ON HUMANITY. 431 goodwill. And what acquisition is there which is equal to this? for indeed the mightiest monarch appears poor and helpless if he is put in comparison with one single virtue, for he has only inanimate riches buried in his treasuries or in the recesses of the earth, but the wealth of virtue is stored up in the dominant part of the soul; and that purest of all essences, heaven, claims itself a share in that, as likewise does the Creator and Father of the universe, God.
Therefore we must look upon and denominate the opulence of money-changers and usurers as poverty, though they appear to themselves to be mighty kings, while they have never beheld that wealth which is really endowed with sight, no not even in their dreams. And these men run into such extrava- gances of wickedness, that if they have not money, they make usurious advances even of food, lending it on condition of receiving back again more than they lent. Accordingly, such men will speedily afford a contribution to those who ask for one, preparing famine and scarcity against a time of plenty and abundance, and making a revenue of the hunger of the bellies of miserable men, weighing out the food as it were in a scale, and taking care not to give overweight. Therefore he necessarily commands those who live under his sacred consti- tution to avoid every description of revenues of this kind, for all such pursuits wrere the sign of a thoroughly slavish and illiberal mind, which must be changed into savageness and into the resemblance of brute beasts, before it could adopt them.
VII. Again, among the different commands which conduce to the extension of humanity, there is this one also established,* that every employer is to pay the wages of the poor man the same day that they are earned, not only because, since he has fulfilled the purpose for which he was hired, it is just that he should without any delay receive the reward of his service, but also because, as some persons have said, since the handicrafts- man or burden-carrier is only a daily servant and short lived, suffering hardships with his whole body like any common beast of burden, he fixes all his hopes upon his wages, which if he receives at once, he is rejoiced, being both glad now, and ready to work twice as hard to-morrow with all cheerfulness; but if he does not get his wages, then, besides being exceedingly * Leviticus xix. 13.
432 PHILO JUD^EUS.
disappointed, he is weakened in his nerves and sinews through sorrow, and becomes faint, so that he is unable to move him- self to the performance of his ordinary tasks.
VIII. Again, the lawgiver says, let no one who lends on usury enter the house of his debtors to take by force any security or pledge for his debt,* but let him stand without in the outer court, and wait there entreating his debtor quietly to bring him a pledge; and if he have a pledge to give, let him not evade giving it, since it is fitting that the creditor should not by reason of his power behave in an arrogant manner, so as to insult those who have borrowed of him; and that the debtor also should out of his recollection of the loan of another person's propeity which he has received, not refuse to give an adequate security.
IX. And who is there who can avoid admiring the pro- clamation or commandment about reapers and gatherers of the fruit of the vineyard?f For Moses commands that at the time of harvest the farmer shall not gather up the corn which falls from the sheaves, and that he shall not cut down all the crop, but that he shall leave a portion of the field unreaped, by this law rendering the rich magnanimous and communicative of their wealth, from being compelled thus to neglect some portion of their own lawful property, and not to be eager to save it all, nor to collect it all together, not to bring it all home and lay it up in store, and making the poor at the same time more cheerful and contented. For as the poor have no property of their own, he allows them to go into the fields of their fellow countrymen, and to reap of what they have left as if it were their own. And at the season of autumn he again enjoins the possessors of the land, when they are gathering their fruits, not to pick up those fruits which fall to the ground, nor to glean the vineyards a second time.
And he also gives the same command to those who are gathering olives. J Like a most affectionate father, whose children are not all in the enjoyment of equal good fortune, since some of them live in abundance, while others are reduced to the very extremity of poverty; but he, commiserating and pitying them, summons them to partake of the possessions of their brethren, using what thus belongs to others as it were their own, not in so doing inviting them to any action of • Deut. xxiv. 10. f Deut. xxiv. 19. J Deut. xxiv. 20.
ON HUMANITY. 433 shameless wrong, but supplying their real necessities, allow- ing them a participation, not in the crops alone, but even in the lands themselves likewise, as far as appearance is con- cerned.
