Q&A: An Eye for an Eye
An Eye for an Eye
Question
Is it correct to assume that the exposition “an eye for an eye means monetary compensation” is only a textual support and not the actual source of the law, since this is a more-or-less everyday kind of case, so the Jewish law about it was probably already known? Is it possible that until this exposition, the Sanhedrin allowed the verse to be carried out literally, and then one day suddenly decided on a different exposition against the halakhic tradition that presumably had come down to them from Moses?
Answer
First of all, this is a verbal analogy, so it is possible that it comes from Sinai. I see no reason to assume that it is merely a textual support.
As for your second question, the Talmud itself brings Rabbi Eliezer’s view that this is to be taken literally and rejects it, but it seems that this is apologetics, and in fact there once was such an early opinion. Whether it was a tradition from Moses or an understanding of the early sages, I see no way to determine.
Discussion on Answer
With God’s help, eve of the holy Sabbath, Va’era 5781
Rabbi Eliezer’s opinion that “an eye for an eye” is literal is brought in the Mekhilta, but there it is explained that this is only regarding an intentional act. And that follows from the plain sense of the verses: “life for life, eye for eye”; after all, taking a life for a life is done only for intentional murder, with witnesses and warning, and after stringent interrogation, examination, and checking in a religious court of twenty-three.
So it is clear that even in the case of intentional injury, it would have been very difficult to prove the matter “beyond a reasonable doubt” and to carry out “an eye for an eye” literally; in practice, in almost all cases, the injury would be judged as an unintentional injury, which carries monetary compensation.
More than that: even in the case of intentional injury, there is reason to say that commuting the bodily punishment into a ransom payment would help, as the Torah allowed in the case of one who caused a person’s death through negligence in guarding his ox, where the Torah says, “the owner of the ox shall also be put to death; but if a ransom is laid upon him…” Only in the case of a direct murderer did the Torah prevent commutation into ransom.
So in practice the option of severing limbs was not carried out, unless there was a special need to deter a person accustomed to violent behavior, as is mentioned regarding Rav Huna, who “cut off a hand,” relying on the verse, “and the exalted arm shall be broken.”
With blessings, Yaron Fish"l Ordner
I saw in the name of the Hatam Sofer that what was said regarding vengeance against the nations, “to execute upon them the written judgment,” means that against them God will exact vengeance with “an eye for an eye” in the literal sense of the verse.
Rabbi Sherki wrote that the law that “an eye for an eye” means money was introduced by Joshua’s religious court.
https://ravsherki.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=843:843843-843&catid=506&Itemid=100513
Rabbi Sherki infers there from Maimonides’ wording, “explicitly explained from the mouth of Moses… they judged in Joshua’s religious court,” that in Moses’ religious court they judged “an eye for an eye” literally. But Maimonides, too, cannot just invent strange things without a source and without reasoning (what kind of bizarre logic is there in this idea?!). And the inference seems petty: after Maimonides said that this was explicitly transmitted by Moses, there is no need at all for him to say that this is how they judged in Moses’ religious court, so Maimonides continues and says that this was also how they judged in Joshua’s and Samuel’s courts, etc. And he concludes: “and in every religious court that stood from the days of Moses our Rabbi until now.” From the days of Moses our Rabbi, not from after Moses our Rabbi.
With God’s help, eve of the Sabbath, Va’era 5781
Indeed, we find that Moses actually carried out “a blow for a blow” when he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man—Moses fulfilled on him “a blow for a blow” and struck the Egyptian. But here the problem in applying the law became clear: it is impossible to calibrate the injury so that it be precisely proportional, for the Egyptian’s blow left the victim alive, whereas Moses’ blow “finished off” the assailant.
It is therefore possible that later in Moses’ career, when he attained the level that “the Divine Presence spoke from his throat,” he could ensure that bodily injury would be exactly precise, and therefore could carry out “an eye for an eye” literally. But Joshua and those after him could not reach absolute certainty that the assailant was fully intentional, nor could they arrive at an absolutely exact assessment that the injury would be exactly precise, no less and no more.
And since the law of “an actual eye for an eye” is not applicable without the ability to assess the proportionality of the punishment exactly—Joshua preferred to “use his talent to walk with the spirit of every person” and bring reconciliation between assailant and victim by means of monetary compensation.
