De Virtutibus

Again. Are not all the enactments about the seventh year so formally established, enjoining the people to leave all the land that year fallow and uncultivated, and allowing the poor to go with impunity over the fields of the rich to gather the fruits which that year grow spontaneously as the gift of nature, most merciful and humane ordinances?

The law says, [*]( Exodus xxiii, 10. )"Six years let the inhabitants of the land enjoy the fruits as a reward for the acquisitions which they have made and for the labours which they have undergone in cultivating the land; but for one year, namely, the seventh, let the poor and needy enjoy it, as no work pertaining to agriculture has been done in that year." For, if any work had been done, it would have been absurd for one man to labour and for another to reap the fruit of his labours. But this ordinance was given in order that, the lands being left this year in some manner without any owners, no cultivation of the land contributing to its fertility, the produce, although full and complete, might be seen to proceed wholly from the bounty of God, coming forth as it were to meet and relieve the necessitous.

Again. What are we to say of the commandments given relating to the fiftieth year? [*]( Leviticus xxv. 8. ) Do not they go to the very furthest extent of humanity? And, indeed, who would deny it, unless he had only tasted of this sacred code of laws with anything more than the edges of his lips, and had not feasted [*]( Exodus xxiii 4.) [*]( Exodus xxiii, 10. ) [*]( Leviticus xxv. 8. )