But there are men who are so sordid in their minds, being wholly devoted to the acquisition of money and labouring to the death for every description of gain, without paying any attention to the source from which it is derived, that they glean their vineyards again after they have gathered the fruit, and beat their olive branches a second time, and reap the whole of the land which bears barley and the whole of the land which bears wheat, convicting themselves of an illiberal and slavish littleness of soul, and also displaying their impiety; for they themselves have contributed but a small part of what was necessary for the cultivation of their lands, but the greater number and the most important of the means to render the land fertile and productive have been supplied by nature, such as seasonable rains, a proper temperature of the atmosphere, those nurses of the seeds sown and springing up. — heavy and continual dews, vivifying breezes, the beneficial bestowal of the seasons of the year, so that the summer shall not scorch the crops nor the frost chill them, nor the revolutions of spring and autumn deteriorate or diminish what is produced.
And though these men know and actually see that nature is continually perfecting her work by these means, and is enrich- ing them with her abundant bounties, nevertheless they endea- vour to appropriate the whole of her liberality to themselves, and, as if they themselves were the causes of everything, they give no share of any of their wealth to any one, showing at one and the same time their inhumanity and their impiety.
These men accordingly, since they have not laboured in the cause of virtue of their own free will, he reproves and chastises against their will by his sacred laws, which the virtuous man obeys voluntarily, and the wicked man unwillingly.
X. The laws command* that the people should offer to the priests first fruits of corn, and wine, and oil, and of their domestic flocks, and of wools. But that of the crops which are produced in the fields, and of the fruits of the trees, they should bring in full baskets in proportion to the extent of their lands; with hymns made in praise of God, which the 6acred * Deuteronomy xxiv. 4.
volumes preserve recorded in writing. And, moreover, they were not to reckon the first-born of the oxen, and sheep, and goats in their herds and flocks as if they were their own, but were to look upon these also as first-fruits, in order that, being thus trained partly to honour God, and partly also not to seek for every possible gain, they might be adorned with those chief virtues, piety and humanity.
Again. The law says,* if you see the beast of any one of your relations or friends, or, in short, of any man whatever whom you know, wandering in the wilderness, bring him back and restore him to him; and, if the master be a long way off, then keep the animal with your own until he returns, and then he shall receive back the deposit which he has not entrusted to you, but which you, having found, spontaneously restore to him from your own natural feelings of fellowship.
XI. 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,f " 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?{ 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. t Exodus xxiii. 10. £ Leviticus xxv. 8.
ON HUMANITY. 435 and revelled in its most sweet and beautiful doctrines? For, in this fiftieth year, all the ordinances which are given relating to the seventh year are repeated, and some of greater magni- tude are likewise added, for instance, a resumption of a man's own possessions which he may have yielded up to others through unexpected necessity; for the law does not permit any one permanently to retain possession of the property of others, but blockades and stops up the roads to covetousness for the sake of checking desire, that treacherous passion, that cause of all evils; and, therefore, it has not permitted that the owners should be for ever deprived of their original property, as that Would be punishing them for their poverty, for which "we ought not to be punished, but undoubtedly to be pitied.
There is also an innumerable host of other special ordi- nances relating to one's fellow countrymen of great humanity and beauty; but, as I have mentioned them at sufficient length in my former treatises, I shall be satisfied with what I have said on those subjects, which I then put forth seasonably as a kind of specimen of the whole.
II. Moreover, after the lawgiver has established command- ments respecting one's fellow countrymen, he proceeds to show that he looks upon strangers also as worthy of having their interests attended to by his laws, since they have forsaken their natural relations by blood, and their native land and their national customs, and the sacred temples of their gods, and the worship and honour which they had been wont to pay to them, and have migrated with a holy migration, changing their abode of fabulous inventions for that of the certainty and clear- ness of truth, and of the worship of the one true and living God. Accordingly, he commands the men of his nation to love the strangers, not only as they love their friends and relations, but even as they love themselves, doing them all the good possible both in body and soul; and, as to their feelings, sympathising with them both in sorrow and in joy, so as to appear all one creature, though the parts are divided; mutual fellowship uniting the whole and rendering it compact and coherent.
There is no need of my saying anything about meats, and drinks, and garments, and all the other matters which relate to the usual way of living and to the necessary requirements of F F 'Z 436 PHILO JUD^US.
life, which the law enjoins that the foreigners shall receive from the natives of the land; for all these things follow the one general law of benevolence, which enjoins every man to love and cherish a stranger in the same degree with himself.
XIII. Moreover, extending and carrying further that humanity which is naturally so attractive, he also gives com- mandments respecting sojourners, thinking it fitting that those persons who, through any temporary distresses, nave been driven from their homes should requite tnose who have received them with a certain degree of honour, with all imaginable respect, if they have done good to them and have treated them with friendliness and hospitality, and with a moderate degree of respect if they have done nothing more than merely receiv- ing them into the land; for to be allowed to abide in a city with which one is wholly unconnected, or, I might even say, to be allowed only to tread on the soil which belongs to another, is in itself a bounty of sufficient magnitude for those persons who are unable to dwell in their own land.
But the lawgiver here, going beyond all the ordinary bound- aries of humanity, thinks it fitting and ordains that suchj sojourners shall bear no ill-will even to those men who, after having received them in the land, may have ill-treated them, since, though their actions may not have been kind, their name at least resembles the characteristics of humanity. Therefore he says, in express terms, " Thou shalt not curse the Egyptian,! because thou wast a sojourner in the land of Egypt."* Andj yet what evil did the Egyptians ever omit to inflict upon this] nation, being continually adding new devices of cruelty to old ones, and proceeding by all sorts of fresh contrivances t< heap inhumanity on inhumanity?
But, nevertheless, because originally they received them ii the land, not shutting their cities against them, and not making their country inaccessible to them when they first came, the! lawgiver says, " Let them, as a reward for their friendly recepJ tion of you, have a treaty of peace with you. And if any of them should be willing to forsake their old ways and to cornj over to the customs and constitutions of the Jews, they are now to be rejected and treated with hostility as the children of! enemies, but to be received in such a manner that in the thir generation they may be admitted into the assembly, and ma) * Deuteronomy xxvii. 3.
ON HUMANITY. 437 have a share of the divine words read to them, being instructed in the will of God equally with the natives of the land, the descendants of God's chosen people.
XIV. These, then, are the ordinances which he enacts for the sojourners in respect of those who have received them into their land, and he also establishes other merciful laws, full of gentleness and humanity, on behalf even of enemies;"* for he thinks it right with respect to them, even if they are at the gates, and standing under the very walls ready to attack them in their complete armour, and raising their warlike engines against them, that they shall, nevertheless, not be accounted enemies until the citizens have sent heralds to them and in- vited them to peace, that so, if they will yield, they may find that greatest of all blessings, namely, friendship; but if they are uncomplying and refuse, then the citizens, having also gained the alliance and co-operation of justice, might go to repel them with a good hope of victory.
Moreover, if, after having taken prisoners in a sally, you should entertain a desire for a beautiful woman amongst them,"j" do not satiate your passion, treating her as a captive, but act with gentleness, and pity her change of fortune, and alleviate her calamity, regulating everything for the best; and you will alleviate her sufferings if you cut the hair of her head, and trim her nails, and take off from her the garment which she wore when she was taken prisoner, and leave her alone for thirty days, during which period you shall permit her with im- punity to mourn and bewail her father and her mother, and her other relations, from whom she has been separated by their death, or by their being subjected to the calamity of slavery which is worse than death. And, after that period, you shall cohabit with her as with a legitimate wedded wife; for it is right that one who is about to ascend the bed of her husband, not for hire, like a harlot who makes a traffic of the flower of her beauty, but either out of love for him who has espoused her, or for the sake of the procreation of children, should be thougnt worthy of the ordinances which belong to a legitimate marriage. On which account the lawgiver has given all his laws with great beauty.
For, in the first place, he had not permitted appetite to proceed onwards in its unbridled course, with stiff-necked ob- * Deuteronomy xx. 10. f Deuteronomy xxi. 10.
138 PHILO JUDJEUS.
stinacy, but he has checked its vehement impetuosity, com- pelling it to rest for thirty days. And in the second place he has tested love, trying whether it is a frantic passion, easily satisfied, and, in fact, wholly originating in desire, or whether it has any share in that most pure essence of well- tempered reason, for reason will bridle the desire, not allowing it to pro- ceed to any acts of insolence, but compelling it to abide the appointed period of a month of probation. And, in the third place, he shows his compassion for the captive, if she is a virgin, because it is not her parents who are now giving her in marriage, arranging for her a most desirable connection; and if she is a widow, because she, being deprived of her first husband, is about now to make experiment of another, and this too while he still holds over her the power of a master, even though he studies to exhibit equality; for that which is subject to a master must always be apprehensive of his power, even though he may be very merciful.
But if any one, being filled with desire, and being after- wards sated with enjoyment, no longer chooses to continue his cohabitation with his captive, then the lawgiver does not so much punish him as admonish him and correct him, with a view to the improvement of his disposition, for he commands him in such a case not to sell her,* nor to retain her any longer as a slave, but to give her liberty freely, and to allow her to depart from his house with impunity, in order that she may not be exposed to some intolerable suffering vthen any other woman is introduced, into the house, by their both quar- relling, as is often the case, out of jealousy, the master being at the same time brought into subjection to more recent charms, and despising those by which he was previously allured.
XV. And thus the lawgiver pouring precept after precept into ready and obedient ears, enjoins humanity.f Moreover, even if any beasts of burden belonging to the enemy while bearing burdens are oppressed by the weight, and fall down beneath them, he commands that the people should not pass them by, but that they should lighten their burdens and raise them up, teaching them thus by remote examples not to be delighted at the unexpected misfortunes even of those who hate them, knowing that to rejoice in the disasters * Deuteronomy xxi. 14. f Exodus xxiii. 5.
ON HUMANITY. 439 of others is a malignant and odious passion, both akin to and contrary to envy; akin to it, because each of these feelings proceeds from passion, and because they approach near to, and one may almost say reciprocate, one another; but con- trary, because the one feeling causes grief at the good fortune of another, and the other excites joy at the misfortunes of one's neighbour.
Also the law proceeds to say, If you see the beast of one who is thy enemy * wandering about, leave the excitements to quarrelling to more perverse dispositions, and lead the animal back and restore him to his owner; for so you will not be benefiting him more than yourself; since he will by this means save only an irrational beast which is perhaps of no value, but you will get the greatest and most valuable of all things in nature, namely, excellence. And there will follow of necessity, as sure as shadow follows a body, the dissolution of your enmity; for the man who has received a benefit is willingly induced to make peace for the future as being enslaved by the kindness shown to him: and he who has con- ferred the benefit, having his own good action for a counsel- lor, is already almost prepared in his mind for a complete reconciliation. And this is an object which the most holy prophet is endeavouring to bring to pass throughout the whole of his code of laws, studying to create unanimity, and fellow- ship, and agreement, and that due admixture of different dispositions by which houses, and cities, and altars, and nations, and countries, and the whole human race may be con- ducted to the very highest happiness.
But up to the present time these are only wishes; but they will be hereafter, as I at least persuade myself, most real facts, since God will give a plentiful harvest of virtue, as he does give the harvest of the fruits of the seasons; which we shall never fail to attain to if we cherish a desire for them from our earliest infancy.
XVI. The ordinances, then, which he laid down for the observance of free-bom men are these and others like them. And as it seems he also has established other regulations con- sistent with them respecting slaves; all of which tend to engender gentleness and humanity, of which he gives a share even to slaves. Accordingly j" he thinks it fit that those who, * Exodus xxiil 4. f Deuteronomy xv. 12.
440 PHILO JUDJ5US.
because of their need of necessary sustenance, have devoted themselves to the service of others, ought not to be compelled to endure any thing unworthy of a liberal freedom of birth; advising those who have the advantage of their ministrations to have a regard to the unexpected misfortunes which have befallen their servants, and to feel respect for their change of ' condition.
And he does not allow those who become debtors for daily loans, and who, by a parabolical and metaphorical expression, have received both the name and unhappy condition of ephe- meral animals, or those who through some even still more urgent necessity have become slaves from having been free men, to suffer misery for ever, but he gives them entire deli- verance in the seventh year. For, says he, a period of six years for servitude is sufficient for those debtors who cannot repay the loans to the lender, or who for any other reason have become slaves after having been free. And those who were not naturally slaves are not to be deprived of all happi- ness and liberty for ever, but are again to return to their former state of freedom, of which they were deprived through some unforeseen calamities.
" And if," the lawgiver proceeds to say, " one who has been a slave of another for three generations, from fear of the threats of his master, or from a consciousness of having com- mitted some offence, or, if he has committed no offence at all but has a savage and inhuman master, flees for refuge to some one else, in the hope to obtain assistance from him, do not reject him; for it is not consistent with holiness to abandon a suppliant, and even a slave is a suppliant, inasmuch as he has taken refuge on thy hearth, where it is fitting that he should find an asylum, especially if without any guile he has come to offer honest service. And if he cannot obtain this protection, at all events let him be sold to some one else; for it is uncer- tain what may be the effect of his change of masters, and an uncertain evil is easier to bear than a confessed one."
XVII. These, then, are the ordinances which he appoints to be observed concerning one's own relations, and strangers, and friends, and enemies, and slaves, and free men, and. in short respecting the whole of the human race. And moreover, he extends his principles of humanity and compassion even to * Exodus xxiii. 19.
ON HUMANITY. 441 ON HUMANITY. 441 the race of irrational animals, allowing them always to share of these benefits as of a pleasant fountain; for in the case of domestic animals, with reference to flocks of sheep, and of goats, and herds of oxen, he commands the people to abstain from using of those animals which are just born, or from taking them either for food or under pretence of sacrificing them. For he looked upon it as a proof of a cruel disposition to plot against such creatures the moment they are born, so as to cause an immediate separation between the offspring and the mother, for the sake of the pleasures of the belly, or rather on account of some absurd and preposterous unpleasantness which the soul fancies.
Therefore, he says to the man who is about to live in accord- ance with his most sacred constitution, "My good man, there is a great abundance of things of which you are permitted the enjoyment, to which there is no blame attached; for, perhaps, it would have been pardonable if it were not so, since want and scarcity compel men to do many things which otherwise they would not intend. But you ought to be pre-eminent in tem- perance and the practice of all virtues; being reckoned in the most admirable of all classifications and enrolled in obedience to a most excellent captain, the right reason of nature, by all which considerations you ought to be rendered humane, avoid- ing receiving in your mind any thing which is wrong. And why in addition to the pains which the animal bears in par- turition, should you also inflict other pains from external causes, by the immediate separation of the mother from her offspring? For it is inevitable that she will resist and be indignant when they are thus parted, by reason of the affection implanted by nature in every mother towards her offspring, and especially at the time of their birth; since at this time the breasts are full of milk-like springs, and then if through want of the child which is to suck them the flow of milk receives a check, they become hardened by being dis- tended by the weight of the milk, and the women themselves are overwhelmed with pain.
Therefore, says the law, give her offspring to the mother, if not for the whole time, still at all events for the first seven days, to rear on her milk, and render not unprofitable those fountains of milk which nature has bestowed upon her breasts, destroying that second bounty of hers which she has prepared 442 PIIILO JUD.EUS.
with great prudence, perceiving from a distance by her ever- lasting and perfect wisdom what will hereafter happen. For her first bounty was the birth by means of which that which had no existence was brought into being; the second boun- teous gift was the flow of milk, the most tender and seasonable food for a tender creature, which, though it is only one thing, is at the same time both meat and drink. For inasmuch as part of the milk is of a watery nature, it is drink; and inas- much as part of it is of a somewhat solid nature, it is meat; and it is endowed with these characteristics from a prudent foresight to prevent the lately born offspring from suffering disaster, through want lying in wait for it at different times, taking care thus that, by the one and the same application of each kind of food, it may escape those cruel mistresses, hunger and thirst.