With blessings, S. S. Dvir
Something similar is told of Rabbi Mordechai Bennet, who vowed that he would eat only as much as he needed. The Hatam Sofer said that in order to make such a vow one needs divine inspiration, because if he eats the slightest bit less than what he needs to live, he will die, and if he eats the slightest bit more than what he needs to live, then he has violated his vow. Only with divine inspiration can one know the exact measure.
It really wouldn’t have been a problem for me. The question whether to take that into account in Jewish law is another question. The Talmud has authority.
With God’s help, after the holy Sabbath, “and I will bring you out” 5781
Rabbi Sherki inferred from Maimonides’ words that they judged “an eye for an eye = money” in Joshua’s religious court, and therefore in Moses’ religious court they judged it literally, and I suggested an explanation for how that might be possible: to carry out “an eye for an eye” literally, you need absolute clarification—both that this was in fact intentional and that the punishment is exactly proportional—and that can be done only through Moses’ prophecy.
However, it may be that Maimonides did not write “for so they judged in Moses’ religious court” because criminal laws that came before Moses in practice are described in great detail, and cases of physical injury to limbs are not described as having occurred. He therefore mentioned the courts of Joshua son of Nun and of Samuel of Ramah, before whom cases of bodily injury are more likely to have come.
With blessings for a good week, may it be a healing and redemption
It should be noted that in the descriptions of offenses judged in Moses’ days there is no description at all of physical violence. Moses says, “A little more and they will stone me,” but that “a little more” was stopped and never came to pass. We find a man who, in the course of a quarrel, uttered a curse with his mouth and for that he was severely punished. Blows we have not heard of, and all the more so we have not heard of injury to limbs or life.
And this is no wonder. Those quarrelers, one of whom in Egypt had stood up to raise his hand against his fellow, were filled with fear of Moses: “Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” There was terror before Moses. So they dared to open their mouths, to complain and kvetch endlessly—but to raise a hand? No one dared.
In addition to fear of Moses, there were unusual mechanisms there intended to neutralize any possibility of quarrel from the outset: a judge over every ten people, and higher “judicial instances” over every 50, 100, and 1,000 people, and above all Aaron, “loving peace and pursuing peace,” who devoted all his talents to making peace between one person and another and between husband and wife.
Thus there arose the wonder that a collection of slaves who came from a place where beating and murder were everyday norms, people who came out of harsh slavery into a situation of complete leisure—and nevertheless were entirely free of every physical manifestation of violence. It was “the generation of knowledge” in the fullest sense of the phrase.
There is no end to these airy words.
A. Rabbi Sherki’s inference is simply not correct, as I already wrote. If Maimonides tells you that this is what we heard from Moses, what need is there for him to repeat and say that this is how they judged in Moses’ religious court? Of course that is how they judged in Moses’ religious court. Maimonides is coming to say that the tradition was transmitted continuously from Moses until today, and therefore he continued from Joshua and Samuel. And from where would Maimonides get the right to invent this weird invention? Maimonides needs an explicit Talmudic source in order to write things in the Mishneh Torah.
B. The reasoning that Moses, because the Divine Presence spoke from his throat, could therefore assess the blow so that it would be exact, is baseless. Did Moses himself go around punching with his fist all those liable for “wound for wound” in the world? And what does estimation have to do with “an eye for an eye”? Either one loses his eye or he doesn’t.
The Torah does not describe stories of bodily injuries between people in Moses’ days, just as it also does not describe such things in Joshua’s days. But of course it is obvious that there were such things. A generation of grit-your-teeth people who sinned with every sin in the world—the sin of the calf, craving for meat, the ma’apilim, the daughters of Moab—certainly also struck their fellows flat on the ground. It is exhausting to keep batting away these flimsy little homilies. Aaron pursued peace—what do you infer from that? That there were wars. And could one Aaron solve every quarrel of six hundred thousand people already from its beginning? Moses judged from morning till evening “between a man and his fellow”—would it enter your mind that they were all righteous saints and yet still had so many monetary cases to bring to Moses? And if they went to the trouble of looking for judges who hate gain, that implies that there were others suspected of perverting justice for profit, and what is the difference between that and raising a hand. “And the son of the Israelite woman and the Israelite man fought in the camp”—the plain meaning is that they did not make do with curses alone, but as in “when men strive together and the wife of one comes near to save her husband from the hand of him that strikes him.”
With God’s help, after the holy Sabbath, “and I took you to Me as a people” 5781
To H.A.S. — greetings,
The inference from Maimonides is indeed not strong, as you noted. But the fact is that the sins of Israel in the wilderness generation are described in the Torah beyond measure (and likewise in Ezekiel chapter 22), and they are all offenses between man and God: idolatry (with the calf and with Baal Peor, where there was also involvement with foreign women); complaints and lack of faith (with the spies and in many other cases); Sabbath desecration (with the wood-gatherer); and cursing God (with the blasphemer). All these merited sharp reactions, both severe punishments and open rebuke.
By contrast, sins and crimes between man and his fellow stand out by their absence: no thefts and no adultery, no beatings and no murders. The generation is entirely clean morally. Not for nothing does the Holy One, blessed be He, in the generation of destruction (which was tainted also in interpersonal matters) long for that generation: “I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your bridal days, your following Me into the wilderness, into a land not sown.”
Just think—even if “there is no threshold, no sanctuary, no ephod or teraphim, no curtain and arrangement, no daily offerings or additional offerings, no incense or atonement to atone for the stricken,” Judah Halevi still sees “God’s holiness in Israel, to resemble the seraphim.” All the more so in the days of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, among a people that heard the word of God from the mouth of Might, and was continually guided by Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, with seventy elders alongside them and tens of thousands of judges; this had a strong effect in creating a morally clean atmosphere.
Even many generations later, the kings of the nations describe the kings of Israel as “kings of kindness.” Ahab does not even think of robbing Naboth of his land, until Jezebel imports the Sidonian methods of “how to do kingship.” So even though foreign influence increased in the days of the First Temple, bringing moral corruption as well, still the influence of the prophets strengthened after the fulfillment of the prophecies of destruction and after the restorative actions of the Men of the Great Assembly. The sages testify that “robberies and bodily assaults are uncommon.”
With blessings, Ami’oz Yaron Shnitzel"r
I’m really amazed that you’re holding onto this little homily. If I have to carry the burden of proof, then I have carried it. And in order:
A. “And the son of the Israelite woman and the Israelite man fought in the camp.”
B. Moses judged all day “between a man and his fellow”; if they were all pious saints there would hardly be anything to judge in interpersonal matters.
C. They looked for men who hate gain—this implies that the average man in the marketplace is suspected of lying for money (even though we do not hear such a story in the Torah about the wilderness generation, that someone lied for money).
D. The wilderness generation sinned with every severe sin in the world, as Psalm 106 lists them one by one to tell you: line upon line, infer from the major to the minor; all the more so ordinary and common sins between man and his fellow. Bodily injuries are certainly less common than loans, but in a great assembly, a mighty people, over forty years, it is almost certain that less common events also occurred, and therefore they would have come before Moses for judgment. And as I already pointed out, it says explicitly in Maimonides at the end of the law: “and in every religious court that stood from the days of Moses our Rabbi until now,” and therefore the idea that in Moses’ days, in the wilderness generation, there were no quarrels in your gates is null from the outset.
They detailed sins from which there is instruction for future generations. The Torah has no reason to detail a story that someone stole his fellow’s ox and slaughtered or sold it and Moses’ court obligated him to pay five cattle for the ox. When a section was stated because of a particular episode, like the wood-gatherer and the blasphemer (and not something general in the nation, which is naturally described), then a new law was stated. If by your reference to Ezekiel you meant chapter 20, there too it says, “and they greatly profaned My Sabbaths”—and that is not written in the Torah. And from that you can infer also to small matters like a wound and a bruise. And indeed even the generation that entered the land he accuses only of Sabbath desecration, even though certainly there were some who sinned in other matters as well, like the concubine in Gibeah. You also paint the period of the kings with pink unicorns and bow ties floating on a cloud, with no basis at all, but I won’t get into that now either.
With God’s help, 4 Shevat 5781
To H.A.S. — greetings,
More power to you for taking the trouble to review the verses—and yet you did not bring even one case of robbery or bodily assault, all the more so not murder or adultery, in the wilderness generation.
After all, the generation of those who left Egypt and entered the land was examined under a magnifying glass. When several people went out to gather on the Sabbath, Moses was immediately rebuked: “How long will you refuse to keep My commandments?” And when one man committed a trespass in the devoted thing, God rebuked Joshua: “Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant… and they have also taken of the devoted thing, and also stolen, and also lied, and also put it among their own goods,” and that lone sinner was caught and punished with the full severity of the law. The exception testifies to the rule, that their moral level was high.
After several generations in the land, when the central government fell apart and a situation arose where “there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes,” and at the same time the influence of the foreign peoples dwelling in the land intensified, then stories of theft and threats of murder are already mentioned, as in the story of Micah’s idol and the rape in the concubine in Gibeah.
Even in the days of the kings there was strong cultural influence from the kings of the nations with whom they were in constant political contact, and the internal wars between Judah and Israel and among different factions in the elite also contributed to sexual immorality and bloodshed becoming common sins, against which the prophets of the First Temple period warned, and these sins disappear from the rebukes of the prophets of the Second Temple.
And even in the First Temple period, the situation in Israel was incomparably better than that among the neighbors, who describe the kings of Israel as “kings of kindness” (like the description by Ben-Hadad’s advisers) or as innocents who do not know “how to do kingship” (like Jezebel’s description).
The absence of rebukes about thefts, robberies, assaults, adultery, and murder in the wilderness generation is clear and unambiguous. And it is very understandable. When “there is a king in Israel” as forceful as Moses, a leader “loving peace and pursuing peace” like Aaron, and tens of thousands of judges—quarrels are finished while still in the bud, perhaps with harsh words but without physical violence.
With blessings, Ami’oz Yaron Shnitzel"r
“Those who hate gain” are translated by Targum Onkelos as “those who refuse to accept money,” even permissibly, in the spirit of “he who hates gifts shall live,” not, God forbid, people merely not suspected of bribery.
I notice a slow process of improvement in your comments. Instead of one solid block without any spacing whatsoever “between one flock and another,” there is already beginning in your writing some division into paragraphs. That opens the door to reflection and thought from paragraph to paragraph.
With blessings, Yaron Fish"l Ordner [“arranger” in Ashkenazi parlance)
And I notice an unusual degree of eye-rolling stubbornness. I don’t know what the point is of debating with this level of artistic license, and really maybe I’ll stop.
With God’s help, after the holy Sabbath, “and I will be your God” 5781
And in short (to H.A.S.)
I still do not see in your words the slightest shred of evidence for serious moral sins in the wilderness generation—not violence, not theft and robbery, not false testimony and false oaths, not adultery and not murder, and not any physical violence whatsoever.
There are sharp prophetic rebukes about idolatry (two outbreaks—at the calf and at Baal Peor); there are many cases of complaints rooted in lack of faith. There are two cases of Sabbath desecration by individuals (those who went out to gather on the Sabbath and the wood-gatherer), about whom Ezekiel in chapter 20 complains bitterly (as you pointed out): “and they greatly profaned My Sabbaths.”
About theft and misappropriation of the devoted thing there is a sharp complaint after the conquest of Jericho: “Israel has sinned… they have also transgressed the devoted thing, and also stolen, and also lied, and also put it among their own goods,” and the case concerns one man out of the whole people, whose sin caused a national disaster and who was severely punished.
We thus find that the sins of individuals received severe punishment and the whole people bore responsibility, and from the general picture we learn that where there is no such rebuke, it is proven that even the sins of individuals were absent in that “generation of knowledge,” whose sins were counted and numbered. Not for nothing was the great hater of the Jewish people forced to say: “He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor seen perverseness in Israel,” meaning in our terms: there is no immoral behavior among them.
With blessings, Ami’oz Yaron Shnitzel"r
Even from the mouth of the Almighty, Moses’ generation receives a compliment in an unexpected place: in the rebuke He says, “And I will remember for them the covenant of the first ones, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt.” Who are those “first ones”? The wilderness generation…
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…the great hater of the Jewish people was forced to admit: “He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob…
Let’s start with you actually supporting one of my tiny shreds of evidence. It says that Jethro said to Moses, “Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand before you from morning until evening,” and Moses explains, “when they have a matter, it comes to me, and I judge between a man and his fellow…” Then they appoint an entire empire of judges: “and they shall judge the people at all times; every great matter they shall bring to you, and every small matter they shall judge themselves.” If that does not describe to you a normal, reasonable nation in which there are everyday offenses between man and his fellow, then I don’t know what does.
After that, support the evidence that it says, “and you shall choose out of all the people men of truth, hating gain,” which implies that there were also some who did not hate gain—that is, who were prepared to lie for money—and not as in your flowery description.
And in general, what does this have to do with serious moral sins? You started with the claim that they would not have needed to judge “wound for wound” in Moses’ generation because they were all supreme holy men.
Not to mention that I brought you an explicit verse you somehow overlooked, about the quarrelers—the son of the Israelite woman and the Israelite man—and I proved that the language of “striving” deals with blows, and still your bow has not turned back.
With God’s help, 4 Shevat 5781
To H.A.S. — greetings,
The tens of thousands of judges had plenty of work, maintaining order and peace among normal neighbors. See the daily agenda of the Hebrew Order of Damages, with its thirty chapters, most of which is devoted to resolving disputes between normal people. The chapter “One Who Injures” occupies less than two percent of it!
Most of the agenda is taken up by property damages, lost and found items, the laws of lender and borrower, depositor and bailee, buyer and seller, neighbor disputes about distancing nuisances, and matters of inheritance and landed estate. In the leisure conditions of the wilderness generation there were certainly also many quarrels over verbal matters—this person insulted that person; after all, verbal accusations are well documented in the Torah even against Moses, all the more so against a neighbor.
The great innovation of Torah law relative to the legal systems of the nations is that among them law is intended to protect against serious crimes and wrongs, whereas with us they seek justice and peace, and even a small dispute about a fallen fledgling or a found cloak requires recourse to “the judgment belongs to God.”
And when there was a system that treated all the small disputes with full seriousness and cut them off at the root—there were indeed very few serious crimes. That was the case in every Jewish town in East or West. Violence and serious crime were almost nonexistent. How much more so when you have Moses and Aaron and a judge over every 10 Jews.
Crime and severe physical violence became common only with the collapse of traditional Jewish society, because of exposure to modernity and the crisis of immigration and absorption.
With blessings, Ami’oz Yaron Shnitzel"r
“Strivers” is plural; even regarding Korah and his congregation it says “when they strove against the Lord,” and there it was a matter of verbal accusations. “Those who hate gain” means, as Targum Onkelos translates, “those who refuse to accept money,” even permissibly—people who hate gifts.
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…whereas with us they seek…
With God’s help, 4 Shevat 5781
Lamech, in his speech to his wives, presents a militant conception of revenge: “For I have slain a man for my wound, and a child for my bruise.” Whoever wounded me—I killed him; and even a child who gave me a bruise—I killed him, so that the whole world would know that one does not mess with Lamech, for whoever harms him will be avenged seventy-sevenfold.
In contrast to Lamech’s outlook, the Torah emphasizes that revenge must be exactly proportional: “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand… wound for wound, bruise for bruise,” exactly according to the injury and not one drop more. And the Torah likewise emphasizes, “And if a man causes a blemish in his fellow—as he has done, so shall it be done to him.” Only in the case of a man who acted knowingly and intentionally, not a child. And just as “life for life” is punished only if he acted intentionally, so too with the other physical injuries—only one who injured intentionally, and only with exact proportionality.
These two requirements—the distinction between unintentional and intentional action, and the demand for exact proportionality—made corporal punishments almost impossible to apply, and brought about a preference for commuting the bodily punishment into monetary ransom.
With blessings, Yaron Fish"l Ordner
A. So in the generation of knowledge, the wilderness generation, there were property damages—meaning they did not bother to watch their property so it would not cause damage. And there were laws of lender and borrower—meaning there were liars and thieves who said “I paid” or “you didn’t pay.” And there were laws of depositor and bailee—meaning there was negligence and theft. And there were cases of overreaching in commerce, which are most of what there is to judge between buyer and seller. So all this existed in the generation of knowledge, the wilderness generation in which no iniquity was seen, but specifically bodily injuries you are inventing as if they did not exist. Maybe in the next stage you’ll invent that actually there were bodily injuries, but throwing round stones certainly did not happen, God forbid, and Heaven save us.
