(which comprises botlj incest and crimes never to be CDmmitted under any circumstances, and a man shouUl sacrifice liis life rather than commit tliem (t>anh. 74'/). This was tlie decision of the rahbis at the meeting at Lydda, during llie Iladrianic Hevolt (see Graet/, " History of lie Jews," ii. 4"22^ti4.) Thus law and morality went hand in hand to prevent the commisFor those, however, who were sion of the crime. deaf to warnings of law and reason, the punishment of death was ordained. ]5oth the guilty wife and her paramour were put to death (Deut. xxii. gillny
'anij/ot
adulter)') are three
I
23).
Unlawful intercourse with a woman betrothed
to
adultery, because the betrothed woman was deemed as inviolable as the married woman. The punishment for this crime was stoning to death at the place of public execution (Deut. ..ii. 24). The punishment for Adultery according to the Mishnah (Sanh. .i. 1) was strangulation; the rabbinical tlieory being that wherever the death penalty was mentioned in the IJible, without any specific statement of the manner of its inlliction, strangulation
a
man was
was meant (Sifra, Kcdoshim. 4, The priest's daughter who committed Adultery was burned to death, according to the rabbinical in'.)).
terpretation of the text in I,ev. ..i. 9 (Sanh. (itii), and her paramour was strangled (Maimonides, " Yad the crime is lia-Hazakah. Issure liiah," iii. ii). connnitted with a bondmaid betrothed toaman, it is not Adidtery techiucally, because the woman is not free, and the death penalty is not inflicted, but as she has a (|uasi-inarital status, she anil her paramour are scourged I,cv. .ix. 20). Ibn Ezra {nd Itir. ) lakes the view that this case refers to the Hebrew maiden who has been sold by her father and who is intended to be the bride of her master or of his son, but who is not yet betrothed for the bctrotlial would have made
WUm
(
her free ijm/ furto. Under the Talmudic law the .severity of the !Mos!UC co<le was in many instances moditicd, and the laws relating to Adultery came under the intluence of a milder theory of the relation of crime and punishment. Indeed, the rabbis went so Talmudic far as to declare that a woman could not be convicted of Adultery unless it View. had iH-en atHrmatively shown that she knew the law relating to it a theory that resilted in the practical impossibility of convicting any adulteress. Noharm wasdone by this new viiw, because the right of divorce which reniaineil to the husband was sullicicnt to free him from the woman, who, although guilty of the crime, was not punishable by the law. Up(m this milil view followed the entire abolition of the death penalty, in the year 40, Ixfore the destruction of the Second Temple (Sanh. 4b(), when the Jewish courts, probably under pressure of
—
Roman
authorities, relin(|uished Iheirright to inThireafter, the adullcrer capital punisluniiit. Was seourgi'd, and the husband of the adulteress was not allowed to condone her crime (Sotah, vi. 1), but was compelled to divorce her, and she lost all her properly rights under her marriage contract (Mai-
the
AduUam
THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
217
flict
monides, "Yad ha Hazakah, Ishut," x.iv. C); nor was the adulteress pennitled to marry her panunour (8o(ah,v. 1); and if she married him. they were forced to s<'paral<-. The right of the husband to divorce his wife at his i)leasure was a sulllcienl iirolection for him in case his wife was guilly of the crime of Adultery,
oven if he had no pnuvf of it. but merely suspicion founded on eireumslantiid facts. If the wife ha<l committed unlawful inlereourse against her will, or if she had mistaken the adulterer for her husband, she
Adultery
was not guilty of Adulterj-, because she did not act as a free agent. The usual punishmi-nts are not intlictetl in such cases, and the legal lExcepconsequcncesof Adultery donot follow tions. (Ket. oli). Such crime is no cause for divorce, except if the woman be the wife of a priest. The priest is not allowed to keep her because of the peculiar sanctity of his ollice, which requires the liighest degree of domestic purity (Yeb. 5t)/)). As "the ej-c of the adulterer waiteth for twilight, saying. No eye shall see me" (Job, xxiv. 15), Adultery is a crime usually difficult of proof, and the Biblical code contained provision for the case of the woman who was suspected of Adultery by her husband. Moved by the spirit of jealousy, he brought her before the priest in the sanctuary, and she was there obliged to undergo the severe "ordeal of the bitter waters." A full accountof the detailsof this ordeal is given in Num. v. 11-31 these details may al.so be found ami)lilied in the Mishnah. The suspected woman was taken to the local court by her husband and there his charge was made. The court assigned two doctors of the law to escort the parties to the Great Sanhiilrin a! JerusiUc'in. The purpose of the hearing before the .Sanhedrin was to evoke a confession. The Sanhedrin appealed to the woman and suggested various causes that nnght have induced her to go astray, and finally asked her to confess. If she admitted her crime, she was divorced from her husband at once and lost her property rights under her Kkti H.Mi. But if she denied it, she was taken to the Kast (Jale of the Temple, in front of the Nicanijr Gale, and there was placed in charge of a priest, who |ierfornifd the ceremony mentioned in the Book of Numbers. He rent her Guilt garment so that her breast was exTested by ]ios(il, and loosened her hair: she was Ordeal. draped in black all ornaments were removed from her i)erson, and a rope was tied around her chest. Thus publicly exposed (only her servants being ]U'evenled from seeing her), the jealousy-otTering was ])laeed in her hands. It was a humble otlering of l>arley meal, without oil or upon it, the feed of beasts, typifying the incense meanness of the crime that she was supposed to have committed. The priest then jilaced sonic^ of the dust of the Tabernacle in an earthen vessel full of water, and charged her with lh<' solemn oath of purgation (Num. V. l".(-22). .fter this the prii'st wrote theoath on parchment, blolled it out with the water, which he eaused her to drink, and the jealousy-otTering was then olTered upon the altar (Sojah, i. 4-G;ii. I-:}). If the woman refused to submit to the ordeal, and there was circumstantial evidenceof her criminality, she was obliged to separate from her husband (Sotah, Whatever may have been the actual signilii. 5). cance of this ordeal when first cstablishi'd. wilhiii Talmudic limes il had merely a moral m<aniiig. It was sim)ily a list under which the wonian, if guilty, was likely to sueeumb and confess. H. .kiba s<iys: "(lidy when the man is himself free from guilt, will the waters be an elTeclive test of his wife's guilt or innocence: but if he has been iruilly of illicit intercourse, the waters will have noelTecl"; and he based his opinion on a text in Hosea. iv. 14 (Sifre. Naso. In the light of this rabbiniial 21: Sntah, 47A1. dictum, the saying of Jesus in he ca.se of the woman taken in .VdiilliTV aci|uiresa new meaning. To those asking for her punishment, he replied, "He that is wilhout sill among you, let him llrst cast a stone at her" (John. viii. 7). This mbbinieal interpretation of the law relatinK to the ordeal practically aunidled il, and it st)ou fell
I
