Letter of Aristeas

1917 printed page 56 / §§162–168

Printed page 56 Original marginal section labels beginning on this page: §162, §163, §164, §165, §166, §167, §168. The opening continues §161 from the preceding page. truth and to point the way to right reason. For by his detailed injunctions concerning meats and drinks and touch he bids us do and hear nothing heedlessly, nor to resort to injustice by a misuse of the dominating power of speech.{1} In the case of the wild animals, too, the same principle may be discovered. For the habits of ' weasel and mouse '{2} and of all the like animals enumerated are injurious. Mice mar and injure everything not only for their own food, but in such a way that anything which they have begun to injure becomes utterly useless for man. And the weasel tribe is peculiar, for beside the aforenamed habit it has a characteristic which defiles it; it conceives through its ears and gives birth through its mouth.{3} And therefore the like habit of man is unclean ; that is to say, whenever they have embodied in speech the things which they have received through the ear and involved others in ills, they are guilty of gross uncleanness and are themselves utterly tainted with the pollution of their impiety. And your king, as we are informed, rightly puts such men to death." And I said, "I suppose that thou speakest of the informers ; indeed he constantly exposes them to tortures and painful deaths." " Yes," he replied, " I speak of them. For to watch for men's destruction is an unholy practice. And our Law forbids us to injure any whether by word or deed. "In my brief summary of these matters I have shewn thee how every regulation has been made with a view to righteousness, and nothing has been set down in the Scripture heedlessly or in a mythical sense,{4} but its purpose is that throughout our whole life we may in our TRANSLATOR’S NOTES (1917) — printed page 56 {1} Or "the power of reason." {2} Lev. xi. 29. {3} Cf. Ep. Barn. x. 8. {4} Lit. "fabulously." Another reading might mean "capriciously."