B. The language of striving mainly means quarrel, but between people it is interpreted everywhere as striking. “Two Hebrew men were striving, and he said to the wicked one: Why do you strike your fellow?” “And when men strive and they strike a pregnant woman.” “When men strive… to save her husband from the hand of him that strikes him.” “And they strove together in the field… and one struck the other.” All are beatings. And it is translated with forms of the same root meaning struggle. Therefore “and the son of the Israelite woman and the Israelite man strove in the camp” in its plain sense means that they struck one another, and it is translated like its counterparts. We do not learn from “when they strove against the Lord,” which is translated “in Korah’s congregation, when they assembled against the Lord.”
Why is “hating gain” required, meaning gifts taken permissibly, if not so that they will not take bribes? Which implies that there were others suspected of taking bribes. And even according to your own line, the tannaim disagreed about this, and one explained “those who hate gain” as those who hate bribery. See there in the commentators: Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, and Nachmanides.
C. Again you smuggle in serious crime. Who was talking about serious crimes at all? Even those, I estimate, existed, since that generation sinned with every sin in the world, like serving idols, sexual immorality, and endless complaining. But that is not what we were discussing. I did not claim that in the wilderness generation they did murder and rob and commit adultery (though as I said I think there certainly were murderers and robbers there and all sorts of poisonous roots, as in every age).
You stood up to defend Rabbi Sherki’s invention that in Moses’ generation they judged “an eye for an eye” literally. And after the first invention—that Moses knew how to estimate exactly how to do a precise “wound for wound” (apparently he also knew how to estimate a precise eye for an eye)—you added a second invention: that they did not need to judge cases of bodily injury at all, because that generation, despite committing every crime and sin (as beautifully concentrated in Psalm 106), was very careful specifically in matters between man and his fellow, more than any generation in the world we have ever heard of, to the point that they did not need to come before Moses regarding wounds and bruises and other interpersonal offenses. And I said that this invention has neither root nor branch, and in fact the opposite is proven. And indeed it has neither root nor branch, and indeed the opposite is proven.
D. And there were additional arguments in the previous messages, as may be seen there.
And with that I’m done. Whoever listens, let him enjoy.
If there were historical evidence of applying the law of “an eye for an eye” literally, would that be a problem for you?
For example, here they try to show that in Philo and Josephus one can find that the law could be carried out literally, but also monetarily as well (in Philo, in certain cases, and in Josephus generally, as long as the person injured does not harden his heart excessively),
Antiquities of the Jews, Book Four, 8:33–35
“…Whoever has maimed his fellow shall be paid in kind and lose that part of the body which he deprived his fellow of, unless the person who was made disabled prefers to accept money. For the law gave authority to the sufferer himself and granted him the right to assess the damage that was done to him, if he does not wish to harden his heart too much.”[21]
Philo:
“(181) It would rightly be fitting to condemn those who assign criminals punishments not corresponding to their deeds—a fine for assault, loss of rights for wounding and mutilation, banishment beyond the borders and perpetual exile for intentional murder, or imprisonment for theft—for imbalance and inequality are hostile to a state devoted to truth. (182) But our Torah teaches equality, decreeing that offenders receive judgment corresponding to their deeds: in their property, if they damage another’s property; in their bodies, if they sin against another’s body, according to the part, limb, or sense that was injured; and if they shed blood, it decrees that their blood be upon their own head. For to impose on the deed a different punishment, one having no connection to it but differing from it in kind, belongs to those who nullify the laws, not to those who uphold them.” [18]
[18] Philo of Alexandria, On the Special Laws, Part III, 181–183, 195
—-
“(183) We say this on the assumption that the circumstances are also similar. For it is not the same thing to strike a stranger or a father, to insult a ruler or an ordinary person, to transgress in an ordinary place or in a holy place, on a festival, on an assembly day, at the time of a public offering, or alternatively on a day with no cessation from labor or one that is entirely a day of mourning. All such circumstances must be investigated, whether to aggravate the punishment or to lighten it.”
—-
(195) “So then, if a man plots against another and injures the finest and most ruling of his senses, his sight—if it is established that he gouged out the eye of a free man, he shall receive measure for measure; but not so in the case of a slave. Not because he deserves pardon, or because his crime is less severe, but because the victim may encounter the increased wickedness of his master: if he is blinded in return, that is not his proper recompense, for he will forever bear a grudge against his slave for his misfortune, and day after day take revenge on him, like a sworn enemy, through unbearable decrees harsher than the slave can endure, until under that pressure he will perish.”[20]
[20] Philo of Alexandria, On the Special Laws, Part III, 195
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