ancient times in Crete, the wife of Minos the king, by name Pasiphaé, fell in love with a bull,

and became very violent in her passion from her despair of being able to gratify it (for love which fails in its object is usually increased in no ordinary degree), so that at last she reported to Daedalus the affliction by which she was overwhelmed, and he was the most skilful of all workmen of his time. [*]( This story is alluded to by many poets, and especially by Virgil, Aeneid vi. 24. Hic crudelis amor tauri, suppostaque furto Pasiphaé mistumque genus prolesque biformis Minotaurus inest, Veneris monumenta nefandea, Or, as it is translated by Dryden— "There too, in living sculpture, might be seen The mad affection of the Cretan queen: Then how she cheats her bellowing lover’s eye: The rushing leap; the doubtful progeny: The lower part a beast, a man above; The monument of their polluted love.") [*]( This story is alluded to by many poets, and especially by Virgil, Aeneid vi. 24. Hic crudelis amor tauri, suppostaque furto Pasiphaé mistumque genus prolesque biformis Minotaurus inest, Veneris monumenta nefandea, Or, as it is translated by Dryden— "There too, in living sculpture, might be seen The mad affection of the Cretan queen: Then how she cheats her bellowing lover’s eye: The rushing leap; the doubtful progeny: The lower part a beast, a man above; The monument of their polluted love.")

And it is very likely that there may be other Pasiphaés also, with passions equally unbridled, and that not women only, but men likewise may fall madly in love with animals, from whom, perhaps, indescribable monsters may be born, being memorials of the excessive pollution of men; owing to which, perhaps, those unnatural creations of unprecedented and fabulous monsters will exist, such as hippocentaurs and chimaeras, and other similar animals.

But so great are the precautions which are taken against them in the holy laws of God, that in order to prevent the possibility of men ever desiring any unlawful connection, it is expressly commanded that even animals of different kinds shall not be put together. And no Jewish shepherd will endeavour to cross a sheep with a he-goat, or a ram with a she-goat, or a cow with a horse; and if he does, he must pay the penalty as breaking a solemn law of nature who is desirous to keep the original kinds of animals free from all spurious admixture.

And some persons prefer mules to every other kind of animal for the yoke, since their bodies are very compact, and are very strong and powerful; and accordingly, in the pastures and stalls where they keep their horses, they also keep asses of an extraordinary size, which they call celones, in order that they may breed with the mares; and then the mares produce a mixed animal, half horse and half ass, [*]( Ovid describes this animal more than once— Dedalus ut clausit, conceptum crimine matris Semibovemque virum, semivirumque bovem. A. A. ii, 24, And again— Nec tua mactisset nodoso stipite Theseu, Ardua parte virum dextera, parte bovem. Her, x, 101.)

Therefore he provided thus against those evils in a manner suited to and consistent with nature; and from a long distance off, as from a watchtower, he admonished men and kept them in the straight path, in order that both men and women, learning from these percepts of his, might abstain from unlawful connections.

If, therefore, a man seek to indulge himself with a quadruped, or if a woman surrender herself to a quadruped, they shall all die, both the man or woman and the quadruped. The human beings, because they have gone beyond even the bounds of intemperance itself, becoming discoverers of unprecedented appetites, and because with their new inventions they have introduced most detestable pleasures, the very mention of which is infamous; and the beasts shall die, because they have been subservient to such iniquities, and also to prevent their bringing forth or begetting any thing intolerable, as would naturally be the result of such pollutions.

Moreover, those who have even a slight care for what is becoming would never use such animals as those for any purpose of life, but would reject and abominate them, loathing their very sight, and thinking that whatever they touched would at once become impure and polluted. And it is not well that those things which are of no use for life should live at all, since they are only a superfluous burden on the earth, as some one has called them.

Again, according to the injunctions of the sacred scriptures the constitution of the law does not recognise a harlot; as being a person alienated from good order, and modesty, and chastity, and all other virtues, who has filled the souls both of men and women with intemperance, polluting the immortal beauty of the mind, and honouring above it the short-lived perishable beauty of the body prostituting herself to every chance comer, and selling her beauty as if it were some vendible thing in the market, doing and saying every thing with a view to catch the young men. And she excites her lovers to contests with one another, proposing

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; but cases in which guilt is only suspected, it does not choose should be investigated by men, but it brings them before the tribunal of nature; since men are able to judge of what is visible, but God can judge also of what is unseen, since he alone is able to behold the soul distinctly,

therefore he says to the man who suspects such a thing, "Write an accusation, and go up to the holy city with thy wife, and standing before the judges, lay bare the passion of suspicion which affects you, not like a false accuser or treacherous enemy, seeking to gain the victory by any means whatever, but as a man may do who wishes accurately to ascertain the truth without any sophistry.

And the woman, having incurred two dangers, one of her life, and the other of her reputation, the loss of which last is more grievous than any kind of death, shall judge the matter with herself; and if she be pure, let her make her defence with confidence; but if she be convicted by her own conscience, let her cover her face, making her modesty the veil for her iniquities, for to persist in her impudence is the very extravagance of wickedness.

But if the charge which is made against her be contested, and if the evidence be doubtful, so as not to incline to either side, then let the two parties go up to the temple, and let the man stand in front of the altar, in the presence of the priest for the day, and then let him state his suspicions and his grounds for them, and let him produce and offer some barley flour, as a species of oblation on behalf of his wife, to prove that he accuses her, not out of insult, but with an honest intention, because he has a reasonable doubt.

And the priest shall take the barley and offer it to the woman, and shall take away from her the head-dress on her head, that she may be judged with her head bare, and deprived of the symbol of modesty, which all those women are accustomed to wear who are completely blameless; and there shall not be any

And the reason why the flour is to be made of barley is, perhaps, because the food which is made of barley is of a somewhat ambiguous character, and is suited for the use both of irrational animals and of needy men; and is therefore a sign that a woman who has committed adultery differs in no respect from the beasts, whose connections with one another are promiscuous and incessant; but she who is pure from all such accusations is devoted to that manner of life which befits human beings.

Then the law proceeds to say, the priest, having taken an earthen vessel, shall pour forth pure water, having drawn it from a fountain, and shall also bring a lump of clay from the ground of the temple, which also I think has in it a symbolical reference to the search after truth; for the earthenware vessel is appropriate to the commission of adultery because it is easily broken, and death is the punishment appointed for adulterers; but the earth and the water are appropriate to the purging of the accusation, since the origin, and increase, and perfection of all things, take place by them:

on which account it was very proper for the law-giver to set them both off by epithets, saying, that the water which the priest was to take must be pure and living water, since a blameless woman is pure as to her life, and deserves to live; and the earth too is to be taken, not from any chance spot, but from the soil of the ground of the temple, which must, of necessity, be most excellent, just as a modest woman is.

And when all these things are previously prepared, the woman with her head uncovered, bearing the barley flour in her hand, as has been already specified, shall come forward; and the priest standing opposite to her and holding the earthenware vessel in which are the water and the earth, shall speak thus: