XLIII. (234) But since, of offences some are committed against men, and some against holy and sacred things; he has hitherto been speaking with reference to those which are unintentionally committed against men; but for the purification of such as have been committed against sacred things he commands a ram to be offered up, after the offender has first paid the value of the thing to which the offence related, adding one fifth to the exact value. (235) And after having put forth these and similar enactments with reference to sins committed unintentionally, he proceeds to lay down rules respecting intentional offences. “If any one,” says the law, “shall speak falsely concerning a partnership, or about a deposit, or about a theft, or about the finding of something which another has lost, and being suspected and having had an oath proposed to him, shall swear, and when he appears to have escaped all conviction at the hands of this accusers, shall himself become his own accuser, being convicted by his own conscience residing within, and shall reproach himself for the things which he has denied, and as to which he has sworn falsely, and shall come and openly confess the sin which he has committed, and implore pardon; (236) then pardon shall be given to such a man, who shows the truth of his repentance, not by promises but by works, by restoring the deposit which he has received, and by giving up the things which he has stolen or found, or of which in short he has in any way deprived his neighbour, paying also in addition one fifth of the value, as an atonement for the evil which he had Done.”{30}{#le 5:20.} (237) And then, after he has appeased the man who had been injured, the law proceeds to say, “After this let him go also into the temple, to implore remission of the sins which he has committed, taking with him an irreproachable mediator, namely, that conviction of the soul which has delivered him from his incurable calamity, curing him of the disease which would cause death, and wholly changing and bringing him to good health.” And it orders that he should sacrifice a ram, and this victim is expressly mentioned, as it is in the case of the man who has offended in respect of the holy things; (238) for the law speaks of an unintentional offence in the matter of holy things as of equal importance with an intentional sin in respect of men; if we may not indeed say that this also is holy, since an oath is added to it, which, as having been taken for an unjust cause, it has corrected by an alteration for the better. (239) And we must take notice that the parts of the victim slain as a sin-offering which are placed upon the altar, are the same as those which are taken from the sacrifice for preservation, namely the lobe of the liver, and the fat, and the kidneys; for in a manner we may speak also of the man who repents as being preserved, since he is cured of a disease of the soul, which is worse than the diseases of the body; (240) but the other parts of the animal are assigned to be eaten in a different manner; and the difference consists in three things; in the place, and time, and in those who receive It.{31}{#le 6:9.} Now the place is the temple; the time is one day instead of two; and the persons who partake of it are the priests, and the male servants of the priests, but not the men who offer the sacrifice. (241) Therefore the law does not permit the sacrifice to be brought out of the temple, with the intent that, if the man who repents has committed any previous offence also, he may not now be overwhelmed by envious and malicious men, with foolish dispositions and unbridled tongues, always lying in wait for reproach and false accusation; but it must be eaten in the sacred precincts, within which the purification has taken place.
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