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6.
51
For our laws have not been drawn up at random or in accordance with the first casual thought that occurred to the mind, but with a view to truth and the indication of right reason.
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6.
52
For by means of the directions which he gives with regard to meats and drinks and particular cases of touching, he bids us neither to do nor listen to anything thoughtlessly nor to resort to injustice by the abuse of the power of reason.
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6.
53
In the case of the wild animals, too, the same principle may be discovered.
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6.
54
For the character of the weasel and of mice and such animals as these, which are expressly mentioned, is destructive.
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6.
55
Mice defile and damage everything, not only for their own food but even to the extent of rendering absolutely useless to man whatever it falls in their way to damage.
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6.
56
The weasel class, too, is peculiar: for besides what has been said, it has a characteristic which is defiling: It conceives through the ears and brings forth through the mouth.
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6.
57
And it is for this reason that a like practice is declared unclean in men.
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6.
58
For by embodying in speech all that they receive through the ears, they involve others in evils and work no ordinary impurity, being themselves altogether defiled by the pollution of impiety.
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6.
59
And your king, as we are informed, does quite right in destroying such men.'
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6.
60
Then I said 'I suppose you mean the informers, for he constantly exposes them to tortures and to painful forms of death.'
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6.
61
'Yes,' he replied, 'these are the men I mean; for to watch for men's destruction is an unholy thing.
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6.
62
And our law forbids us to injure any one either by word or deed.
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6.
63
My brief account of these matters ought to have convinced you, that all our regulations have been drawn up with a view to righteousness, and that nothing has been enacted in the Scripture thoughtlessly or without due reason, but its purpose is to enable us throughout our whole life and in all our actions to practise righteousness before all men, being mindful of Almighty God.
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6.
64
And so concerning meats and things unclean, creeping things, and wild beasts, the whole system aims at righteousness and righteous relationships between man and man.'
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6.
65
He seemed to me to have made a good defence on all the points; for in reference also to the calves and rams and goats which are offered, he said that it was necessary to take them from the herds and flocks, and sacrifice tame animals and offer nothing wild, that the offerers of the sacrifices might understand the symbolic meaning of the lawgiver and not be under the influence of an arrogant self-consciousness.
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6.
66
For he, who offers a sacrifice, makes an offering also of his own soul in all its moods.
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6.
67
I think that these particulars with regard to our discussion are worth narrating, and on account of the sanctity and natural meaning of the law, I have been induced to explain them to you clearly, Philocrates, because of your own devotion to learning.
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6.
Footnotes ^158:1 Compare this quaint idea with 1 Corinthians, IX, 9.
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